Changelog

What changed in pxart, newest first. pxart is still 0.1.0: until a first tagged release, entries are grouped by the day they landed on main. The file format is pxart 1 throughout, and every .px file written for an earlier day still reads the same.

2026-09-29

Added

• Palette slots. A key line can list alternatives, f #e0ac69 | #f5cfa0 | #c68642, for a game that recolors sprites at runtime. The first color is the key's base color. render --slots and sheet --slots draw combinations of them, and export --indexed keys.json writes the frames as key grids with the palette and its slots. A @variant can give a slot one color or a list. pxart help slots has the rules and the JSON shape.
• from-png --colors N reduces a PNG with many colors to fit the free palette keys, and reuses OUT's palette when OUT already exists.
• from-png --hard-edges, outline --min-alpha A and outline --pad.

Changed

• Alpha is visible: check and from-png count the see-through pixels, and say when a key is faint or a shape touches the frame's edge.
• from-png with no -o prints its notes on stderr, so from-png a.png > a.px gives a clean .px.
• Erase errors name a command that runs as printed.

2026-09-28

Added

• Tiled worlds. export --tiled compiles a world.src.json and its .map rooms into a .world and .tmj files, with stable object ids. pxart help worlds has the details.
• pxart world draws a compiled world, its rooms where they sit, to one PNG.
• check reads .world and .tmj files, using the same rules as the export.

2026-09-27

The first public version: the format, about forty commands, and the nine tutorials, whose outputs are rebuilt and compared byte for byte by the tests.

Added

• compose --dry-run prints what compose would say and the diff it would write.
• paste --align shift|pivot|bottom|bbox and FILE:a,b,c frame lists, so one paste can follow a bobbing animation.
• ellipse --ring N and ellipse --box x,y,w,h.
• onion --variant V, stats --variant V, and render/sheet cells labeled with their variant.
• dup FILE:GROUP NEWGROUP; flip FILE:G -o FILE:NEWG; --replace for flip, rotate, transpose and dup.
• --dry-run on every in-place edit, new and palette included.

Changed

• render and sheet draw a grey checkerboard behind each frame by default.
• Every edit says what it did: painted N px, erased N px, changed 41 px: 29->C, 12->X, and the keys palette --add added.
• A missing selector says "no frame or group" and lists the groups. An unknown variant gets "did you mean".
• anim over several groups animates each on its own, and its percentages never go over 100.