Changelog

0.8.0 (in development)

Release date, final merge SHA, and packaged-candidate evidence are pending.

Upgrading from 0.7.2

Every item below was checked against the v0.7.2 tag and current master: the behaviour is on master, was absent or different in 0.7.2, and a user, script, or project will notice it.

Saves that used to succeed now stop with an error

• Pending editor changes block saves. A ROM save stops while Graphics Editor sheet edits or Screen Editor edits (dungeon maps, dungeon-map Tile16, title screen, and the Overworld Map pause-menu world map) are pending, even when the Save Graphics Sheets or Save Dungeon Maps flag is on. 0.7.2 reported success without those edits: its Save Graphics Sheets path was a stub that wrote nothing even with the flag on, it wrote dungeon maps only when Save Dungeon Maps was on, and it never included Tile16, title-screen, or pause-map edits in a ROM save. Dungeon Save and Apply Room also stop while the Object Tile Editor has unapplied edits ("Apply or explicitly discard Object Tile Editor changes before using Save or Apply Room") or the Minecart Track Editor has unpublished drafts. That editor's Save Tracks button is now Publish Tracks.
• Dungeon object saves reject encodings that would corrupt on write. In the GUI and z3ed dungeon-place-object, a save fails when an object ID or position would become a different object on write (IDs outside 0x000-0x0F7, 0x100-0x13F and 0xF80-0xFFF, x=63 for Type 1/3 objects, or a reserved stream prefix), or when an object has a noncanonical size. The 0.7.2 encoder silently capped Type 1 sizes above 15 at 15. z3ed dungeon-place-object now rejects a noncanonical --size even without --write (for example, a nonzero --size on a Type 2 object, which 0.7.2 accepted and ignored); omitting --size still works.
• Special-table objects are validated before writing. Torch saves fail when a torch has x or y of 63. Torches and pushable blocks accept only draw layer selector 0 (upper/BG1) or 1 (lower/BG2); 0.7.2 let you pick a third layer and silently saved it as 0. Pushable-block saves fail when the ROM-wide block table would be empty, when a room has unsaved block edits but its block table is not loaded (0.7.2 skipped that room and cleared its dirty flag), or when two blocks claim the same table slot.
• Regular entrances outside the room range are rejected. An edited regular entrance whose room ID is outside 0x000-0x127 fails with "Regular dungeon entrance 0x.. room ID .. is outside [0, 296)".
• WaterFill zones reject room IDs 0x100-0x127. 0.7.2 accepted them and kept only the low byte.
• More dungeon and palette writes are checked against a loaded Hack Manifest. Dungeon Save and Apply Room now check pot-item and sprite streams, the door-pointer slot, changed chest-table bytes, entrance and spawn-point tables, the room's message-ID slot on header saves, WaterFill and custom collision data, and dungeon palette colors. Palette Editor saves are checked too, and refuse to save from an inactive ROM session. Under write_policy block a save that 0.7.2 allowed can stop with Write conflict with Hack Manifest; under the default warn these editor checks show a warning toast and continue (File > Save ROM still pauses at its on-disk write-conflict prompt). 0.7.2 caught most of these bytes only when File > Save ROM compared the file on disk.
• Project saves refuse a lone carriage return. Saving a project whose values contain a CR not followed by LF fails with "Project contains a lone carriage return in a value; refusing to write a descriptor that could not be read back", and the existing file is kept.
• Invalid minecart overlay drafts block project saves. Minecart Tracks > Advanced overlay lists reject empty entries, values above 0xFFFF, and junk instead of dropping them, and an uncommitted invalid draft makes File > Save Project and Save Project As fail until it is fixed.

z3ed commands and scripts

• **message-write and message-import-bundle --apply require --project.** The project's ROM must be the active, headerless ROM, and its Hack Manifest must load. message-write and expanded bundle entries write to the manifest's expanded message region. --apply also needs a clean in-memory ROM that matches the file on disk, and WebAssembly builds reject it. --apply now exits non-zero when a clean-ROM, project, manifest, write-policy, write, save, or readback check fails; 0.7.2 printed "status": "error" and exited 0. A missing ROM, parse errors without --strict, and invalid message IDs still print "status": "error" and exit 0.
• Vanilla message imports are checked against the manifest. The vanilla message count parsed from the ROM must equal the manifest's positive messages.vanilla_count (default 397, unchanged from 0.7.2), or apply fails with Vanilla message count mismatch: expected N, got M. The text must contain exactly one standalone [BANK], and the ranges written must pass the project write policy. The Message editor runs the same count check on save when a manifest is loaded. readback_verified=true is reported only after the saved ROM is reopened independently and byte-compared.
• Message text encodes differently. Exported raw message strings write dictionary references as [D:2C] instead of [D:$2C]; import accepts both. [BANK] now encodes to byte 0x80 (0.7.2 wrote 0x00), and vanilla saves no longer treat a command argument byte of 0x80 (for example [W:80]) as a bank switch, so written bytes can differ from 0.7.2.
• The collision and WaterFill JSON importers now write the ROM file. dungeon-import-custom-collision-json and dungeon-import-water-fill-json save to disk when run without --dry-run or --mock-rom; 0.7.2 changed only the in-memory ROM unless --sandbox was used. The save needs a completed backup, and a failed write, backup, or save rolls back and exits with an error. They now reject --report without --dry-run, --report with --sandbox, --mock-rom with --sandbox, an empty --report, and a --report path that resolves to the ROM. The custom collision importer writes only rooms that change; with --replace-all, it now adds to cleared_rooms and replace_all_clears only for unlisted rooms that had custom collision data (0.7.2 counted every unlisted room).
• The collision and WaterFill JSON exporters refuse dangerous paths. dungeon-export-custom-collision-json and dungeon-export-water-fill-json refuse an empty --out or --report, a path that resolves to the active or sandbox source ROM, and --out and --report pointing at the same file. 0.7.2 truncated whatever path it was given, including the loaded ROM.
• Dungeon write commands require a backup. dungeon-place-sprite, dungeon-remove-sprite, dungeon-place-object, dungeon-set-collision-tile, and dungeon-generate-track-collision with --write, and dungeon-set-room-property, abort without saving when the backup of the existing file cannot be made. 0.7.2 logged a warning and saved anyway. dungeon-generate-track-collision --write now exits with an error when a write or save fails; 0.7.2 printed save_error (and, for a single room, write_error) and exited 0.
• **dungeon-place-object preflights every run.** A dry run exits non-zero when the save would fail, for example when the stream outgrows its space and no --manifest copy-on-write layout is given. Output adds allocator_capability, preflight_status, and preflight_error. Without --size, Type 3 objects get their ID-encoded size instead of 0.
• **dungeon-set-room-property edits only the requested property.** 0.7.2 started from an empty room, so every run also reset the room's other header bytes and its dungeon message ID to 0. layout/layout_id (0-7) and floor1/floor2 (0-15) are range-checked and now actually written; 0.7.2 reported success without writing them. --manifest is now honoured.
• **--spawn output uses the spawn-point record.** dungeon-get-entrance --spawn and entrance-info --spawn accept only IDs 0x00-0x06. Their JSON adds spawn_id, makes entrance_id the linked entrance, and replaces exit_id, blockset, door, ladder_bg, scrolling, scroll_quadrant, music, and camera.x/camera.y with the spawn-point fields. dungeon-get-entrance --spawn also moves dungeon_id from properties to the top level, and entrance-info --spawn drops room_id_full. dungeon-group now scans only those 7 spawn-point records (0.7.2 scanned 0x14 entrance records as spawns), so its room-to-dungeon mapping can differ.
• **palette-set-color --write is disabled.** With --write it fails argument validation; without it the command only previews and reports status: dry_run. Use dungeon-set-palette-color for dungeon palettes. Other palette groups have no CLI write replacement. dungeon-room-header reports decoded.palette as the full 8-bit value.
• **dungeon-object-validate output changed.** Invalid argument combinations are rejected, Type 2 and Type 3 objects are tested only at their encoded size, the --report CSV gains state_profile and expected_has_tiles columns, and JSON mismatches gain the same fields. It no longer writes dungeon_object_validation_report.json and .csv to the working directory unless --report <path> is given.
• Other z3ed output changes. dungeon-doctor chest_count now counts real stateful chests (0.7.2 always reported 0) and no longer reports "Too many BG3 objects". dungeon-render --scale fails outside 0.25-8.0 instead of clamping, and --output refuses a path that resolves to the ROM. dungeon-room-graph no longer emits edges for layer-swap or dungeon-swap marker doors. When custom objects are disabled, dungeon-generate-track-collision stamps every 0x31 as 2x2 (with custom objects enabled, it falls back to 2x2 only for pieces that measure 1x1). It ignores subtypes 13 and 15, which dungeon-minecart-audit also no longer counts. mesen-* commands return the real connect status code instead of always UNAVAILABLE.
• Oracle checks. oracle-smoke-check fails D4 when rooms 0x25 or 0x27 are missing from the WaterFill table. dungeon-oracle-preflight failures now carry the first issue's status and message. scripts/oracle_smoke.sh needs python3 and passes --skip-collision-maps to every preflight.
• **project-bundle-verify --check-rom-hash reads romChecksum.** A bundle whose manifest has only the iOS romChecksum field is now hash-checked and can fail. Disagreeing romChecksum and rom_sha1, or a non-string field, fail. Empty fields count as absent, digests are only trimmed and lowercased (a hash with internal whitespace now fails), and the warning and pass detail strings changed.
• Vanilla message saves reject malformed streams. The Message editor and CLI now refuse a vanilla message containing a raw 0x7F or 0xFF byte outside a command argument ("contains reserved stream marker") or ending with a command missing its argument; 0.7.2 wrote them.

