Other holds one folder per emulator, so it gets its own table. The file
count comes before the maker so it stays on a phone screen, and a card's
searched label stays out of the search excerpt.
Diagram text reads at 14 px in the column, boxes take the height of their lines, paths are mono on a line of their own. One setup count for every page. Wiki pages expand install commands into system tabs, an options table read from install.py, and keep example hashes out of search.
Required BIOS first with a Start with line by region, a fact grid with
setup display names and a key, a link icon in place of the word
permalink, a console table on the systems index.
The intro names systems and, when required files are one per region, says to pick the one for the game's region. Cards go under Required, Optional and Game data with a summary table above, split pages in the same order. Header and index read singular classes, system names, one spelling per core and plain counts.
The 404 page opens on Start here instead of tabs numbered 0 to 4. A group label is a group, or in Explore one link to its overview, never a link to its first page, and a crumb names the section that introduces the page. Emulators sit one level deep by initial. Previous and next run within a tab (Start here into Your setup) and skip system, emulator and platform pages, and follow a page's Next steps list. Reference pages group under Checking files and Data, a wiki page joining by its group: front matter. redirects.json maps alternative core names to their profile.
siterender.system_name reads the heading of the console section the id spells, then SYSTEM_NAMES, and raises for an id in neither. The emulator intro and the picker titles read it instead of the folder a system's files were voted onto.
RetroDECK listed every component standalone only. Azahar, Cemu, Dolphin,
MAME, melonDS, PCSX2 and PPSSPP also run through RetroArch: RetroDECK/ES-DE
es_systems.xml at 15e1b236 loads <name>_libretro.so beside each standalone
command, and the cores ship whole from the buildbot nightly
RetroArch_cores.7z (retroarch/component_recipe.json:250-262). Their
libretro layouts, Azahar's save-dir files among them, now reach the pack.
batocera-systems lists bios/saves/dolphin-emu/Triforce/segaboot.gcm, so the pack folder for the save directory is userdata-saves/. validate_schemas refuses a pack folder the BIOS tree already uses.
Batocera, KNULLI, Recalbox, RetroBat and RetroDECK hand a libretro core <saves>/<system> at each launch. Each copy lands below every system that runs the core. EmuDeck keeps one unsorted saves/retroarch/saves. The unsupported platforms record why.
load_from: save_dir entries of a libretro build were left out of every
pack. They now go below the platform's save folder (registry
save_directory: RetroArch saves/, Lakka savefiles/, by core), the
manifest marks them root: save, and verify replays the same placement.
Platforms keeping saves per system or per game list them as omitted.
generate_site.py writes the Starlight project in website/ and nothing
else: mkdocs.yml, the MkDocs hooks, theme overrides and stylesheet go,
and the wiki is written in Starlight's syntax. Both workflows set up
Node with the official actions/setup-node pinned by commit, run npm ci
from the committed lockfile, build with the strict link validator and
check the result with validate_site.py.
The search weighs a page by what it answers: Start here pages first,
a system page's cards and file names before a guide citing them, deep
guides, launchers, aliases and frozen copies after. Status badges,
hash blocks and the export change lists leave the index. The ranking
sits at the centre of a range where the 13 queries of search_gate.py
all answer, in the search box itself.
839 pages, every URL and 45,611 ids match the MkDocs build. The tests
read the Starlight content and syntax.
Pages of cards under one or two headings drop the table of contents,
whose script watched every block of a 400-card page: 2 x 430 ms of
main thread on a throttled phone. Tables are measured once the page is
idle, skipping those in closed blocks, so a scrolling table is a tab
stop anywhere on the page. The 12 heaviest pages score 97 to 100 in
Lighthouse mobile, axe reports nothing on 16 pages in both themes, and
the search answers the ten gate queries.
Status badges and hash-listing blocks leave the search index, card titles
weigh as page titles, and Pagefind ranking is set inside a range where
the ten gate queries all answer (search_gate.py: 10/10). Tables are set
up and measured when they near the screen, which relaid out a 3,800-row
page after its first paint, and console icons hold their box.
Tables with a download link stack on phones, the browser check covers
the lookup, a hash typed in the search, breadcrumbs, previous and next
across tabs, glossary terms and the 404 hint. validate_site budgets the
Pagefind index pieces and takes the base path without mkdocs.yml. A
test holds the picker to install.narrow() on 180 selections.
generate_site.py --engine starlight writes the pages, navigation and
data files of an Astro Starlight project in website/. Links resolve to
site addresses, every heading keeps its MkDocs id, and pages split by
size are measured in the MkDocs Markdown so both builds cut the same
files. The 839 pages and their 45,613 ids match the MkDocs build.
The clone map is cumulative. A run that removed sys68k_cpu21.zip and sys68k_cpu30x.zip as copies of other sets left the entries naming them canonical: their eight clones pointed at files that no longer existed and fell out of the manifests. Each clone now follows to the final canonical, and a loop is refused.
Callouts, collapsible blocks, tabs, buttons, card grids and search
exclusion go through one module that writes the engine's syntax. The
MkDocs output is unchanged apart from whitespace-only lines.
EmuELEC declares 19 files of the Tyrian 2.1 distribution (setup.ini,
netterm.int, the net*.pcx screens...) that bios/ did not hold. They
resolved only at the data directory step, against data/opentyrian, the
cache refresh_data_dirs.py fills from the opentyrian-data.zip asset. verify
gave 544/572 in a checkout holding that cache and 525/572 in one without
it, for the same commit.
