Mike's Sprite Editor News

Hello everyone!

2025 has continued to be a rough ride, and progress on 0.14 remains very slow. However, I've found a few bugs in the editor that I thought should be patched out right away rather than ignored.

This bugfix release will let you use the line and curve tools properly again, and the dialog boxes will respond to the ENTER, ESCAPE, and TAB keys like they're supposed to.

It's not much, and it's definitely not what's coming, but it's something.... read more

Hello everyone!

It's been almost a full year since the last release, so I felt it would be a good idea to take a moment and explain what's been going on with this project. The short version is that it's still active, things are just moving very slowly.

Basically, 2024 and 2025 haven't been the smoothest rides, and getting to the 0.14 milestone has been quite a battle. At several points, I found myself discarding what I'd done and starting over again from 0.13.6, so that feels like wasted time. Ultimately, a lot of the problems I've been having seem to stem from the fact that I'm a self-taught programmer and this is the largest project I've ever managed. Mistakes have been made, and untangling the mess is proving to be more difficult than expected.... read more

Hello everyone!

This is another bugfix release, as it mainly fixes a problem with the Stamp tool. The new line drawing functions have also been optimized, and I've tweaked the MSE Palette format so that you can include comments after a color value, much like GIMP's palettes.

Following this update, Mike's Sprite Editor is going to diverge a little from the original design plan, but I think it's all for the better. To be more specific, there are going to be more tools for managing sprite sheets, and layer support may well be added. The final goal is to make this one of the best tools for dealing with sprites, sprite sheets, and even possibly sprite-based animations, available to the public.... read more

Hello everyone!

This is primarily a bugfix / quality of life update. These new changes make some of the tools (notably the Pencil tool) use a more predictable line drawing method, allow the custom scroll bars to be dragged around, and ensures that all of the image loading functions (Open file, Revert file, and dragging files onto the window) all behave the same way.

Happy drawing!

Hello everyone!

It's been quite a year for me, and not entirely in a good way. I've spent a lot of time fussing over the code for this project, attmepting to "tidy" it or "fix" it in various ways, none of which made much progress. Ultimately I've decided that the best solution is to stop trying to apply solutions, and just concentrate on what needs improving.

The first thing that needs done is to fix a couple of bugs I've found over the past year and add a useful tweak that I learned how to do. With these fixed, we have 0.13.4 ready to go.... read more

Hello everyone!

For the past few months, I've been hard at work with the planned 0.14 release. This release will add a number of new features and overhaul several existing ones, hopefully for the better. While working on it, I've discovered and fixed a handful of bugs, including a particularly annoying one that prevented the editor from saving your work when you closed it. Unfortunately, it's going to take some time to finish that release, so rather than have everyone deal with these bugs for another few months, I've decided to prepare a new version of the editor just to fix these issues.... read more

Hello everyone!

It's a new month, and a new set of bugs have been patched! A few of these fix some problems with the scripting engine, but the most important changes fix some problems with scrolling and the selection tool. Changing the size of the image won't send your work flying off into the aether anymore, nor will selections stick around after creating or loading a new image.

A new feature has also been added this round: the Rearrange Tiles tool! Found in the Sprite Tools submenu, this allows you to easily rearrange tile based sprites into all sorts of new configurations. More information and demonstrations can be found in the tool's documentation.... read more

Hello everyone!

It's been a month since the last release, and during the last few weeks, I've done a small amount of work on the sprite editor. This release just fixes a few bugs, one of which has been a pain in the rear for some time now. This specific bug would only trigger some of the time, as it was dependent on the dimensions of your image. Basically, when working with the pencil or similar tools, there was a chance that you'd draw on the pixel next to one you'd be aiming for. Tracking down the source of this bug wasn't easy - it even feels more like dumb luck than skill - but I can finally call it solved!... read more

Hello everyone!

Big news today: the 0.13 version of Mike's Sprite Editor is live! Aside from fixing several bugs, this version of the editor introduces the fantastic new ability to change its layout!

What does this mean?

Simple: you can change the way the editor's main window looks! Everything from which controls are present to where they are located is now under your control, allowing you to customize the editor to work with your personal style!... read more

Hello everyone!

This release primarily addresses a few bugs I found since the 0.12.1 release. The most annoying of these involved the filter preview windows; they wouldn't display the image correctly if the main window wasn't using 100% magnification.

Another small change is that palettes may now contain as many colors as you wish. This is a step towards some future plans for the editor, including better support for certain file types.... read more

Hello everyone!

One of the downsides of working on a complicated project like this is that after you stare at source code for long enough, it'll eventually blur together into a mush and you'll forget how different parts of the program interact. It follows then that unwanted behaviors can slip through the cracks, and that leads us to this release.

Version 0.12.1 is a little bugfix release that addresses three bugs that snuck through into the 0.12 release. None of these are terribly severe, but since they might be annoying I've opted to patch them out ASAP. I've also added a new feature that's been on the to-do list for some time: you can now export an image as a series of smaller images. Think of it as a counterpart to the Tile Image function or the precursor to being able to export simple animations.... read more

Hello everyone!

The day has finally arrived: version 0.12 is out!

Now, this update may feel a bit underwhelming to some; it hardly seems like someone needs almost an entire year to add a new filter and two new tools. But the fact is that the bulk of the work involved important behind the scenes changes, laying the foundation for a special (and rather complicated) new feature.

So while 0.12 may not seem like much of a change from 0.11.3, it's a huge step towards the future of the editor.... read more

Hello y'all!

