Python Scripts

Note

Since Tiled 1.3, Tiled can be extended using JavaScript. The JavaScript API provides a lot more opportunity for extending Tiled’s functionality than just adding custom map formats. It is fully documented and works out of the box on all platforms. It should be preferred over the Python plugin when possible.

Tiled ships with a plugin that enables you to use Python 3 to add support for custom map formats. This is nice especially since you don’t need to compile Tiled yourself and the scripts are easy to deploy to any platform.

For the scripts to get loaded, they should be placed in ~/.tiled. Tiled watches this directory for changes, so there is no need to restart Tiled after adding or changing scripts (though the directory needs to exist when you start Tiled).

There are several example scripts available in the repository.

Note

To create the ~/.tiled folder on Windows, open command prompt (cmd.exe), which should start in your home folder by default, then type mkdir .tiled to create the folder.

On Linux, folders starting with a dot are hidden by default. In most file managers you can toggle showing of hidden files using Ctrl+H.

Note

Since Tiled 1.2.4, the Python plugin is disabled by default, because depending on which Python version is installed on the system the loading of this plugin may cause a crash (#2091). To use the Python plugin, first enable it in the Preferences.

Warning

On Windows, Python is not installed by default. For the Tiled Python plugin to work, you’ll need to install Python 3.8 (get it from https://www.python.org/). You will also need to check the box “Add Python 3.8 to PATH” in the installer:

On Linux you will also need to install the appropriate package. However, currently Linux builds are done on Ubuntu 20.04 against Python 3.8, and you’d need to install the same version somehow.

The Python plugin is currently not available for macOS releases.

Example Export Plugin

Suppose you’d like to have a map exported in the following format:

29,29,29,29,29,29,32,-1,34,29,29,29,29,29,29,
29,29,29,29,29,29,32,-1,34,29,29,29,29,29,29,
29,29,29,29,29,29,32,-1,34,29,29,29,29,29,29,
29,29,29,29,29,29,32,-1,34,29,29,29,29,29,29,
25,25,25,25,25,25,44,-1,34,29,29,29,29,29,29,
-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,34,29,29,29,29,29,29,
41,41,41,41,41,41,41,41,42,29,29,24,25,25,25,
29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,32,-1,-1,-1,
29,29,29,29,29,29,39,29,29,29,29,32,-1,35,41,
29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,32,-1,34,29,
29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,37,29,29,32,-1,34,29;

You can achieve this by saving the following example.py script in the scripts directory:

from tiled import *

class Example(Plugin):
    @classmethod
    def nameFilter(cls):
        return "Example files (*.example)"

    @classmethod
    def shortName(cls):
        return "example"

    @classmethod
    def write(cls, tileMap, fileName):
        with open(fileName, 'w') as fileHandle:
            for i in range(tileMap.layerCount()):
                if isTileLayerAt(tileMap, i):
                    tileLayer = tileLayerAt(tileMap, i)
                    for y in range(tileLayer.height()):
                        tiles = []
                        for x in range(tileLayer.width()):
                            if tileLayer.cellAt(x, y).tile() != None:
                                tiles.append(str(tileLayer.cellAt(x, y).tile().id()))
                            else:
                                tiles.append(str(-1))
                        line = ','.join(tiles)
                        if y == tileLayer.height() - 1:
                            line += ';'
                        else:
                            line += ','
                        print(line, file=fileHandle)


        return True

Then you should see an “Example files” entry in the type dropdown when going to File > Export, which allows you to export the map using the above script.

Note

This example does not support the use of group layers.

Debugging Your Script

Any errors that happen while parsing or running the script are printed to the Console, which can be enabled in View > Views and Toolbars > Console.

API Reference

It would be nice to have the full API reference documented here, but for now please check out the source file for available classes and methods.

Note

Any help with maintaining the Python plugin would be very appreciated. See open issues related to Python support