Hack manifests

• Hexadecimal addresses must parse completely. A manifest address with trailing junk, a value past 32 bits, or a sign now fails the load with ‘Invalid hex address ’...'. 0.7.2 stopped at the first invalid character and cast the result, so"0x1E80zz"loaded as0x001E80,"0x100000000"loaded as0x000000, and"-1"loaded as0xFFFFFFFF. Whitespace around the value, the0x,0Xand$prefixes, and bare digits are unchanged.
• **protected_regionsis validated strictly for every manifest version.** It must be an object with aregionsarray whose entries have hexadecimal-stringstartandend, withend > start. In 0.7.2 a missing endpoint defaulted to0x000000and a malformed section was skipped. Now the whole manifest fails to load: yaze logsFailed to load hack manifest ...and opens the project without it.
• **messagesandminecart_tracksare validated.** A manifest fails to load whenmessagescounts are negative, fractional, or not numbers, when expanded_range.countexceeds65536, or whenmessages.sourceis malformed. A manifest containingminecart_tracksfails unless it has exactly asourcewithformat: "yaze-minecart-track-table",version: 1, and a portable project-relativepath. 0.7.2 readmessageswithout checking these counts and ignoredmessages.sourceandminecart_tracks.
• **Hook regions now take precedence over bank ownership.** Address classification checks protected (hook) regions, theneditor_managed_regions, beforeowned_banks. An address inside a hook region is nowhook_patchedin every bank, so writes into hooks inshared,vanilla_safe, orrambanks may now warn or be blocked, depending onwrite_policy.
• Manifests atmanifest_version2 still load. Version 3 is only required to use the neweditor_managed_regions` block, and a v3 manifest must use mapped LoROM addresses for protected endpoints.

Projects, sessions, and backups

• One ROM file backs only one loaded session, on every open path. In 0.7.2 only the File > Open ROM dialog blocked a duplicate, and only on an exact path-string match. Recent files, drag-and-drop, command-line and startup opens, and project files now fail with ‘ROM backing file ’...' is already open in session N ('...'). Paths are compared after resolution, and Save As onto a file another session has open is rejected too.
• **New Project uses the guided dialog and writes its file immediately.** File > New Project and the welcome screen open the ROM-plus-name dialog, and <name>.yazeis written next to the source ROM on create. Creation, and the Project File editor's Save As, fail withProject file already exists: <path>; File > Save Project As still replaces an existing file, via a temporary file and atomic rename. New Project is refused while any session has unsaved work.
• **Project File editor and ROM swaps protect unsaved work.** The Project File editor refuses New and Open while its draft is unsaved, and refuses to save over the open project when the draft would change the session's ROM or cannot be parsed. Project Management > Swap ROM now loads the new ROM immediately; Swap ROM and Reload ROM are refused while the session has unsaved ROM, graphics, screen, dungeon, or palette edits.
• **Restoring a backup stages it.** Tools > ROM Analysis > ROM Backups... > Restore loads the backup as unsaved changes; only Save ROM writes it, and the dialog can discard it. It is refused while edits are pending or for files that are not managed backups of the active ROM. 0.7.2 loaded the backup straight into the open session, replacing any unsaved edits without a check.
• **Closing the window asks about unsaved work.** The title-bar close and system quit requests go through the same prompt as File > Quit and can be cancelled; 0.7.2 exited immediately.
• **project.yazeline endings.** CRLF files now load their settings; in 0.7.2 every setting in a CRLF file, including write-policy flags, was ignored, so a Windows-edited project may now enforce policies it silently skipped. A file with a lone carriage return fails to open with "Project file contains unsupported lone carriage returns".
• **Custom object paths are confined to the project.** Custom object filenames must be forward-slash relative.binpaths insidecustom_objects_folder. Absolute paths,..components, backslash separators, and symlinked targets are rejected on load and on apply. In[custom_objects], an empty entry now keeps its position (a.bin,,c.binmapsc.binto subtype 2), and entries past the fixed slot counts for0x31<tt>(16),0x32<tt>(3), and0x54<tt>(2) are ignored.
• **Wall corners0x100-0x103always draw as wall corners.** 0.7.2 replaced them with minecart track corner assets when a project mapped0x31track corner files (in room renders, only when the room also contained a0x31 object).
• **The minecart track editor requires a manifest source.** It no longer reads and writes the fixedSprites/Objects/data/minecart_tracks.asm. It needs a loaded Hack Manifest definingminecart_tracks.source, and refuses a source that is a symlink or resolves outside the project root.
• **Water Fill saving follows the project.** The Workbench Apply Scope **Water Fill** checkbox is read-only and set from the new.yazekey save_dungeon_water_fill_zones(defaulttrue). When it isfalse, the Water Fill panel is read-only.
• **Best-effort ROM backups copy the file being overwritten.** With Rom::SaveSettings::backup(used by theyaze_save_rom()` C API), 0.7.2 copied the originally loaded ROM, so saving to a different existing file did not keep that file's previous contents. A destination that does not exist yet gets no backup file. The GUI Save As path already did this in 0.7.2.

Dungeon data read or drawn differently

• Pushable blocks decode differently. Word bit 13 is the draw layer and bit 14 a separate behaviour bit preserved on save; 0.7.2 read bit 13 as part of the Y coordinate. The lower-layer blocks in vanilla rooms 0xA8, 0x66, and 0x2C now load 64 tiles higher and render on BG2.
• Several objects draw and select with their USDASM footprint, so their renders, selection boxes, and dimensions differ from 0.7.2: Somaria paths (0xF83-0xF8C, 0xF8E, 0xF8F), moving walls 0xCD/0xCE, hammer peg 0xF96, jump ledges 0x8B/0x8C, floor light 0xFF4, Weird 2x4 0xB5, and rupee floor 0xF92. Light beam 0xFF0 keeps its footprint but now draws its bottom block with its own USDASM tiles; 0.7.2 repeated the top block's tiles there. Full room renders no longer draw the big light beam 0xFF1 unless the room 0x065 bombed-floor state is set.
• Custom collision is rewritten in place when it fits. A room whose new collision encoding fits its existing, unshared span keeps its pointer, so the written ROM bytes differ from 0.7.2, which always appended and repointed.
• The object browser offers only encodable IDs. It no longer lists 0x0F8-0x0FF or 0x140-0x141, new Type 1 placements start at size 2 instead of 0x12, and the category filters use the shared object category table. The 128-object limit on the third object stream, and its validation error that blocked room saves, are gone.