The 19 files are taken from the freeware tyrian21.zip (camanis.net, sha1
29827de9), each equal to the cached copy. netset.pcx and tyrset.pcx are
the same bytes under two names, so the folder joins NODEDUP_DIRS. A test
resolves every platform entry with the data directory caches present and
fails on any that only a cache answers.
Platform guides, device groups, terminal tabs, pack README manuals and
logo credits move from Python tables to platforms/_guides.yml, checked
against the registry on load. A folder row without a path is the
registry's extract_to, written once.
Wiki pages place themselves in the navigation with order and nav_title
in their front matter. Generated docs/ and mkdocs.yml are unchanged.
The copy rewrite moved the legal analysis to wiki/legal.md and the project terms to wiki/reference-terms.md, linked from the FAQ and the glossary but missing from the nav. They now sit in Explore and Reference, as their level says.
Each reference and contributor page now says what it answers and gives
a real case before its rules: scph5501.bin for the check modes and the
data model, DuckStation's entry for profiles, RomM for a platform. The
verification example is the RetroBat d64_1.rom case the gaps page lists
instead of a scph5501.bin case the data cannot produce.
Emulator pages open on what the emulator reads, from the profile, and
keep their technical notes folded. System pages say what a card holds.
The data model shows a real database entry and links the one
resolution chain. Gaps tables name what they count ("Discrepancy",
"Where the files come from"), and the core inventory is titled Cores
by platform so cross-reference keeps one meaning.
The Start here pages ran 460 to 2,100 words and the first command of
Get your files sat 254 words down. Each page now opens on its action,
with short sentences and one fact per block. The facts a newcomer does
not act on moved one level down: the legal analysis to wiki/legal.md,
the project terms to wiki/reference-terms.md, the annotated run and the
installer failures to the installer page, collection figures to a new
Explore index.
tests/test_site_copy.py holds the budgets on the generated pages, and
the testing guide states them with their reasons.
Four statements the repository contradicts are rewritten: prboom.wad
is compiled into PrBoom (emulators/prboom.yml), Batocera reports a
mismatch as UNTESTED (batocera-systems checkBios), 13 hle_fallback
entries are required, and the gaps headline splits missing firmware
from game data and unread entries.
A set whose every ROM is NO_DUMP or ROM_OPTIONAL only warns in
handle_missing_file, so the machine runs without it. The parser now
keeps undumped and optional ROMs for that decision, the merge and the
release profiles write required false for such sets, and the text
patcher rewrites the required line it used to leave. A curated false
over a set with dumped ROMs is kept, except over no contents, which is
what an undumped set leaves once a later release dumps it.
pSxMAME builds mamedev/mame itself at 0.133 and left the current
refresh, which would have moved it onto 0.289 refs. Release profiles
keep their citations double-quoted on regeneration.
A file in place whose contents differ (another revision, a personal
dump) was overwritten and lost. It is now moved to
retrobios-backup/<date-time>/ beside the folder written to, under the
same path, before the verified copy replaces it. Beside, not inside:
DuckStation, SwanStation and Rustation read every file of the BIOS
folder and BizHawk walks its firmware folder recursively.
Identical files are never kept. --dry-run counts what would be kept,
the summary and the summary event name the folder, files and bytes,
and --restore FOLDER puts the files back. Data trees and standalone
copies keep their replaced files the same way.
validate_site.py fails a page over 1 MB of HTML, a search index over
8.5 MB (1.7 MB gzip), a skipped heading level, a table header without
text, a script from another host and a diagram drawn at runtime. The
limits sit above what the site now measures (0.88 MB, 7.2 MB, 1.43 MB),
each with its reason, and each has a test.
A manufacturer page over 500 KB of Markdown becomes a summary: its
largest consoles move to pages of their own, cut into parts when one
console is still too large, and every console keeps its heading there.
MAME's 1,564 cards move to four pages, its page keeping a row per entry
with the card's old anchor. RetroDECK's arcade list gets its own page.
site.js follows a moved card by content or by its row.
The largest page drops from 10.5 MB to 0.88 MB. Emulator groups of the
navigation open by initial (65 KB to 41 KB before the content). File
cards are level 3 under a level 2, and the hook keeps the table of
contents of card pages to level 2: platform pages no longer list every
system id. Key/value cards name their columns. The sweep runs before
the decoration, which kept every page no generator wrote any more.
The redesign moved the technical questions to technical-faq.md, made the Get your files rows generated from each platform key and reduced getting-started.md to links. Tests now read those places: the pack-row test reads the rendered page. The new site scripts go through run_cli and refuse abbreviated options. The three maintenance image tools are exempt by name from the build dependency rule: their output is committed and the build only reads it. siteguides.py now triggers the site deploy, and the recipe counts match the store.
Hashes, link lists, install commands, member tables and long reference
tables leave the site search: the index drops from 21.0 MB (4.88 MB
gzip) to 6.8 MB (1.33 MB gzip). Names and prose stay searchable.
files/?hash= takes a SHA1, MD5, CRC32 or SHA256 and reads one shard of
api/v1/lookup/ (about 22 KB gzip, was 675 KB) listing the collection
card, the platforms that declare the value and the profiles that check
it. files/?sha1= still opens the card, and a sha1- anchor missing from
a page is looked up there, so a card can move between pages.
Excluded blocks are section elements: the search plugin compares
elements by tag, so a div ended at the first nested div.
Abdessamad Derraz
dajiaohuang