The LibreSprite interface, explained

1. Menu bar. File, Edit, Sprite, Layer, Frame, Select, View, Scripts and Help. Every command is listed on the menu reference.
2. Tabs. One per open sprite, plus the Home tab. A dot on a tab means unsaved changes. Switch with Ctrl+Tab.
3. Tool options bar (context bar). Changes with the current tool: brush type and size, ink, opacity, pixel-perfect, symmetry and more. Tools.
4. Palette. The sprite’s colours, with four buttons above: Edit Color, Sort & Gradients, Presets and Options. Palettes and colour.
5. Colour selector. Tint/Shade/Tone square plus hue strip by default; Spectrum and colour wheels are in the palette Options.
6. Foreground and background colours. Left click paints with the top one, right click with the bottom one. A red ! means the colour is not in the palette.
7. Canvas (the editor). Scroll with the mouse wheel to zoom, hold Space to pan, 1–6 for fixed zoom levels, Shift+C to centre the sprite.
8. Toolbar. One button per tool group. Click a button to pick its tool; a small pop-out shows the other tools in the same group. The last button at the bottom shows or hides the Preview window.
9. Timeline. Layers as rows, frames as columns, cels in the grid. Hidden by default: press Tab. Animation and layers.
10. Playback buttons. First, previous, play, next and last frame.
11. Tags. Named frame ranges such as “walk” above the frame numbers.
12. Preview window. A second view of the sprite at its own zoom, handy for seeing pixels at real size while you zoom in on the canvas. F7 toggles it, F8 shows a full-screen preview.
13. Status bar (left). Messages, and while the pointer is over the canvas: the cursor position, the sprite size, the current frame and its duration in milliseconds.
14. Frame and zoom (right). Type a frame number to jump to it, + adds a frame, and the zoom box shows or sets the zoom level.

#The Home tab

The first thing you see on a fresh start: New File…, Open File…, and lists of recent files and folders. Close it like any other tab. It comes back when no sprite is open.

#Get a missing panel back

#Drawing aids in the View menu

• Grid (Shift+G) and Pixel Grid (Alt+Shift+G). Set the grid size in View → Grid → Grid Settings, and turn on Snap to Grid with Shift+S.
• Onion skin (F3) shows neighbouring frames faintly while you animate.
• Tiled Mode (Shift+T for both axes) repeats the sprite around itself, so you can see whether a texture tiles seamlessly. Draw across the edge and the stroke wraps to the other side.

#Alternate layouts and the touchbar

Three switches in the View menu rearrange the window; LibreSprite remembers them:

• Alternate Timeline puts the timeline beside the canvas instead of under it, which suits sprites with many layers on a wide screen.
• Alternate Toolbar moves the toolbar from the right edge to the left.
• Touchbar (off by default) adds a row of big buttons for touchscreens and tablets: UNDO, REDO, LYR+ (new layer), LYR< / LYR> (next and previous layer), FRM+ (new frame), PLAY and TIME (timeline). Alternate Touchbar moves it to the other side.

#Make the interface your own

• Themes: Preferences → Theme. LibreSprite ships two themes, “default” and “classic”, and community themes are easy to add. Themes.
• Size: Preferences → General has Screen Scaling (the whole picture) and UI Elements Scaling (widgets and text). Preferences.
• Keys: Edit → Keyboard Shortcuts. All shortcuts.
• Swatch size: palette Options → Small, Medium or Large Size.

#FAQ

Found something wrong or out of date? Tell us: hello@libresprite.dev. We fix mistakes within a day.