It's been a few months since the last news update about this project, so I figure it's about time for another one. Good progress has been made on 0.12, which is still a little ways off. In a nutshell, I think I ended up trying to cram too many changes into a single update - something I'll be more careful about in the future. The biggest catch with this update is a massive change to the windowing system, which is intended to allow for some neat features in the future. Right now, I'm just focusing on getting things to a good stopping place for a general release. Many of the new features, including the one that required the rewrite of the windowing system, will need to wait for now.... read more

Hello everyone!

It just occurred to me that I haven't been keeping everyone updated about this project! I've been posting updates on my Tumblr, but that's not the "official" news feed, so to speak, so you might not know what ended up happening.

In a nutshell, adding features to the editor didn't go as planned. Turns out, there's something wrong inside the code somewhere. It's like a delicately balanced scale - whatever's causing the problem, 0.11.3 and earlier versions are small enough to avoid triggering it. Adding more code causes things to topple over, crashing the editor. Normally, I'd assume that the new code was the problem, but when I ran tests using debugging tools, the crash points moved around. Worse, they are often found in code authored by the FreePascal team (ie, the debugger says the errors are in the RTL units, not my code), and I can't accept that.... read more

Hello everyone!

A few weeks ago, I managed to locate where most of the excess CPU usage was coming from and successfully fixed that leak. However, I was waiting to release a new version until I either had something else to offer, something else fixed, or something more was underway. I spent part of today planning out the 0.12 release, and since it's going to be a doozy, I've decided to go ahead and release 0.11.3 and let everyone enjoy a slightly lighter weight drawing utility.... read more

Hello again!

It's been a while since the last update. Things have generally gone smoothly, though earlier this week, I discovered a few bugs and thought it would be a good idea to patch them quickly. This new release fixes three bugs, tweaks things for the better, and adds some additional filters.

I had an idea to improve the editor's performance, but it turned out to be more complicated than expected. That may need to wait for another time, perhaps version 0.12?... read more

Hello again!

Today's update is a rather small one - just a single bug being fixed. There was an issue with the way the filter dialogs passed values to the preview window and filter, and this is fixed now. So far, this is one of two bugs I've found with 0.11, so perhaps we'll have smooth sailing for a while. The other bug only happens when you run Mike's Sprite Editor under Linux using WINE - it can't successfully check for newer versions. I've tried fixing this, but so far, it looks like an issue with WINE's implementation of wininet, not my code, meaning I might not be able to create a work around.... read more

When I released 0.11 a few days ago, I said that I'd be preparing a survey of some sort to see what people might be interested in. After some poking around, I decided to instead revamp the ticket system to make it more intuitive and user friendly.

Now, you can report bugs using the Bug Report list and provide feedback or request new features via the Feature Request list. I've also set things so that you don't need to be signed in to a SourceForge account in order to comment or create tickets.... read more

The big 0.11 update has finally arrived!

This update fixes a number of bugs, including a slew of needed tweaks and fixes to the scripting engine, and introduces a number of new features, such as additional filters, tools for working with sprites, the ability to generate ASCII art, and an entirely overhauled preferences manager!

In addition to the program updates, the project's website has been given a workover, ensuring that the documentation is entirely up to date and user friendly.... read more

Another month, another bugfix release!

This release fixes five bugs that were discovered while working towards 0.11 . The main benefits of this version are that you're able to move your selected areas via the arrow keys, and the palette manager can count to 48 once again.

Happy drawing, everyone!

Although I've been working towards the 0.11 release and all the new goodies that will come with it, I've decided it would be best to release an occasional bugfix release in the meantime. This release fixes four bugs I've discovered while tweaking the code, including one that can result in the program crashing.

Happy drawing everyone!

While today's release fixes a large number of bugs (further proving that I jinxed the 0.10.0 release), there is some very happy news to share about this project!

As of this version, Mike's Sprite Editor supports creating or editing Windows Icons and Windows Cursors (.ico and .cur files)!

This functionality isn't entirely complete, but it's quite usable. The hitch is that these formats can contain multiple images, and as yet I haven't decided how to handle this situation. I do plan on addressing that at some point though, so it's definitely on the to-do list. Along those same lines, several parts of the editor now sport fancy custom cursors, all of which were drawn using this program!... read more

Evidentially I jinxed things we I posted yesterday, as I discovered a serious bug this morning. Rather than leave y'all with a program that could crash, I spent part of the morning fixing the problem. I also tweaked how the selection's rectangle is displayed, which will make it easier to see against the grid on higher magnifications.

If you spot any more bugs or find something isn't working as expected, let me know. As much as I'd like to take a break, I don't want to leave anybody hanging with a buggy program!

It's finally time to release the next version of my sprite editor!

The main focus of this release was a complete overhaul of the program's code, shifting from a procedural model to a more object-oriented one. This makes a lot of things easier to deal with, and hopefully will make future releases easier to manage!

From a user's standpoint, the main changes are a number of bugfixes and little tweaks that will make the editor easier to use and more reliable. I have a lot of ideas for the future of this project, but as I've spent multiple hours each day coding for the last few weeks, I'm ready for a break. Unless something crops up that needs fixing, I'll be signing off for maybe a month or so.... read more

It's been just over two months since the last update or post about what's going on with this project, so I think it's a good time to break the silence and let everyone know what's going on. Firstly, no, the project hasn't been abandoned, discontinued, or anything terrible like that, so everyone can breathe easy knowing I'm still working hard on getting this project further along.

That's actually the "problem". You see, this next release is much more than a simple collection of tweaks. I'm rewriting the entire project from the ground up in an attempt to improve the entire codebase. I previously expected this to be done by mid-May, but apparently, I'm not Scotty and underestimated the amount of time this would actually require. The good news is that there are only a few features left to re-implement. Once those are working, I'll review the code one last time to make sure everything is consistent, and I'll have the 0.10 release ready to go.... read more