Editor layout, menus, and shortcuts

• The first launch after upgrading rearranges the Dungeon editor. Settings migrations make the Dungeon Workbench visible and close the standalone Room List, Room Matrix, Object Selector, Sprite Editor, Item Editor, Room Graphics, Door Editor, Palette Editor, Entrance List, and Entrance Properties windows, and collapse the activity bar's side panel when Dungeon is the active category. Pinned panels and named layouts are untouched.
• Menu items moved. ROM Information, Create Backup, ROM Backups..., Validate ROM, Export BPS Patch..., and Apply BPS Patch... are no longer in File; they are under Tools > ROM Analysis. View > Layout is gone (use Windows > Layout). Tools > Development > Agent Workspace and Agent Proposals are gone; toggle the AI Agent and Proposals drawers from View > Drawers. Tools > Window Finder is now Find Window…. It is still bound to Ctrl+P, but it now opens the Command Palette with a window: filter instead of a separate finder window.
• Shortcuts. A shortcut bound to a plain key no longer fires while Ctrl, Shift, Alt, or Cmd is held. Ctrl+Shift+W is only Close Session and no longer toggles the Workbench.
• Dungeon layer controls are renamed. "Layer 1/2/3" is now Object Stream: Primary / BG2 Overlay / BG1 Overlay for room objects and Upper Layer (BG1) / Lower Layer (BG2) for torches and pushable blocks. Stored value 2, formerly labelled BG3, is the BG1 overlay stream.
• Issue reports are saved only on request. The dungeon canvas no longer appends issue reports to the local issue log on open, copy, screenshot, or close; only Save to Issue Log writes one. The context menu's Report is Capture Issue, and Sample Object is Use Object as Brush.
• Removed UI. The welcome screen's Release History panel and its theme switcher (use Settings > Appearance), the Object Selector's New Custom Object button, and the Minecart Tracks Generate buttons (replaced by Preview and Apply Preview) are gone. Settings > Project Configuration > Dungeon Overlay is read-only; edit those lists in Minecart Tracks > Advanced, which reads unprefixed values as decimal and does not accept ranges.
• Spawn points are edited only in Entrance Properties. The Entrance List property table is read-only for slots 0x00-0x06.
• **--startup_dashboard=hide also suppresses the editor chooser on some later automatic opens**: after a ROM or project finishes loading through the editor (for example File > Open) or ROM load options are applied. The chooser can still appear when you open a ROM or project from the welcome screen, or close the welcome screen with a ROM loaded. show and auto are unchanged and Ctrl+E still opens the chooser.
• The emulator pauses while its panels are hidden. Switching to another editor now stops SNES frames and audio. 0.7.2 kept advancing them in the background. Turn on Settings > Appearance > Editor Behavior > Keep Emulator Running in Background (default off, saved as emulator.keep_running_in_background in settings.json, or emulator_keep_running_in_background in the legacy yaze_settings.ini) to get the old behaviour.
• A saved Emulator category is restored at startup. 0.7.2 ignored a saved Emulator category and opened the first non-Emulator category instead. With no saved category, Emulator is still never chosen, and the emulator does not run until its panel is visible.

Themes

• Hand-written .theme files are filled in and preserved differently. Keys a file declares are no longer overwritten by smart defaults: in 0.7.2 a declared opaque black was replaced for semantic keys such as text_highlight, active_selection, focus_border and the editor_* colours, and a declared transparent black for keys such as border, separator and text_link. Omitted error, warning, success and info are now seeded with fixed colours, and an omitted accent falls back to primary (or a fixed blue when primary is also unset). Omitted keys such as border, separator, the scrollbar colours and text_link are now derived from the theme's other colours when omitted instead of staying opaque black. Omitted plot_lines and plot_histogram now come from accent and info. No shipped theme declares them, so plot colours change in the built-in presets too. An omitted agent panel_border is derived from border with alpha capped at 0.45.
• Theme discovery paths. yaze no longer searches /usr/local/share/yaze/themes/, /usr/share/yaze/themes/, or <app bundle>/Contents/Resources/themes/; move themes kept only there to the user themes folder. The macOS app bundle ships only themes listed in assets/themes/distributable-themes.txt.
• The Settings > Appearance theme picker no longer previews on hover. It is a dropdown that applies a theme only when you pick it, and Display Density is a dropdown too. The separate Theme Selector window opened from Display Settings still previews on hover.

Packages and source builds

• Linux packages use a standard filesystem layout. The .deb installs /usr/bin/yaze, /usr/bin/z3ed, and /usr/share/yaze/assets/; 0.7.2 put them directly in /usr. The .tar.gz has the same usr/ tree, so scripts that ran ./yaze from the extracted folder must use usr/bin/yaze.
• Release asset names changed. Windows downloads are yaze-<version>-windows-x64.exe and .zip instead of yaze-<version>-win64.*, and the .deb is yaze_<version>_<arch>.deb instead of yaze-<version>-Linux.deb. The Linux .tar.gz name is unchanged.
• Source builds. CMake build presets that used 8 jobs now use 4. The iOS XcodeGen project reads the preset build directories (build/presets/ios-debug, ios-release, ios-sim-debug) instead of build-ios/ and build-ios-sim/.

Dungeon object rendering

• Fixed thin strip routines whose name suffix is a minimum length, not a position offset: _plus3 solid strips (carpet trim 0x34/0x71) and the _plus13/_plus12 rail-wall routines (0x2F/0x30, 0x6C/0x6D) now draw from the object's own origin instead of 3, 13, or 12 tiles away, with the USDASM opening and closing caps.
• Matched USDASM geometry for wall corners, diagonal walls, and all four diagonal-ceiling orientations.
• Used Room Header Floor1/Floor2 patterns for the 0xC4/0xDB floor-copy objects instead of the subtype payload.
• Lower straight inter-room stairs (0xFA6-0xFA9) now promote the adjacent BG1 column to high priority, and spiral stairs promote their left and right flank tiles, matching USDASM. Both change priority only, without painting over tiles already in the layout or object buffers.
• Conditional edge and cap routines (rails, rail-wall corners) now check the tile that actually owns each position, layout or object, before skipping a corner. Layout objects now record their own BG2 reveal requests, separate from room objects.
• Kept explicit door bodies above room wall-guidance objects while preserving ROM object-stream order, layout ownership, reveal masks, and SNES priority bits.
• Deferred BG2 reveal masks to compositing instead of punching transparent pixels into raw BG1, and copied object-layer bitmaps to their SDL surfaces row by row using the surface pitch instead of one flat copy that could shear rows when pitch exceeded width.
• Matched individual object families against the disassembly: Somaria paths, pushable blocks, torch codecs, hammer pegs, vertical jump ledges, light beams (including attic-state gating for the big beam), unconditional floor lights, archery curtains, rupee and bombable floors, big key locks, prison cells, moving walls, the enabled star tile and lit torch drawn as 2x2, the Mario portrait drawn as 4x2, BothBG wall size semantics, Big Wall Decor, TableBowl, BigGrayRock, Smithy Furnace, Agahnim's altar, the Fortune Teller room, the full 24-tile payload for Turtle Rock pipe 0xFDC, and exact 4-word bar-corner payloads (0xFD6-0xFD9).
• Corrected canonical object payload counts and canonicalized room object sizes, disabling resize controls for fixed-size objects.
• Removed the hard-coded IsAllBgsObjectId list that set all_bgs_ from the object ID. BothBG routing now comes from draw-routine registry metadata plus explicit object-specific routing for stairs and fixed facades. ObjectDrawer's duplicate dimension switch was replaced by DimensionService.
• The dungeon object selector now shows a draw-routine badge on visible object cards: a direction or category glyph (>, v, /, L, S), or C/K/B/P for chests, big key locks, bombable floors, and prison cells. Objects with no mapped routine get no badge. BothBG routines get a 2 suffix and the wall accent color. The tooltip names the routine family, adds the base pattern size when the routine has a fixed one (for example Corner 4x4), and notes when a routine writes to both BG1 and BG2.
• Dungeon sprite previews no longer clip large multi-part sprites (0x7E, 0x7F, 0x80, 0xC7, 0x92). The preview buffer is sized by measuring the sprite's own tile stream, and the canvas places it using those bounds.
• The Magic Bat altar 0x13F draws as a fixed 8x7 block and the Vitreous goo damage object 0xFFB as a 5x2 grid of 4x4 stamps, with matching selection bounds.
• Horizontal bars repeat their middle columns, subtype-2 corner aliases use the fixed 4x4 routine, the Sanctuary wall facade renders its mixed-layer center, animated tile frames load through the ROM table pointer, and layer mode 7 uses full color addition. Object 0x03C reads 8 tile words, and BothBG walls 0x63-0x64 draw size+1 blocks.

