WPFHexaEditor 3.1.2

WPFHexaEditor

A full-featured WPF hex editor UserControl for .NET 8. Successor to WPFHexaEditor.

Quick Start

<Window xmlns:hexe="clr-namespace:WpfHexEditor.HexEditor;assembly=WpfHexEditor.HexEditor">
    <hexe:HexEditor FileName="C:\path\to\file.bin" />
</Window>

dotnet add package WPFHexaEditor

What's New in 3.1.2

• Fix: Corrupted or malformed .whfmt files no longer crash the IDE — load failures are captured in FormatLoadFailure and surfaced in the StatusBar (⚠ N whfmt failed to load) instead of propagating exceptions
• Perf: EmbeddedFormatCatalog singleton and lazy caches modernized — LazyInitializer.EnsureInitialized replaces manual double-checked lock; GetAll() / GetCategories() now return IReadOnlySet<T> backed by FrozenSet<T> for better thread safety and lookup performance
• Test: MakeEntries(rethrow: true) / MakeCategories() exposed as public static factory methods — enables LoadResourcesTest build-gate that fails immediately if any embedded .whfmt resource is corrupt before it ships in a NuGet package
• Feat: New format definition ROM_SNES_SRM (SNES save RAM)
• Fix: .whfmt references schema v2 — standardized across Game and Archives categories

What's New in 3.1.1.1

• Fix: Invalid \x JSON escape sequences in HDF5.whfmt, NETCDF.whfmt, NPY.whfmt — \x89, \x01, \x02, \x93 are not valid JSON escapes and caused JsonReaderException in EmbeddedFormatCatalog.LoadHeader. Replaced with human-readable hex notation.

What's New in 3.1.1

• Fix: TechnicalDetails.SampleRate changed from int? to string? — AMR and OPUS had descriptive values like "8000 Hz (AMR-NB) / 16000 Hz (AMR-WB)" that were silently dropped
• Fix: MOBI.whfmt references structure corrected — was an array wrapping an object, must be a plain object
• Fix: GFX.whfmt, TIL.whfmt, CHR.whfmt Platform field corrected — was a string array, must be a single string
• Fix: 5 .whfmt files with invalid Strength values corrected ("strong" → "Strong", "moderate" → "Medium")
• Perf: JsonSerializerOptions in ImportFromJson is now a static readonly field — avoids 463+ allocations at startup

What's New in 3.1.0

Format Detection — Major Overhaul

• Fix: SignatureStrength enum now correctly deserialized from .whfmt files — "Strength": "Strong" was silently falling back to None(0) due to missing JsonStringEnumConverter, causing all TIER 1 strong-signature formats (PE, ELF, RTF, and hundreds more) to be excluded from detection. Root cause of all format mis-detections since 3.0.0.
• Fix: TIER 1 candidates are now scored before the early-exit check — confidence threshold was evaluated on unscored candidates (all ConfidenceScore = 0), so the early-exit never triggered and TIER 2 (plain-text heuristic) displaced correct TIER 1 matches (e.g. RTF detected as "Plain Text").
• Fix: TIER 2 text-heuristic detection is now suppressed when TIER 1 has a match — prevents plain-text fallback from overriding a verified magic-byte signature match.
• Fix: Entropy check is skipped for Strong/Unique signatures — a verified magic byte sequence is definitive proof of identity; entropy filtering only added false negatives for text-based formats with strong signatures (RTF, XML, SVG).
• Fix: EmbeddedFormatCatalog.GetAll() is now fully thread-safe (double-checked lock + volatile) — race condition between PreWarm() background thread and UI thread could produce an empty catalog on first access.
• Fix: 5 .whfmt definitions with invalid Strength values corrected ("strong" → "Strong", "moderate" → "Medium").
• Fix: required: true added to 10 .whfmt definitions that were missing it (RTF, DJVU, AIFF, OPUS, AVIF, JFIF, JPEG2000, PCX, TGA, TIFF).
• Robustness: SignatureStrengthConverter now accepts case-insensitive strings ("strong", "Strong", "STRONG"), integer values (80), and falls back to Medium for any unknown value — never throws.

Format Definitions — 463 Files Updated

• Fix: Removed /* */ block-comment file headers from all 463 .whfmt definitions (fixes #229) — these headers preceded the opening { and could cause JsonReaderException on first load.
• Feat: Version numbers bumped across all 455+ .whfmt definitions.
• Feat: .whfmt enrichment pass — improved descriptions, detection rules, and export templates across multiple categories.

