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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Held entries carry their category and readers too, not only missing ones, so each platform page says which cores read every file it lists and where the code does it. Severity still applies to firmware gaps only.
ports/RetroBIOS runs install.py on a handheld with PortMaster's own
screens (pugwash fifo_control through PortMasterDialog.txt), using only
what PortMaster 2024.02.26 and the 8.5.23 copy JELOS ships. It reads the
installer through --events. scripts/build_port.py writes RetroBIOS.zip
in the layout PortMaster's release build gives a port, with the
install.py the bootstraps pin, reproducibly. tests/test_port drives the
screens with stubbed dialog functions and a fake installer.
Both branches extracted RetroBat's Flycast BiosPath: value_folders
already produces the record, so the dedicated extractor is dropped and
its test reads the generic one.
standalone_path is relative to the directories a standalone build
resolves it against, now declared per profile (standalone_directories).
A launcher record that links or passes a whole folder of the BIOS tree
under one of them gives that folder, and platform_layouts rebases the
standalone view once for the builder, the manifest, verify and slots
(launchers.standalone_root, common.standalone_destination).
Flycast on RetroPie and ROCKNIX reads bios/dc, on EmuDeck
bios/flycast/bios, on Batocera (FLYCAST_BIOS_PATH) and RetroBat
(Dreamcast.BiosPath) bios/dc. The ROCKNIX, Batocera and RetroBat
scrapers now record the patched data directory, the environment
variable and the setting that say so.
The -listxml names the software lists each machine and slot card
declares and the floppy drives it can instantiate. --devices now writes
one entry per hash/<list>.xml the release ships under the systems of its
placed machines (111 lists, 666 stay with hash/), and files each floppy
sample under the systems whose drives select its form factor
(floppy.cpp:1428-1473, 1759-1767).
Machines a registered platform declares under one of the profile's
systems seed the walk too: bbcb, cdimono1, cdimono2, dragon32, ep64 and
ep128. Unplaced device sets go from 903 to 861.
sf7000.rom is read only by the sega-sf7000 entries of blueMSX. It sat in bios/Microsoft/MSX because blueMSX keeps its machine folders together, which is a pack destination, not where the collection files a dump.
The standalone build reads BIOS files from its data directory root, not from dc/ (core/oslib/oslib.cpp:118-196, core/stdclass.cpp:95-125, core/linux-dist/main.cpp:74-99). Each entry now carries standalone_path.
# Conflicts:
# wiki/testing-guide.md
The flycast standalone paths (eb04fb50) stay out until the packs read the
platforms' launcher links. Two rosalies-mupen-gui aliases that only
RetroBat's launcher writes leave the profile, now that its layer
records them.
The -listxml names, for every machine, its parent (romof), the devices of its default configuration (device_ref) and the cards its slots offer (slotoption). A machine takes the system of the first set on its romof chain a written entry lists, and passes it to each device it can instantiate. A device set reached from one system gets system:, from several the new per-entry systems:, from none neither, and keeps serving every system of the profile. The gap report, the core extras and slots read the entry's own systems, so generate_pack --system and the installer pick by them.
profile_sync --all reported 18 repositories the forge answers under another owner or name. Each pin resolves in the renamed repository, so the URLs change and the pins stay. flycast2021 builds from metallic77/flycast 603814c9 (ROCKNIX package.mk), whose upstream libretro/flycast now answers as libretro/parallel-dc with 4c293f30 still in its master history.
LRPS2 reads pcsx2/resources/GameIndex.yaml through its data directory
and declares no file entry for it, so the truth entry other cores build
named armsx2 and yaps2 alone and hash_conflict missed LRPS2's copy. A
core whose data directory holds a file at an entry's path now folds in
as a reader with the cached copy's hashes, unless the profile lists what
it reads under that tree (yaps2, pcee2).
The standalone build reads BIOS files from its data directory root, not from dc/ (core/oslib/oslib.cpp:118-196, core/stdclass.cpp:95-125, core/linux-dist/main.cpp:74-99). Each entry now carries standalone_path.
Aliases equal to a name a platform launcher chooses were read in each emulator's code at its pin. Removed where the code opens no such name: xemu Complex_4627v1.03.bin (the core offers Complex_4627_v1.03.bin), mednafen gecard.pce, dosbox bios.rom, raze Roland_SC-55.sf2, nine DraStic names, and clk's upper-case MSX names, whose paths now read msx.rom, msx2.rom and msx2ext.rom as ROMCatalogue.cpp:777-841 names them. Kept aliases now name the code list they come from in the entry note.
verify resolved offline, so a release asset absent from bios/ and the
cache read as missing while an online build fetched and packed it. verify
now reads the database record of the registered path and counts such a
declaration present, listed as fetched at build time. --offline keeps the
old count, and the offline pipeline passes it to its verify step.
A core extra resolved by name shipped on existence platforms even when
the core's own size check turns the copy away. The RetroPie pack carried
the 128 KB Apple IIGS ROM as Basilisk II's ROM (min 512 KB). The builder,
the manifest and verify now read validation.core_size_refusal, which
accepts a copy any version of the same profile slot takes.
The pack integrity check rebuilt the core extras with no taken paths and
tested presence alone, so it credited core files at paths the platform's
own file holds and printed a core count the builder contradicted. It now
replays the builder's placement through packextras.hidden_extras and
compares each placed member with the copy the builder resolves.
load_from, found_by, on_mismatch, built_by, pin_frozen and
version_source were in the profiles and on no page: Dolphin's
gba_bios.bin showed a path under system/ although the libretro core reads
it from its save directory, and mame0278 did not say only Recalbox ships
it.
Ten profile notes graded a .info (correct, accurate, still, missing, omits). Each now says what the file declares and what the code reads. test_no_grade_on_another_projects_file reads every profile line that names a .info, core-info or System.dat.
The 3.12 guard rested on generate_readme f-strings that have since been
rewritten. Every script compiles under CPython 3.9.25, 3.10 and 3.11, and
only generate_pack's parenthesized context managers fail under 3.8. Under
3.9 the offline pipeline (--skip-packs) completed with no change to the
committed artifacts, the 15 manifests matched 3.12 byte for byte, and the
RomM pack was identical. CI now compiles every script under a real 3.9.
The test skeleton indexed verify_platform's dict result as a list and
stopped on KeyError: 0. The verification discipline and the profiling
guide hedged rules the project holds as firm. The profile field table
marked as required fields the schema does not require, and now names
the pin that profile_sync --strict needs.
Step 5 compared (ok, total) and the core file count. RetroArch, Lakka
and RetroPie read 526/526 on both sides while verify credited four paths
below SGB1.sfc and SGB2.sfc that the pack never writes: a declared file
blocks them as a directory. verify now places the platform files in the
builder's order with the same path rules, and a user_provided or
external declaration keeps its slot on both sides, so no core file takes
it in the report only.
verify --destinations writes the paths each pack holds by the report,
and step 5 compares them with the archive members (notes and data tree
members set aside). Every emulator profile, in each build it has, is
built in memory (PackRecord, nothing read or written) and compared with
verify --emulator path by path. Cost measured here: about 1 s per
platform archive and 11 s for the 930 emulator packs.
Abdessamad Derraz