v0.3.0 - 2024-10-16

Showcase

Syntax highlighting and API help for Lua scripting:

Using StringDiff search option to find the string MARIO in a non-ascii character set

Video of using the new plugin system to decode strings in Paper Mario:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE9PKO8Gvo0

Changelog

UI changes

Hex Editor:

• Del key zeroes out the byte at cursor

Bookmarks window:

• Jump-to button in detail view
• Value edit input in detail view
• Context menu option to copy a bookmark's offset
• Add right click menu option to reoffset all bookmarks based on a known offset (read help label)

File diff window:

• Now takes the value types of bookmarks into account, showing the whole values of
  bookmarks instead of just raw bytes.
• Add "Highlight all" button to highlight all differences
• Add "Open this" and "Diff with..." buttons to speed up diffing
  subsequent versions of a file

Find dialog:

• Add help hover popups for the find type dropdown
• Add "string diff" and "pattern equivalence" find types. See the help popups ;)
• Add basic replace functionality to Ascii find

X86 assembly dialog:

• Add ability to jump to offset of decoded instructions

Root context menu:

• Add "copy selection as utf-8 text"
• Add "zero fill" (Shortcut: Del)

External command window:

• Now openable with Ctrl+E
• Allow closing with Esc key
• Add "selection only" toggle to only pass selection to external command

Open process window:

• Add UI to launch a child process in order to view its memory (hexerator doesn't have to be root)
• The virtual memory map window now makes it more clear that you're no longer
  looking at the list of processes, but the maps for a process.

Jump dialog:

• Replace (broken) "relative" option with "absolute"

Preferences window:

• Make the ui tabbed
• Small ui improvements

Lua scripting

• Replaced LuaJIT with Lua 5.4, because LuaJIT is incompatible with panic=abort.
• Add Lua syntax highlighting in most places
• Add Lua API help window (Scripting - Lua help)
• Add a bunch more API items (see Scripting -> Lua help)
• Allow saving named scripts, and add script manager window to overview them
• Add Lua console window for quick evaluation and "watching" expressions
• Scripts can now take arguments (args table, e.g. args.foo)

Plugins

New feature. Allow loading dylib plugins. Documentation to be added.
For now, see the hexerator_plugin_api crate inside the repo.

Command line

• Add --version flag
• Add --debug flag to start with debug logging enabled and debug window open
• Add --spawn-command <command>... flag to spawn a child process and open it in process list (hexerator doesn't have to be root)
• Add --autosave and --autoreload [<interval>] to enable autosave/autoreaload through CLI
• Add --layout <name> to switch to a layout at startup
• Add --new <length> option to create a new (zero-filled) buffer

Fixes

• Loading process memory on windows now correctly sets relative offset
• When failing to load a file via command line arg, error reason is now properly displayed

Other

• Analysis -> Zero partition for "zero-partitioning" files that contain large zeroed out sections (like process memory).
• Add feature to autoreload only visible part (as opposed to whole file)
• Replace blocking file dialog with nonblocking egui file dialog
• Update egui to 0.29
• Experimental support for custom color themes (See Preferences -> Style)
• Make monochrome and "grayscale" hex text colors customizable
• No more dynamic dependency on SFML. It's statically linked now.
• Various bug fixes and minor improvements, too many to list individually

Fix build failure if no git repository is present

Patch release for 0.2

v0.2.0

[0.2.0] - 2023-01-27

Added

• Support for common value types in find dialog, in addition to u8
• About dialog with version info + links
• Clickable file size label in bottom right corner
• Functionality to change the length of the data (truncate/extend)
• Context menus in process open menu to copy addresses/sizes/etc. to clipboard
• Right click context menu option on a view to remove it from the current layout
• Layout properties is accessible from right click context menu on the layout
• Error reporting message dialog if the program panics
• Each file can set a metafile association to always load that meta when loaded
• Vsync and fps limit settings in preferences window
• Bookmark names are displayed when mouse hovers over a bookmarked offset
• "Open bookmark" context menu option in hex view for existing bookmarks
• "Save as" action
• Hex string search in find dialog (de ad be ef)
• Window title now includes filename of opened file
• Ability to save/load scripts in lua execute dialog
• app:bookmark_set_int(name, value) lua method to set integer value of a bookmark
• app:region_pattern_fill(name, pattern) lua method to fill a region
• Context menu to copy bookmark names in bookmarks window
• Make the offsets in the find dialog copiable/pasteable
• Add x86 disassembly

Changed

• Update to egui 0.20
• Open file dialog opens same directory as current file, if available
• Replace most native message boxes with egui ones
• Inspect panel shows value at edit cursor if mouse pointer is over a window that covers the hex view.
• Make path label in top right corner click-to-copy
• Process name filter in process open dialog is now case-insensitive
• "Diff with file" file prompt will now open in same directory as current file
• Don't insert a tab character for text views in edit mode when tab is pressed to switch focus
• Active selection actions in edit menu are now in a submenu named "Selection"
• "Copy as hex" is now known as "Copy as hex text"
• Bookmarks table is now resizable horizontally
• Bookmarks table is now scrollable vertically
• Native dialog boxes now have a title, and their text is selectable and copyable!
• Bookmarks window name filter is now case insensitive
• Bookmarks window description editor is now monospace
• Bookmark description is now in a scroll area
• Bookmarks window "add new at cursor" button selects newly added bookmark automatically
• Create default metadata for empty documents, allowing creation of binary files from scratch with Hexerator
• File path label has context menu for various options, left clicking opens the file in default application

Fixed

• Show error message box instead of panic when failing to allocate textures
• Prevent fill dialog and Jump dialog from constantly stealing focus when they are open
• Certain dialog types no longer erroneusly stack on top of themselves if opened multiple times.
• Lua fill dialog with empty selection now has a close button.
• Make regions window scroll properly
• Pattern fill dialog is now closeable
• "Select all" action now doesn't select more data than is available, even if region is bigger than data.

0.1.1

• Pin rust nightly version to build with, to fix compilation errors with newer rustc versions

Initial release

Check out the Hexerator book!

This is an initial public release meant to show what Hexerator is about.
It's not polished and it has bugs and missing features.
The metafile version is also not stable yet, so don't get too attached to your metafiles!
If you upgrade, a new Hexerator might not be able to read the old metafile version.