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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/aseprite/aseprite/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Aseprite source code is organized in a modular architecture with clear dependencies between layers. This guide provides an overview of the main modules and their relationships.

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Modules & Libraries

Aseprite is separated in the following layers/modules:

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Level 0: Completely Independent Modules

These libraries are easy to be used and embedded in other software because they don’t depend on any other component.
  • clip: Clipboard library
  • fixmath: Fixed point operations (original code from Allegro code by Shawn Hargreaves)
  • flic: Library to load/save FLI/FLC files
  • laf/base: Core/basic stuff, multithreading, utf8, sha1, file system, memory, etc.
  • laf/gfx: Abstract graphics structures like point, size, rectangle, region, color, etc.
  • observable: Signal/slot functions
  • scripting: JavaScript engine
  • steam: Steam API wrapper to avoid static linking to the .lib file
  • undo: Generic library to manage a history of undoable commands

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Level 1

  • cfg (base): Library to load/save .ini files
  • gen (base): Helper utility to generate C++ files from different XMLs
  • net (base): Networking library to send HTTP requests
  • laf/os (base, gfx, wacom): OS input/output

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Level 2

  • doc (base, fixmath, gfx): Document model library
  • ui (base, gfx, os): Portable UI library (buttons, windows, text fields, etc.)
  • updater (base, cfg, net): Component to check for updates

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Level 3

  • dio (base, doc, fixmath, flic): Load/save sprites/documents
  • filters (base, doc, gfx): Effects for images
  • render (base, doc, gfx): Library to render documents
  • view (base, doc): Abstract timeline/range view/helpers

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Level 4

  • app (base, doc, dio, filters, fixmath, flic, gfx, pen, render, scripting, os, ui, undo, updater, view)
  • desktop (base, doc, dio, render): Integration with the desktop (Windows Explorer, Finder, GNOME, KDE, etc.)

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Level 5

  • main (app, base, os, ui)

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Debugging Tricks

When Aseprite is compiled with ENABLE_DEVMODE, you have the following extra commands/features available:
  • F5: On Windows shows the amount of used memory
  • F1: Switch between new/old/shader renderers
  • Ctrl+F1: Switch/test Screen/UI Scaling values
  • Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Q: Crashes the application in case that you want to test the anticrash feature or your need a memory dump file
  • Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R: Recover the active document from the data recovery store
  • aseprite.ini: [perf] show_render_time=true shows a performance clock in the Editor

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Debug Mode (_DEBUG)

  • TRACEARGS: In debug mode, it prints in the terminal/console each given argument

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Release Mode

  • PRINTARGS: Prints in the terminal/console each given argument

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Detect Platform

You can check the platform using some laf macros: 
#if LAF_WINDOWS
  // ...
#elif LAF_MACOS
  // ...
#elif LAF_LINUX
  // ...
#endif
Or using platform-specific macros: 
#ifdef _WIN32
  #ifdef _WIN64
    // Windows x64
  #else
    // Windows x86
  #endif
#elif defined(__APPLE__)
    // macOS
#else
    // Linux
#endif

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