The start line keeps entries read for the section's own system, groups a section holding several, names files the way most setups do, links an Arcade-filed set the system requires and says when no file is needed. Cards of MAME and FBNeo sets name the releases whose recipe matches their members. Console headings lose their icon, Arcade gets its own group on the index, and install boxes count toward the weight that splits a heavy manufacturer page.
The new answers are shortened and the safety list, shown in full on the home page, is linked from each setup page instead of repeated. The setup ceiling stays at 220.
Romset row and line on MAME and FinalBurn pages, files an app ships
under their own badge and section, collection counts under the table,
empty or constant summary columns dropped, short hashes with the full
value in the title, the profile card and cards past Required folded,
data directory pages kept out of the search.
Setup pages name the setup version the ZIP was made from, offer a partial install, answer a file in place but reported missing, and link the offline install. Get your files folds its tables into one closed block with part buttons. The setup comparison moves to the verification modes page. New Linux handhelds guide page.
A setup's list for one console is a reference page kept out of the
search index, naming its setup as parent. System pages carry file names
and the platforms' own ids as attribute search fields, never as text.
Arcade gets its own sidebar group.
A row of the emulators index and of the cross-reference tables named
one core's class in the plural (Official ports). The upstream table's
headers no longer break inside a word.
Dolphin's Sys tree put 2,164 rows and 16,900 elements on the Dolphin,
PrimeHack and Ishiiruka pages. A tree past 400 files is now listed on
pages of its own, 1,000 files each, and the file lookup sends each
member's sha1 there.
The wanted lists of the provenance page and the files to source of the
gaps page move to pages of their own, cut in parts past 300 KB of
Markdown. System pages split from 300 KB and emulator cards from 220 per
page. A moved card keeps its anchor through the files/?sha1= lookup.
verify_entry_existence returned no path, so RetroArch, Lakka and
RetroPie pages showed no Served by line. It now returns the resolved
path as the hash modes do. verify.py --all prints the same bytes and
its JSON is unchanged.
Every page closed on a raw ISO stamp. It now reads data_as_of(), which
write_if_changed ignores as it ignored the old stamp. The diagram text
counts setups with setup_count(), and the data model page names the
Data and API page by its title.
A system link followed the folder its files sit in: emerson-arcadia-2001
reached the Saturn and sega-naomi the Dreamcast. It now goes to the
section system_name() reads, or stays a plain name. Console headings
carry an explicit id, so Sega's Mega-CD no longer shares mega-cd.
The decoration pass now forwards the logo front matter, pointed at the
local copy. The emulators index lists every profile under the initial
the sidebar draws, so each letter link lands on its section.
Platform pages link each reader's source line at its pinned revision, name the collection file that serves each entry, show launcher records with their lines, name systems with the id beside them and the list they were read from in words. The largest system lists move to pages of their own so a platform page stays under 500 KB.
Gaps: plain numbers with a bar, a badge only for missing required firmware, Files to source as a heading. Cross-reference: counts per platform, one page per platform, one row per upstream project. Exports: gaps listed once, status, category and the serving file in the CSVs and SQLite, the commit in each API envelope, the provenance Wanted list as CSV. Catalog dates in words on the provenance page.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
The header logo was a 256 px compressed raster whose navy chip vanished on the indigo bar. The chip is now an SVG, white with the glyph cut out, and the favicon set (SVG, 32 px and an opaque 180 px touch icon) comes from scripts/make_site_icons.py.
EntryCategories asked every core in turn: 3.8 million proofs for 7,430
entries. ProofIndex looks each key up once, and verify --all --json is
byte-identical (24 s to 17 s). generate_site and generate_readme now share
one coverage, cached in tmp/coverage-cache keyed by its inputs, so the
README step drops from 25 s to 3 s.
Five tabs from Start here to Contribute, a level on every page, a device picker on Get your files that lists every registered platform, and platform pages that open on where the files go, the command, the pack and how to check. FAQ and troubleshooting keep the questions asked before installing, the technical ones move to their own page, and getting started points to the pages that took its content.
scripts/sitediagrams.py writes the explainer, install flow, verification modes, MinUI card, pipeline and data layer diagrams as inline SVG from the registry, the platform files, the install manifests and the pipeline step list. A page asks for one with an image comment, which the decoration pass resolves. The two mermaid diagrams of the architecture page are replaced, so no page loads mermaid from unpkg.
Platform logos and system icons are copied once by fetch_site_images.py with their source and owner recorded, and the build rewrites the remote links to the copies. validate_site refuses an image from another host. Three registry logos named a personal avatar instead of the project's (RomM, ROCKNIX, MiSTer FPGA) and MyMinUI's was a GitHub identicon, now dropped.
One 1200x630 sharing card per section, a 404 page with search and the two entry pages, and a list of screenshots that need a real device.
Abdessamad Derraz