Dungeon palettes and previews

• Fixed dungeon graphics palette slot mapping and refreshed cached rooms after palette edits, on global palette apply, and for the active placement ghost.
• Dungeon sprite previews now take their palettes from the room's palette-set selectors (row 8 left and rows 13/14 left) instead of a fixed sprite palette table, with a fixed Light World environment half-palette in row 8 right and the underworld environment palette in row 14 right. Preview pixels using color index 0xFF are no longer treated as transparent.
• Fixed the sprite preview dispatch chain so the generic fallback no longer overdraws sprite-specific previews, and normalized palette widget color values.
• Dungeon room sprite previews are now cached (up to 128 decoded previews, keyed by room graphics revision, sprite ID, subtype and overlord flag), so they are no longer decoded on every frame once the room's graphics are built. Palette, position and zoom still apply live. The cache clears on Reload Assets, ROM-backed state refresh, and project, asset-path, or hack change.
• Color edits in the dungeon editor's render palette panel (color picker, drag-and-drop, and Reset to Original) now go through the palette manager, so File > Save ROM writes them. In 0.7.2 they were silently skipped, and lazily opening another editor could clear pending palette edits.

Dungeon editor workflow

• Kept the room canvas vertically stable by removing the selection action shelf and the recent-room tab strip from above it; recent rooms moved to a toolbar popup and the status-bar selection entry opens the Selection inspector.
• Replaced the Tools inspector's two-row icon strip with a single tool chooser. The chooser is grouped into Edit (Object Selector, Door Tools, Sprite Tools, Item Tools), Room (Room Graphics, Palette), and Review (Room Tags, Custom Collision, Water Fill, Minecart Tracks), and it has a Pop out button next to it.
• Added Pop out (or Show window when the tool's window is already open) to Workbench tools, and a tool is now drawn in one place at a time: while its standalone window is open, the inspector points to that window instead of drawing the tool a second time. Leaving the Workbench still opens Room List, Room Matrix, and the current room, and now also reopens the other unpinned navigation windows it closed on entry.
• Workbench toolbar actions that do not fit at narrow widths now move into an overflow menu (tooltip "More dungeon actions") instead of disappearing. NESW room navigation stays inline.
• When the toolbar is too narrow for the Compare button, Compare is still reachable from the overflow menu: Start Compare, or during an active compare the searchable room picker, direct room ID entry, Swap Rooms, Sync View, and End Compare.
• Streamlined Object Selector controls into search, category, a new object stream filter, and a More menu (Clear filters, Show thumbnails, Card size Compact/Medium/Large). Previews now keep their aspect ratio above a reserved hex ID footer, and the dungeon palette grid adapts to 16/8/4/2/1 columns.
• Stabilized the canvas right-click menu: selection actions moved into a Selection submenu that always starts with Use Object as Brush (disabled when no object is under the cursor; replaces the conditional Sample Object row), layer actions use stream-aware labels, and Report was renamed Capture Issue.
• Made issue capture local and opt-in: reports are no longer auto-saved on open, copy, screenshot, or close. Only Save to Issue Log writes the report. The object drawer trace now replays the room-stream objects before the selected one, with layout tilewords, layer, and floor graphics context.
• Kept the report body independently scrollable with stable footer actions, reserved capture button width, ellipsized long status with a full tooltip, and sized the report within the usable viewport including menu-bar insets.
• Split room composite ownership by presentation so the canvas, room selector, room matrix, and Dungeon Map preview cannot overwrite one another's texture identity (the issue report rebinds the canvas composite before sampling its palette), and retired composite textures through the graphics arena and texture queue.
• Selecting a vanilla dungeon preset in Dungeon Map now clears the room type badges and stair and holewarp connections left over from a previously loaded project-registry dungeon.
• Added editable dedicated spawn points in the UI and safe spawn-point persistence.
• Warned on room event slot conflicts, simulated chest and lock room-event slots, and classified stateful chest usage.
• Pressing Delete, or object shortcuts such as Ctrl+A, while typing in a text field no longer deletes or selects dungeon objects.
• Fixed dungeon canvas interaction when zoomed or panned: placement, hit testing, selection, marquee, guides, overlays, drops, paste, and ghost previews share one screen-to-room transform, so clicks land where the room is drawn. Pot-item placement clicks outside the room are ignored and pot-item drags clamp to valid room coordinates.
• Object Tile Editor ROM writes are limited to the audited standard objects 0x11F and 0x120; the editor refuses to open any other standard object. Each cell is tied to its exact ROM source word, and the write is refused if those bytes changed since capture. Custom objects are still edited through their asset files.
• Added Edit Object Tiles... to the dungeon canvas right-click menu for a single selected 0x11F or 0x120 object. It opens the Object Tile Editor with the room's palette; edits are global ROM tile edits not covered by Ctrl+Z, and unapplied edits are kept when the window closes.
• Objects that draw to both BG1 and BG2 can now be moved to any of the three object streams (keys 1/2/3, the context menu, or the inspector). 0.7.2 allowed only stream 0 for them. Room-stream objects still go to the end of the target stream and the selection follows them. Torches and pushable blocks keep their position and accept only placement 0 or 1; a selection that includes one cannot be sent to placement 2.
• The door placement picker and Selected Door type list offer 32 door types (0.7.2: 20), including lower-layer exits and shutters, lower small-key stairs, the bombable cave exit, and the unopenable big-key door. South and east door hit boxes now match the visible art.
• Click and marquee selection on the dungeon canvas skip objects on layers that are currently hidden.
• Fixed the object placement ghost: objects that draw upward or leftward (for example 0x09 and 0xA3) are no longer clipped, small objects keep their real footprint instead of a 16px minimum, and BG2-stream objects no longer erase themselves in the preview.
• Dungeon panels gained direct value fields: Door Editor and Item Editor Selected raw type, Sprite Editor Selected position X/Y (clamped to the sprite grid), dungeon palette Palette ID and Raw BGR555, and a Room ID jump field in the Workbench inspector header.
• The Selection inspector shows Width and Height tile dropdowns for packed floor objects and a Variant dropdown for custom objects. The mouse wheel now also resizes the placement ghost, not only selected objects. For packed floor objects, Shift+wheel changes width and the wheel alone changes height.
• Programmatic scroll-to-tile on the dungeon canvas moves the background, overlays, and input together in the same frame.

Oracle and custom dungeon assets

• Replaced the modal Custom Object Workshop with a non-modal Custom Assets mode in the object selector covering the 21 fixed Oracle runtime assets: 16 slots for object 0x31, three for 0x32, and two new sprite-body slots for 0x54, grouped into Tracks + Props, Ice Props, and Boss Bodies. The browser edits or places existing slots only; new subtypes need an ASM dispatch-table change.
• Added Edit Tile Layout and Place in Room actions to Custom Assets, plus a Minecart Routes & Collision shortcut on track slots, replacing the blocking workshop popup. Edit Tile Layout is desktop-only.
• Modeled mapping provenance explicitly so default filenames, configured filenames, and configured-but-unmapped slots are distinguishable, and preserved sparse positional subtype mappings through project save/load.
• Removed the track-corner alias that routed wall-corner objects 0x100-0x103 to object 0x31 corner assets when a project's 0x31 map pointed at existing corner files. Rendering, geometry, previews, diagnostics, and tile editing now keep those IDs as wall corners unless the project maps the same ID directly.
• Kept 0x54 sprite-body .bin files in their raw source form, applying the Oracle page-0x300 tile transform to nonzero words only when rendering rooms and previews.
• Published desktop asset edits with path confinement, exact-source comparison, atomic replacement, rollback, and decoded readback, failing closed on WASM, and validated portable forward-slash asset filenames before host path parsing.
• Custom Assets > Reload Assets (formerly Reload Workshop) now also refreshes external Oracle sprite preview art in every open room window (including hidden ones), the Workbench, and the comparison viewer, stays available when Custom Objects is disabled, and keeps unsaved room edits, tile drafts, and selections.
• Made Minecart Tracks > Advanced the only editor for minecart overlay IDs. The project settings Dungeon Overlay section is now a read-only summary with an Open Minecart Tracks button, which registers the panel on demand when Custom Dungeon Objects was enabled after the dungeon editor loaded.
• z3ed oracle-smoke-check now fails D4 when room 0x25 or 0x27 is missing from the runtime WaterFill table, and dungeon-oracle-preflight accepts --required-water-fill-rooms.
• Saving chests keeps the ROM chest table's physical record order instead of regrouping all records by room ID; untouched records keep their exact bytes.

