pixelvim

pixelvim is a pixel editor inspired by the vim text editor, with an emphasis on keyboard interaction. It also aims to be feature-rich, customizable, and extendable via user scripts.

Try it in your browser

Note. The editor is very much usable already, and there are data recovery à la vim in case of crashes. However, the project is still in alpha, and you are encouraged to back up your works.

Features

• vi-style remappable keyboard interaction and a command system

  • 5j to move the selection 5 pixels down
  • :map C-z :undo maps Ctrl-z to undo
  • Commands can be chained: you can map a single key to :select/all THEN cut THEN :layer/new/above THEN paste
  • Customizable via configuration file: put a pixelvim.conf in your .config/ directory, or load on-the-fly using :source new.conf
  • Tab-completion and command history
  • Insert mode to draw purely with keyboard (actually more useful than it sounds)

• Advanced (and undo/redoable) pixel selection in visual mode, similar to aseprite

  • Create custom brush shape from selection using :set brush/shape=%

• Useful tools for creating animations. Draw while the animation is playing!

  • Either in "edit all" mode, so the changes apply to all frames;
  • Or in "live" mode, where each frame tracks its own change. This is particularly useful for quickly creating particle effects (fire, sparks, snowfall, ...)

• Rudimentary support for extensions via user scripts in lua

  • Run lua scripts that perform shader-like transformations on your image. Some example scripts are available, including "wave function collapse".
  • :run script.lua is a command so it can be mapped (or even chained) to a key

• Misc

  • Data recovery from swap file in case of crashes
  • Read / write png, gif, and aseprite images
  • Native Wayland support on Linux

Build & Installation

x86_64 binaries for Linux, MacOS, and Windows are available on the releases page.

To build it from source, first clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/bolphen/pixelvim
cd pixelvim

Then retrieve the submodules

git submodule update --init

Build and install to .cargo/bin

cargo install --path .

It's possible to disable lua extensions by using the --no-default-features flag.

Plans

I built this mainly for personal use, and I still have several ideas that I wish to implement. Some design are not finalized. Also, the code is quite messy and at places held up with glue. So do note that future updates may break your configuration file. For this reason, I recommend putting source config/pixelvim.conf in your configuration file and add your custom ones after it, instead of copying the whole file.

Implementation

pixelvim is built with the outstanding miniquad. The lua extension is made possible via mlua. Many inspirations are taken from aseprite and rx (this is not a fork of rx).