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.
A wiki page is published as soon as it exists, but one missing from the nav is reachable only by a link, and MkDocs reports that at info level. getting-started.md stays out on purpose.
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.
Between the check and the creation of the run folder, retrobios-backup could be swapped for a link. The holder's device and inode are confirmed unchanged once the run folder exists. Directory file descriptors would close the window entirely but do not exist on Windows; the remaining window is the instant between that confirmation and the move.
When every dated name in retrobios-backup already existed, the loop ended on the last one and wrote into it. It now raises, so the next location is tried and the file stays in place if none works. A holder another user owns is refused on systems with user ids.
MAME renamed the Galaxy Games BIOS root from galgbios to galgames in 0.288 (galgames.cpp:1301, listxml of 0.288 and 0.289). mame.yml and mamearcade.yml document 0.289 yet still listed galgbios.zip; mamearcade lacked galgames.zip, which mame.yml already had. The release profiles mame0258 and mame0278 keep galgbios.
A BIOS folder can sit on a share other people write to. A retrobios-backup that is a link is no longer written through (the backup goes inside the BIOS folder instead), run folders are created for the user only and carry a marker, and --restore only takes a folder holding that marker, walking it without following links. Beginner pages label their links to the installer page as details.
macs2os_l.bin and macs2os_h.bin are NO_DUMP from 0.135u4 to 0.289, and
handle_missing_file counts a missing NO_DUMP ROM as a warning or known
bad, never an error. recel is NO_DUMP at 0.258 as well. mame.yml,
mamearcade.yml, mame0258.yml and mame0278.yml come from the scraper
rerun, which also carries the systems mame.yml gained since 10-17.
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.
The image and diagram scripts accepted abbreviated options and bypassed
run_cli. The FAQ checks read faq.md only, while the questions on hashes
and checks moved to technical-faq.md.
Wrapped buttons get a row gap, the copy button fits a one-line code block, tables line up with the text, four counters share one row, the sticky sidebar label gets a rule, and a phone table no longer squeezes its first column to one letter per line.
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.
The two redesign branches and the archive repair met in the testing guide and the prose rules: list test_archive_recipes, drop three clause semicolons, write the forbidden glyphs as escapes in the image test. README and mkdocs.yml regenerated from the merged generator.
bios/Bungie holds the Marathon scenarios Aleph One reads, entries its profile files as category game_data. Listed with the other publishers' trees, they leave the system files count and sit under Game engines and PC games on the site.
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.
device_group in the registry places each platform on the device picker, in the navigation and on the home page. scripts/siteguides.py holds the guide text per platform: what it is, its BIOS folder, where the install command runs.
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.
Header keeps the brand indigo in dark mode, buttons and inline code in links take the link colour, badges get darker backgrounds: axe reports no contrast failure left on nine pages in both schemes (617 nodes before). Admonitions keep one meaning per colour. On a phone, tables with a download button stack one block per row, other tables hold their first column, and commands wrap. Card grid, numbered steps, level label, terminal panel and path chip classes for the generated pages.
A held archive whose name has a recipe fails when it carries three or more members outside every recipe of that name. Exempt: containers a platform pins by md5, members a platform pins by zipped_file, merged clones in their own folder, NAOMI device_ref ROMs, samples and artwork.
RetroDECK pins the container md5 of 170 of the archives 6ee162f8 imported, which carry the ROMs of every slot option reachable from the set. Those copies move verbatim to .variants/, where the md5 still resolves them, and the primary is rebuilt as TorrentZip from the recipe the profiles declare, each member checked by crc32 and sha1. Where a same-named copy in bios/Arcade/Arcade held the same pollution, it is rebuilt too.
Two members only these copies held stay in the older recipe that names them: pio_a72.bin in imds2ioc and presap2rb_123.rom in electron_romboxp (MAME 0.195 to 0.220), both under .variants/.
6ee162f8 imported MAME device and machine archives that each carried the ROMs of every slot option reachable from the set (H19 terminal ROMs in sys68k_cpu30.zip, 371 ISA card ROMs in slvrball.zip). MAME reads a slot card from the card's own archive, so those members were never read there.
Each archive is rebuilt as TorrentZip from the recipe its profiles declare (their union when profiles of several MAME versions differ), every member checked by crc32 and sha1. A copy whose recipe build already exists under the same name is removed, keeping the one filed under its manufacturer. 341-0057.bin, held only in these copies, stays in the MAME 0.220 a2pic recipe under .variants/. Every member removed is still held elsewhere in the collection.
251 sets that profiles or platforms now name were imported from MAME 0.289 only. Replaying the 22 cached listxml releases adds their older recipes (a2pic 0.220 carries 341-0057.bin) and loses none of the 2148 existing ones.
A release recorded without a platform's pack linked its button to that release, which serves no pack for AmberELEC, EmuELEC, KNULLI, MinUI, NextUI or MyMinUI. The cell now names the release and points to the installer, which reads the file lists on main. Core folder links resolve each core name to the profile page that describes it (mednafen_vb is beetle_vb).
Abdessamad Derraz