Save safety and persistence

• Checked dungeon palette saves (Save and Apply Room), Palette Editor saves, and Object Tile Editor ROM writes against the Hack Manifest when a project manifest is loaded. The new z3ed dungeon-set-room-property --manifest check covers layout/floor object-stream headers, room-header properties, and the room's message-ID bytes. Object Tile Editor writes also gained explicit source provenance, cache invalidation after writes, and detection of tile sources shared by several objects.
• Added an editor_managed_regions Hack Manifest section (requires manifest_version 3 or newer). It marks exact address ranges inside ASM-owned banks as safe for editor writes. Hook-protected addresses still block writes.
• Made z3ed dungeon-set-room-property, dungeon-generate-track-collision, dungeon-import-custom-collision-json, and dungeon-import-water-fill-json all-or-nothing: a failed write or save rolls back the in-memory ROM changes (ScopedRomTransaction) and returns an error. Also made minecart collision generation in the Minecart Track Editor transactional and undoable.
• Included unapplied Object Tile Editor layouts in dungeon/session dirty detection and blocked Save or Apply Room until those edits are applied or discarded.
• Blocked ROM saves while Screen Editor edits (dungeon maps, dungeon-map Tile16, title screen, and the Overworld Map pause-menu world map) or Graphics Editor sheet edits are pending, instead of reporting a partial save as successful. Dungeon Save and Apply Room now refuse while Minecart Track Editor drafts are unpublished (use Publish Tracks or discard them). Minecart overlay settings edits now mark the project dirty and are written by project save.
• Rejected unsafe room object encodings and guarded canonical room-object sizes on save.
• Saved room layout ID and floor 1/floor 2 changes to the object-stream header from the dungeon editor and from z3ed dungeon-set-room-property; 0.7.2 silently dropped them. Door moves, nudges, and type changes now mark the room for saving. Room header saves keep the pit target layer bits. Room message-ID bytes are now included in manifest conflict checks. Regular dungeon entrance saves are validated and checked against the Hack Manifest before writing.
• Counted dungeon entrance, spawn-point, and pit-damage edits as unsaved dungeon work (0.7.2 counted only pending rooms), so unsaved-work checks and restore/discard guards see them. Session tabs and the session manager now mark a session Modified when only project settings or project editor drafts are unsaved.
• Made ROM backup restore safer: it refuses while ROM edits are pending, accepts only managed backups of the active ROM, and stages the restored ROM as unsaved until Save ROM. A new Discard Restored Backup button abandons a staged restore. Rom::SaveSettings::backup (used by the yaze_save_rom() C API) now copies the existing destination file instead of the originally loaded ROM.
• Kept project settings, project-file drafts, and palette edits and undo history per ROM session, so switching between open ROMs no longer loses or mixes unsaved project and palette work. Palette saves reject writes from a different session. Every open path, not only File > Open ROM, now refuses a ROM file already open in another session, and Save As onto such a file is rejected.
• project.yaze files with CRLF line endings now load their settings, and a file or saved value containing a lone carriage return is refused instead of silently falling back to defaults.
• Duplicating, pasting, or placing a copy of a pushable block loaded from the ROM now saves the copy as a new block table entry. In 0.7.2 the copy claimed the source block's table slot and was silently dropped on save.
• Dungeon sprite saves now write the hidden key-drop marker records (FE 00 E4 / FD 00 E4) after a sprite that drops a small or big key. 0.7.2 wrote only the sprite records, so key drops were lost when a room's sprites were saved.
• Room header saves, from the GUI and z3ed dungeon-set-room-property, now keep header byte 0 bit 1 and the upper six bits of header byte 8 instead of clearing them.
• On Windows, ROM saves replace the destination with MoveFileExW(MOVEFILE_REPLACE_EXISTING) instead of deleting the existing ROM before renaming the temporary file, so a failed rename no longer leaves no ROM on disk.
• File > Save ROM no longer runs the Dungeon or Overworld save paths when those editors were never opened in the session, and room object saves keep the existing door pointer's SlowROM/FastROM bank mirror, so unchanged pointers no longer produce ROM diffs.

CLI and ROM safety

• Moved hex parsing into src/util/hex.h so core, the editor and the CLI share one strict implementation, and made src/cli/util/hex_util.h a shim over it. The shared parser also rejects a value that does not fit the requested type on WebAssembly, where the previous unsigned long range check was a no-op.
• Added dungeon-get-palette to resolve the full room palette-set mapping, raw colors, and every room sharing the selected global US/OOS palette.
• Added dry-run-first dungeon-set-palette-color with exact mapping/color CAS, Hack Manifest ownership checks, clean disk baseline, two-byte write fence, required backup, atomic save, whole-ROM diff, and external reopen/readback.
• Disabled legacy palette-set-color --write because it could report an in-memory mutation as persisted; its read-only preview remains available.
• Added dungeon-set-door-type and dungeon-set-pot-item for guarded edits to existing doors and pot items (dry-run by default, expected-value checks, required --manifest), plus dungeon-list-pot-items to list pot entries.
• Added --include-objects to dungeon-describe-room to list encoded room objects (ID, subtype, position, size, stream index), and made --spawn on dungeon-get-entrance and entrance-info report the dedicated spawn-point schema (IDs 0x00-0x06).
• Added dungeon-remove-object, which removes one ordinary room object by stream index only when --expect-id, --expect-x, --expect-y, --expect-size, and --expect-layer all match. It is a dry run unless --write is given, accepts --manifest, and refuses table-backed and chest objects.
• project-bundle-verify --check-rom-hash accepts the iOS romChecksum manifest field alongside rom_sha1, treats empty fields as absent, and fails when the two fields disagree. iOS project manifests now record the ROM checksum.
• Added --manifest to dungeon-place-object; shared or growing object streams fail closed unless the manifest allows copy-on-write, and dry-run and write run the same capacity preflight.
• Reused uniquely owned custom-collision blobs for same-size or smaller rewrites, while keeping aliased, overlapping, and growing streams on the copy-on-write append path.
• Made custom collision imports idempotent, collision JSON imports transactional, and collision exports ROM-alias-safe.
• Added Hack Manifest dungeon_stream_regions so shared or growing dungeon object and sprite streams can be saved copy-on-write into manifest-owned space, and pot-item streams can be repacked deterministically (repack_all).
• z3ed --self-test now checks that two representative runtime assets (agent/prompt_catalogue.yaml and patches/Overworld/TailMapExpansion.asm) can be found through the CLI's asset search paths.
• Added read-only z3ed dungeon-stream-plan --kind <objects|sprites|pot_items> --manifest <path> [--format json|text], which reports stream aliases, overlaps, occupied ranges, and free allocation capacity for a dungeon_stream_regions layout. It rejects --write.
• z3ed dungeon-object-validate gained --all-sizes (sweeps Type 1 sizes 0-15) and --all-states (adds an active dungeon-state profile), with state_cases and expected_empty_traces summaries.
• Fixed z3ed agent tool calls from the Anthropic, OpenAI, and Gemini providers: integer arguments arrive as 7 instead of 7.000000. Boolean flags are now also passed through on the Gemini and OpenAI native function-call paths, which previously dropped them. Agents gained the dungeon-get-palette tool and the mutating dungeon-set-palette-color tool.

Messages

• Message editor saves now write only the dirty domains (font widths, vanilla messages, expanded messages), build the whole write plan and check it against the project's hack manifest write policy before writing any bytes, and no longer treat a command argument byte as a text bank switch. message-import-bundle --apply now reopens the saved ROM and verifies the written bytes and vanilla messages by readback.
• Message dumps now write dictionary tokens as [D:XX] (0.7.2 wrote [D:$XX], which could not be imported back); the importer accepts both forms.
• Added z3ed message-source-sync --project <path> --file <bundle.json>, which merges expanded messages into the project's source files without touching the ROM; it is a dry run unless --write is given with --expected-source-sha256.
• z3ed message-write and message-import-bundle --apply now require --project; the write is refused unless the project's ROM is the active ROM, the ROM file is headerless, and the project has a loaded hack manifest, and the project's write policy is applied to the planned message writes.