UI / Controls

• Fix: HexBreadcrumbBar segment dropdown (ContextMenu) is now fully opaque in standalone WPF apps — BC_Background brush alpha is forced to 255 before assignment, preventing see-through popup in apps without the IDE theme host.
• Fix: ScrollBar theming consistency fix.
• Feat: IconGlyphs constants class for Segoe MDL2 Assets glyph codes.
• Feat: ParsedFields panel export templates.

What's New in 3.0.8

• Fix: JsonReaderException no longer thrown in EmbeddedFormatCatalog.LoadHeader on first run — removed fragile /* */ file headers from all 463 .whfmt format definitions (fixes #229)
• Fix: BCB (Custom Background Block) visual tree locked during navigation to prevent mouse re-dispatch loop
• Fix: Bookmark chip MouseDown re-dispatch loop eliminated
• Fix: Bookmark chips no longer re-render on every navigation — repaint only on actual changes

What's New in 3.0.4

• Fix: ResourceReferenceKeyNotFoundException no longer thrown in standalone WPF apps — GetThemeColor now uses TryFindResource instead of FindResource (fixes #228)
• Fix: Drag-selection auto-scroll — cross-panel mouse boundary no longer stops scrolling in HexEditor (fixes #227)
• Fix: Column/row highlight tracks cursor position correctly on vertical scroll
• Feat: Context menu — drop shadow, MDL2 icons, accent band, light theme styling

What's New in 3.0.3

• Fix: AllowCustomBackgroundBlock dependency property is now obsolete and has no effect. Custom background blocks render automatically when blocks are added via AddCustomBackgroundBlock(). Use AddCustomBackgroundBlock() / ClearCustomBackgroundBlock() as the sole control point.
• Localization: 18 satellite assemblies now bundled in the package (ar-SA, de-DE, es-ES, fr-FR, ja-JP, zh-CN, and 12 more). No separate install required.

What's New in 3.0.2

• Column ruler support
• Scroll marker panel improvements
• Format detection performance improvements

What's New in 3.0.0 (since WPFHexaEditor 2.1.7)

Breaking Changes

• Target framework: .NET 8.0-windows (dropped .NET Framework 4.7 and .NET Core 3.1)
• Namespace renamed: WPFHexaEditor → WpfHexEditor.HexEditor
• Assembly renamed: WPFHexaEditor.dll → WpfHexEditor.HexEditor.dll
• Modular architecture: core logic extracted into separate assemblies (Core, BinaryAnalysis, Definitions, Editor.Core)

Performance

• GlyphRun-based text renderer — replaces FormattedText, eliminates per-glyph allocation
• LineVisualPool — object pooling for visible line elements, zero GC pressure on scroll
• HexLookup table — O(1) byte-to-hex conversion via precomputed 256-entry table
• TBL key buffer — zero-allocation custom table encoding
• DrawingContext renderers for HexBox and ProgressBar controls
• Cached DPI, FormattedText, and Pens — 25-55ms → 5-8ms render time in docking scenarios
• Dirty-line tracking — only re-render lines that changed, not the full viewport
• Mouse hover overlay — eliminated full re-render on mouse move

New Features

• 400+ built-in format definitions (.whfmt) — automatic format detection and syntax coloring for PE, ELF, ZIP, PNG, PDF, MP3, SQLite, and hundreds more
• Column and row highlighting — visual cursor tracking across hex and ASCII panels
• Undo/redo overhaul — UndoGroup composite, transactions, coalescence, history dropdown
• Binary analysis — Shannon entropy, byte distribution, anomaly detection, data type estimation
• Intel HEX / S-Record — import/export support
• Binary template compiler — 010 Editor compatible C-like templates
• Format field overlay — semi-transparent colored blocks over detected format structures
• Settings UI — dynamic property editor with ColorPicker for all editor properties
• IDocumentEditor interface — standardized editor contract for hosting frameworks

Bug Fixes

• Row highlight now updates on vertical scroll
• Null guard on UpdateColumnHighlight
• FileSystemWatcher re-fire suppressed during ReloadFromDisk
• ByteToolTipDisplayMode/DetailLevel DP defaults synced to HexViewport at init
• MouseWheelSpeed DP implemented in scroll handler

Included Assemblies

All bundled inside the package — zero external NuGet dependencies:

Localizations: ar-SA, de-DE, es-419, es-ES, fr-CA, fr-FR, hi-IN, it-IT, ja-JP, ko-KR, nl-NL, pl-PL, pt-BR, pt-PT, ru-RU, sv-SE, tr-TR, zh-CN

License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0)

Links

• GitHub Repository
• Report Issues