SpriteLite

SpriteLite is a simple, lightweight pixel editor built with Tkinter and designed with performance in mind for older machines. The goal is to keep the editor responsive, compact, and easy to use while still covering the core workflow needed for sprite work and small pixel art projects.

Features

• Lightweight single-file desktop app built around Tkinter.
• Pixel-focused drawing tools including pencil, eraser, bucket fill, eyedropper, and selection.
• Layer-based editing with visibility toggles, duplication, renaming, and ordering.
• Frame-based animation with a timeline, adjustable playback speed, and export to a spritesheet or individual frames.
• PNG import/export and .sprlite project save/load support.
• Zoom, pan, grid display, undo/redo, and palette loading.
• Built-in palette selector that auto-detects palettes from a palettes folder next to the app (ships with Endesga 32, PICO-8, Paperback-2, Miyazaki 16, AGB, and NaNoNES).

Project Goal

SpriteLite is meant to stay small, direct, and fast. The emphasis is not on a huge feature surface, but on making a pixel editor that starts quickly, runs well on older hardware, and stays focused on the core editing workflow.

Requirements

• Python 3
• Pillow

Install the dependency with:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Run From Source

python main.py

If your system uses the Python launcher instead of python, use:

py main.py

Build

Windows:

.\build-win.ps1

Build both Windows variants in separate output folders:

.\build-win.ps1 -Arch both

This writes the executables to dist\win64\SpriteLite.exe and dist\win32\SpriteLite-win32.exe. Each build still requires the matching Python interpreter to be installed locally because PyInstaller cannot cross-compile. The default 32-bit build targets Windows 7 compatibility by using Python 3.8 x86 together with PyInstaller 4.10; newer Python 3.9+ 32-bit runtimes and newer PyInstaller bootloaders are more likely to fail on Windows 7.

Windows 7 note: The 32-bit executable requires Windows 7 SP1 plus the Universal CRT update (KB2999226). Python 3.8 on Windows 7 may also require KB2533623. If the target machine reports missing api-ms-win-crt-* DLLs or cannot load python38.dll, install those updates and the Visual C++ x86 runtime.

Linux:

./build-linux.sh

Download

Download the latest built version from the releases page:

https://github.com/elevchyt/spritelite/releases

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License: SpriteLite is released under the GNU General Public License v3.
See the LICENSE file for details.