Appearance and themes

• Added five editor themes: Blood Moon, Catppuccin Mocha, Dracula, Rosé Pine, and Temple of Time. The upstream MIT notices for Catppuccin, Dracula, and Rosé Pine are kept in assets/themes/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. A unit test loads and applies each of the five new themes through the theme manager. The app's bundled theme resource list now comes from assets/themes/distributable-themes.txt, and CI checks that the tracked .theme files match that list.
• Theme files now get smart defaults for colors they leave out. In 0.7.2 the unset check looked for transparent black, so omitted borders, scrollbars, table colors, links, and modal backgrounds stayed opaque black on file-loaded themes. Colors that a .theme file declares are never replaced, so a deliberate black border or highlight is kept.
• Themes that leave out accent, error, warning, success, or info now get defaults. accent falls back to primary, and the status colors use fixed values. Colors derived from them, such as link text, histogram plots, text highlight, and secondary selection, are no longer black when a file omits them.
• Switching from a preset theme back to Classic YAZE no longer leaves the preset's docking preview, text cursor, link, tree-line, tab overline, and rounding values behind. Display Density now also works while Classic YAZE is active. Saving a .theme file keeps grab_rounding, window_border_size, frame_border_size, and animation_speed, and a malformed [style] number no longer aborts startup.
• Retuned Forest and Forest Light so buttons, headers, tabs, and title bars use neutral surfaces, with green kept for hover, active, and selected states. Nested editor-panel borders are fainter: when a theme does not set the agent panel border, the derived border uses the theme border color with its opacity capped at 0.45.
• Replaced the fixed-height hover-preview theme list with an explicit full-width picker and the cramped density radio buttons with a responsive picker.
• Fixed theme filename synthesis to pass an unsigned char to isalnum.

Editor shell and navigation

• Reworked the welcome screen into a compact start card. The Start and Recent panes no longer scroll: the Recent list is cut to what fits, and optional Start rows are dropped on small windows. The Release History card is replaced by a Release notes link in a one-row footer, and the resume button now names the most recent available ROM or project (Resume <name>) instead of Resume Last (<type>).
• Removed the unused second welcome-screen instance and its duplicate callback wiring from EditorManager. Removed the fixed-height quick-actions pane that clipped first-run controls. Recent-file cards can now be opened from the keyboard.
• gui::OpenUrl now opens links through ImGui's platform shell opener instead of pasting the URL into an open (macOS) or xdg-open (Linux) command run through system(); in 0.7.2 it did nothing on other platforms. Web (Emscripten) builds open links in a new browser tab with window.opener detached. If the browser cannot be opened, the welcome screen's Release notes link shows a message saying so.
• Repaired the editor chooser dashboard. --startup_dashboard=hide now also suppresses the chooser on automatic opens after a ROM or project loads through the editor or ROM load options are applied; it can still appear when opening from the welcome screen, and Ctrl+E is not affected.
• Renamed the Tools menu's Window Finder item to Find Window…. Help → Keyboard Shortcuts now opens the shortcuts browser instead of Settings and is bound to Ctrl+Shift+/. The Dungeon Workbench no longer toggles on Ctrl+Shift+W or shows it as its shortcut, because that chord closes the current session.
• Added an icon strip below the right sidebar drawer header with one icon for each switchable drawer (Project, Properties, AI Agent, Proposals, Notifications, Help, Settings): clicking the active icon closes the drawer, tooltips show assigned shortcuts, and Notifications shows an unread dot. The header gained a context badge (agent ready for AI Agent in agent-UI builds, unread count for Notifications, a lock icon when Properties selection is locked, the current editor for Help), and its drawer switcher button's tooltip now reads Switch Sidebar Drawer instead of Panel switcher.
• Removed three unreferenced dashboards: the agent metrics dashboard panel and the z3ed TUI dashboard component and its layout ID.
• The overworld status bar's Map segment follows the cursor: while the canvas is hovered it shows the hovered map, adding · sel #XX (or · sel LW #XX across worlds) when that differs from the selected map, and it falls back to the selected map when the cursor leaves the canvas. 0.7.2 always showed the selected map.
• TileSelectorWidget::GetPreferredViewportWidth now reports the grid width plus 18px of scrollbar chrome instead of at least 332px, so the Tile16 scroll region no longer claims a 332px-wide content extent in a narrower dock.

Emulator, iOS, and platform

• Added TCP endpoint support to the Mesen socket client alongside Unix domain sockets.
• Restored the iOS device build by aligning XcodeGen header/library paths with the CMake iOS presets, included the remote desktop and review Swift views in the iOS target, and replaced an iOS-unavailable directory-creation path.
• Routed the normal macOS Quit menu item through ordered application shutdown.
• Hidden emulator panels no longer advance SNES frames or audio unless Keep Emulator Running in Background is enabled in Settings > Appearance > Editor Behavior. The startup category policy now honours a saved Emulator category and still never falls back to Emulator when no category is saved.
• Mesen2-OOS CPU registers are read from the server's lowercase JSON keys. 0.7.2 looked for uppercase keys, so every register read as 0 in the Mesen Debug panel, ASM follow, and z3ed mesen-* commands.
• Mesen2 socket connections are more robust: a closed emulator peer no longer kills yaze with SIGPIPE, large commands are written fully under one deadline, reconnecting no longer leaks sockets, and z3ed mesen-* commands append the underlying connection error to "Not connected to Mesen2".

Release engineering and packaging

• Added a Release-config native test gate that fails when CTest discovers no real unit or integration suites, resolves wrong multi-config binaries, or produces empty JUnit results, plus a release-test preset that enables stable source-level suites without changing package builds.
• Scoped build caches by configuration and capped shared build actions at four jobs; bounded default local build parallelism to four workers.
• Release validation now checks that the packaged manifest.json version and Git SHA match the release being built. AssetLoader, PromptManager agent prompts, and the TailMapExpansion.asm patch now look up assets through PlatformPaths::FindAsset first, and AssetLoader still falls back to its old paths relative to the working directory. The theme search list still checks the user themes directory first. After that it uses FindAsset instead of the old per-platform bundle and system paths, then falls back to assets/themes/ and ../assets/themes/. On Linux, FindAsset also checks ../share/yaze/assets relative to the executable's directory, which matches the FHS usr/share/yaze/assets layout.
• Moved Linux DEB/TGZ payloads to an FHS layout (/usr/bin, /usr/share/yaze/assets, /usr/share/doc/yaze). Release validation now checks that layout, resolves shared libraries with ldd, matches the DEB version against the expected version, checks that assets exist, and runs a clean DEB install and purge.
• Embedded the runtime asset tree in the macOS app bundle under Contents/Resources/assets (themes limited to the distributable allowlist). DMG validation now requires a valid signature, verifies it again after copying the app to another location, checks that the bundle's assets match the DMG asset tree and that the manifest version matches, and smoke-tests the DMG executables.
• Windows Release packaging now fails unless app-local msvcp/vcruntime DLLs are found, ZIP validation requires them, and release CI runs an isolated NSIS silent install that checks the registry entry and uninstall cleanup.
• Replaced the two duplicate pull-request WASM debug builds with one Release-derived wasm-smoke preset (Emscripten version still 3.1.51, now set in one EMSDK_VERSION variable). The job has a 45-minute timeout and 4 build jobs, caches CPM at the path the build really uses (~/.cpm-cache) with rekeyed CPM/ccache caches, and requires packaged output plus serial (--workers=1) Chromium Playwright smoke tests.
• Fixed the gRPC/CPack install graph in CMake (bundled gRPC is now EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL) instead of patching generated cmake_install.cmake scripts in the release workflow.
• scripts/install-nightly-local.sh now validates a nightly before activating it. It stages each install in a unique release directory, requires both yaze and z3ed executables, signs and verifies the macOS bundle after resources are copied, runs --version on both executables, and replaces the current symlink atomically only after validation passes.
• scripts/pre-push.sh now fails when any positive component of the smoke or UI gtest filter selects zero tests, so a mistyped or stale filter can no longer look like a passing run. The default smoke filter is now WorkspaceWindowManagerPolicyTest.*, and the default UI filter uses it in place of PanelManagerPolicyTest.*.

Testing and validation

• Added independent Mesen ROI baselines and bombable-floor Mesen baselines as witnesses separate from the editor's own renderer.
• Pinned visual parity for rails, BigHole, TableRock, and the room 0x076 west door with Mesen ROI baselines. Added a structural BG2 object-buffer test for the flood-water overlay 0xD8 in room 0x076. Neither 0xD8 nor 0xDA has a Mesen pixel baseline yet, because the vanilla overlay routines are stateful: they depend on saved water state and can change the layer mode. Regenerated the dungeon room regression goldens after the Left/Right dungeon palette-slot mapping fix.
• Expanded dungeon object validator state coverage and included palette writes in the save preflight.
• Added scripts/agents/audit-dungeon-visual-parity.sh, a tiered dungeon visual parity audit that fails on missing test or z3ed binaries, empty, skipped, or failed test selections, invalid or empty dungeon-object-validate JSON, nonzero mismatches, or unexpected empty traces.
• Stopped the test runner from printing its option help unconditionally, which polluted GoogleTest discovery, and added a TestRunnerDiscoveryContract CTest that fails if help text reappears in the test inventory.
• Reformatted selected dungeon editor and Oracle validation sources to the project clang-format style.

Documentation

• Replaced stale parity percentages and Stable/Beta/WIP labels with one canonical desktop editor readiness matrix (Tester ready, Conditional, View only, Experimental), rewrote the Beta Testing Guide to match it, and documented the difference between component test, direct ROM readback, app-path test, GUI smoke, and manual acceptance evidence.
• Rewrote the cross-platform artifact and acceptance contract, and documented all 21 fixed Oracle custom-object slots including 0x54 raw/runtime tilemap semantics.
• Generated docs/internal/zelda3/alttp-quick-reference.md from pinned usdasm (labels, dispatch, vectors) and jpdasm (RAM symbols), and added docs/internal/zelda3/snes-hardware-reference.md with register addresses checked against usdasm. scripts/agents/alttp_reference.py check fails when a generated section is stale or a table address disagrees with usdasm.
• Added a cloud agent bootstrap script and setup documentation for ROM-less container work.
• Updated the dungeon usage guide for the issue-reporting layout and fixed the stale README contributor link.

0.7.2 (July 17, 2026)

Dungeon Editor Follow-through

• Made room navigation collapse into a compact 2x2 grid in tighter layouts instead of squeezing into a thin inline strip.
• Stacked workbench and compare controls earlier, trimmed helper copy, and reduced toolbar chrome so more height stays with the room canvas.
• Updated workbench pane compaction so the left-side chrome gives way before the inspector or center canvas.
• Kept this as groundwork for a future optional connected-room overview mode rather than a replacement for focused single-room editing.
• Rendered object and sprite selector previews by default and kept workbench local tools available when standalone windows are open.
• Persisted entrance and special-object dungeon save domains through the main save path.
• Rejected door positions outside ALTTP's 12-entry USDASM door-position tables, with unit coverage for all directions.
• Treated DrawNothing wall-moved check objects as explicit zero-tile payloads instead of forcing an 8-tile fallback.
• Sourced room-object labels from the canonical dungeon object tables and exported type-specific and unified room-object resource labels.
• Added editable pit-damage room membership controls and kept pit-damage ROM tests in the integration suite where their ROM dependency is explicit.
• Rejected invalid pushable-block loader operands before pointer arithmetic and pinned both operand shape and table-capacity boundaries in tests.
• Added a hardcoded room 0x001 BG1/BG2 overlap pixel golden so object-stream compositing regressions fail with a focused diagnostic.

Overworld Follow-through

• Added a canvas context-menu Tile16 sampling action for the ZScream-style right-click eyedropper workflow.

Save Safety and Project Reliability

• Made coordinated editor saves whole-ROM transactional: a late serializer, validation, backup, or disk-write failure now restores the in-memory ROM and leaves dirty edits available for retry.
• Preserved Save As destinations through ROM-hash, pot-item, and ASM-conflict confirmations, bound pending saves to their originating ROM session, and consumed confirmation bypasses safely.
• Made dungeon object, sprite, pot-item, and chest saves fail closed on unsupported growth or ambiguous shared-stream ownership instead of guessing free space or leaving partial repacks behind.
• Hardened expanded-message, Map32/custom-overworld, palette, manifest, project-path, CRC32, and SHA-1 boundaries, including headered-ROM and vanilla/Oracle round-trip regression coverage.

Localization and Platform Reliability

• Added the internationalization catalog pipeline and French localization.
• Initialized native file dialogs explicitly on Linux and Windows.
• Hardened session restore, SDL startup, asset lookup, configuration loading, ROM handling, and CLI failure paths.

Build and Test Reliability

• Stabilized fork pull-request checks, WASM builds, and the memory-sanitizer gate across the release matrix.
• Added GUI automation for pit-damage inspector membership edits.

0.7.1 (April 19, 2026)

Welcome Screen & Project Startup

• Added Quick Actions to open Prototype Research (Graphics, graphics.prototype_viewer) or the Assembly editor (assembly.code_editor) without loading a ROM, plus session-loop support so those editors initialize and tick on an empty active session.
• Added a guided New Project flow for startup/project creation.
• Added async ROM metadata scanning for recent projects with safer first-scan behavior.
• Added recent-project pin/rename/notes actions and a short undo window for removals.
• Surfaced welcome/startup actions through the command palette.

Dungeon Editor Parity & Polish

• Restored BG1/BG2 layout routing parity while preserving pit/mask behavior.
• Fixed single-tile 0x034 payload handling for real-room object rendering.
• Added replay-geometry-driven selection bounds for more accurate editor hitboxes.
• Added ROM-backed dungeon render parity tests and room snapshot coverage.
• Simplified dungeon workbench inspector/navigation flows and kept hidden room state sparse.
• Added lazy room materialization and released unused room buffer textures.

Editor Memory & Startup Footprint

• Added lazy session-editor construction to reduce initial startup cost.
• Deferred hidden full-mode asset loads.
• Trimmed eager overworld bitmap memory.
• Split render-target texture creation for cleaner renderer/backend handling.

CLI / CI

• Fixed the WASM build path for dungeon tile rows.
• Added overworld map ID validation before ROM access.
• Hardened Linux GUI smoke-run path handling.

Developer / codebase (no user-facing behavior change)

• Reorganized src/app/editor/ for clarity: registry/ (ContentRegistry, undo, events), shell/ (global UI chrome), system/{workspace,session,commands}/ (matches CMake split), Oracle workflow UI under hack/oracle/ui/, domain editors under */ui/ with legacy dungeon/music/agent windows co-located under */ui/window/.
• Added ContentRegistry::WindowContents as an alias of Panels and REGISTER_WINDOW_CONTENT as a shim over REGISTER_PANEL for preferred naming.

Deferred to 0.8.0

• z3dk integration planning covers embedded assembly/lint/LSP workflows, shared Mesen2 plumbing, and .mlb export.

0.7.0 (March 2026)

iOS Remote Control & Review

• Added Bonjour discovery (_yaze._tcp.) for automatic LAN desktop detection from iPad.
• Added Remote Room Viewer: browse all 296 dungeon rooms with overlay toggles, scale control, and metadata inspection.
• Added Remote Command Runner: execute z3ed CLI commands from iPad with autocomplete catalog, command history, and --write safety confirmation.
• Added Annotation Review Mode: browse rooms with annotation overlays, create/edit/delete annotations with REST-based desktop sync.
• Added Desktop Connection view with discovered hosts, manual IP entry, and persistent connection status pill in overlay bar.

Desktop HTTP API

• Added POST /api/v1/command/execute for remote command execution via CommandRegistry.
• Added GET /api/v1/command/list exposing the full z3ed command catalog with metadata.
• Added GET/POST/PUT/DELETE /api/v1/annotations for annotation CRUD against project annotations.json.
• Added BonjourPublisher for macOS dns_sd.h service advertisement with TXT metadata.

Editor Completion & Workflow Polish

• Added sprite editor undo/redo via snapshot actions with unit coverage.
• Added screen editor undo/redo for dungeon-map edits and restored toolbar wiring.
• Added message editor replace + replace-all operations.
• Completed music tracker stubs: Space key rest/key-off insertion, anchored range delete, and song rename popup.

Dungeon Editor Improvements

• Added DungeonUsageTracker visual usage grids for blockset/spriteset/palette analysis.
• Polished dungeon workbench/panel workflow (mode clarity, status badge, and return affordances).
• Extended undo/redo coverage into adjacent dungeon map edit flows.

Custom ROM Hack Features

• Added desktop BPS patch export/import with deterministic CRC validation for patch-based distribution.
• Improved overworld hack editing reliability with hard-delete semantics, list/filter/sort + duplicate/nudge iteration flow, and undo-backed batch flows.

CLI

• Added palette-get-colors for palette dump/report output.
• Added palette-set-color for direct palette writes (legacy write mode is disabled on the 0.8 development line; preview remains available).
• Added palette-analyze for palette usage analysis.

Themed Widget System

• Added BeginThemedTabBar/EndThemedTabBar for consistent styled tab bars.
• Adopted themed widget APIs across dungeon workbench, status bar, pixel editor, and screen editor.

Deferred to 0.8.0

• Persistent overworld scratch-pad storage in project bundles.
• Overworld eyedropper tooling.
• Graphics editor clipboard operations.
• Music editor SPC/MML import path.
• Final dungeon draw-routine registry dedupe + ownership documentation cleanup.

0.6.2 (February 2026)

Release Consistency

• Updated current-release metadata and docs markers to align all surfaces on 0.6.2.
• Kept build/version source-of-truth flow pinned to the VERSION file.

Project Bundles (.yazeproj)

• Improved unpack failure cleanup behavior and dry-run structural validation checks.
• Expanded bundle verification paths and hash compatibility handling.

Oracle Tooling & Validation

• Continued smoke/preflight flow hardening for Oracle development and CI workflows.

Editor UX

• Continued polish on dungeon placement feedback and tile selector interaction UX.

0.6.1 (February 2026)

Oracle Tooling & Validation

• Added Oracle workflow command surfaces for smoke/preflight-style validation in z3ed.
• Added D6 minecart structural regression gating via --min-d6-track-rooms.
• Improved Oracle validation reporting with clearer structural/readiness status fields.

Project Bundles (.yazeproj)

• Added project bundle verify command with structured checks and report output.
• Added project bundle pack/unpack commands with zip archive support.
• Hardened unpack behavior:
  • path traversal protection,
  • default cleanup on invalid bundle extraction failure,
  • --keep-partial-output for debugging extraction failures,
  • --dry-run structural validation mode.
• Added bundle help/registry examples for faster CLI discovery.

Hashing & Integrity

• Replaced platform-conditional SHA1 behavior with portable SHA1 generation.
• Added ROM-hash verification path (--check-rom-hash) for bundle validation.
• Normalized hash comparisons (whitespace/case tolerant) for manifest compatibility.

Editor UX

• Added limit-aware placement feedback for dungeon object/sprite/door workflows.
• Added custom object overlay controls and D6 quick-navigation affordances in the dungeon workbench.
• Improved tile selector usability:
  • hover preview tooltip,
  • jump-to-tile/filter bar,
  • range validation feedback,
  • explicit decimal input mode (d:<id>) while preserving hex-default behavior.

0.6.0 (February 2026)

Undo/Redo

• Unified UndoManager embedded in Editor base class.
• Per-editor migrations: overworld, dungeon, graphics, music, message.
• Custom collision and water fill undo actions in dungeon editor.

Dungeon Editor

• SNES priority compositing with coverage masks for transparent overwrites.
• Entity drag-drop with rich selection inspector.
• Mutation tagging by domain (tile objects, custom collision, water fill).
• Custom collision editor with JSON import/export.
• Water fill zone authoring with brush radius support.
• Object Drawing Parity: 100% vanilla object routine coverage (448/448 objects across subtypes 1/2/3).
  • Filled mapping gaps for objects 0xF8, 0xFE, 0xFF.
  • Room effects expanded: ApplyRoomEffect() handles Moving_Water, Moving_Floor, Torch_Show_Floor, Red_Flashes, Ganon_Room with appropriate layer blend modes.
  • SNES color math translucent blending in CompositeToOutput(): palette lookup, (bg1_rgb + bg2_rgb) / 2, nearest-color-in-bank for palette-indexed output.
  • 19 parity validation tests covering: routine coverage, palette offsets, pit/mask object identification, BothBG flag correctness, water object layer semantics, room effect blend modes, layer merge types, and drawer fallback behavior.

UI

• Semantic color system replacing hardcoded ImGui style pushes.
• EventBus migration replacing legacy callback-based navigation.
• Right panel manager and sidebar simplification.
• Viewport-relative sizing helpers (DialogSize, ConstrainToViewport, ScaledSize).
• Warning button colors and status color standardization.

ROM Safety

• Write fence stack rejecting negative/out-of-bounds writes.
• Dirty custom collision save without full room reload.
• Expanded message and service writes are fence-aware.

Cleanup

• Removed SessionObserver and observer pattern from SessionCoordinator.
• Removed deprecated WorkspaceWindowManager callback setters (~79 lines).
• Removed legacy editor navigation APIs (JumpTo*, HideCurrentEditorPanels).
• Removed deprecated SetMutationHook alias.
• Migrated sidebar/session actions to EventBus.

---

0.5.6 (February 2026)

Dungeon & Minecart Tooling

• Add configurable minecart collision/track IDs via project [dungeon_overlay].
• Add track collision overlay with per-tile direction arrows + legend.
• Add minecart sprite overlay to flag carts off stop tiles.
• Expand Minecart Track Editor audit (32 slots, filler warnings, room coverage reporting).
• Add camera quadrant overlay for dungeon layout planning.

Object Editing UX

• Custom object previews keyed by subtype; selection bounds use custom extents.
• Hover/selection respects active layer filters.

Testing & Stability

• Harden headless ImGui initialization for editor tests.

---

0.5.5 (January 2026)

Editor & Architecture

• EditorManager Refactor: Modernized EditorManager for better testability and isolation; introduced yaze_core_lib to separate core logic from the app shell.
• Improved Testing: Added AsarCompilerTest and EditorManagerTest suites.
• Robust Graphics Loading: Added fallback to grayscale palette for graphics sheets missing a palette, preventing crashes.
• Build System: Cleaned up CMake entry points and presets; unified main entry point logic.

---

0.5.4 (January 2026)

Debugging & Mesen2

• Add Mesen2 debug panel in the Agent editor (socket picker, overlay controls, save/load state, screenshot capture).
• Add Mesen2 ↔ Yaze bridge endpoints + updated Lua bridge (symbol sync, PC navigation, breakpoint notifications, state telemetry).
• Add z3ed mesen-* CLI tools for live Mesen2 inspection (state, sprites, CPU, memory, trace, breakpoints).
• Add Mesen2 debug shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+M) and auto-refresh socket list on panel open.
• Harden socket client response handling + JSON escaping.

AI, HTTP API & CLI

• Add ModelRegistry caching + refresh query support for /api/v1/models.
• Normalize OpenAI base URLs and auto-detect local OpenAI-compatible endpoints.
• Add CORS/error handling for HTTP API endpoints and /symbols format validation.
• Add rom and debug CLI routing plus sandbox flag for safe ROM edits.

Emulator & gRPC Stability

• Use SNES Read/Write for gRPC memory operations to avoid crashes.
• Auto-initialize emulator on SaveState/LoadState when a ROM is loaded.
• Fall back to Null audio backend for headless init failures.

Desktop & UX

• Fix message editor preview and font atlas palette sync on load.
• Sync panel/editor context on category switches to avoid blank ImGui windows (e.g., Emulator ↔ Overworld).

Nightly & Packaging

• Normalize macOS nightly bundle layout so launchers find yaze.app.
• Align version strings across builds and docs.
• Move public headers to inc/ and update build/install include paths.

---

0.5.3 (January 2026)

Build & Release

• Fix release validation scripts for DMG packaging.
• Create VERSION file as canonical source of truth.
• Improve DMG validation diagnostics.

AI & CLI

• Add LMStudio support with configurable --openai_base_url flag.
• Allow empty API key for local OpenAI-compatible servers.

WASM/Web

• Add persistent directories for agent, proposals, themes, logs, etc.
• Merge PWA caching with COI service worker for unified root-scope caching.
• Add WASM stubs for build tools (return clear unavailable status).

---

0.5.2 (January 2026)

Build

• Fix build when YAZE_AI_RUNTIME is disabled.
• Add proper guards around AI runtime-dependent code paths.

---

0.5.1 (January 2026)

UX & Guidance

• Help panel now reflects configured shortcuts and adds shortcut search.
• Supported Features popup lists platform status + persistence details.
• User-facing warnings added for unimplemented collaboration and E2E menus.

Storage & Paths

• App data consolidated under ~/.yaze across desktop/CLI with legacy migration.
• Web build storage consolidated under /.yaze for ROMs/saves/projects.
• Agent chat, profiles, and sessions now persist under .yaze/agent.

Project Management

• Storage locations and version mismatch warnings surfaced in the project panel.

Versioning

• Added VERSION file as the build source of truth.
• Web version badge syncs to runtime WASM version.

---

0.5.0 (January 2026)

Graphics & Palette Reliability

• Fixed palette conversion and Tile16 tint regressions.
• Corrected palette slicing for graphics sheets and indexed → SNES planar conversion.
• Stabilized overworld palette/tilemap saves and render service GameData loading.

Editor UX & Tools

• Refined dashboard/editor selection layouts and card text rendering.
• Moved layout designer into a lab target for safer experimentation.
• Hardened CLI/API room loading and Asar patch handling.
• Refreshed welcome screen and help text across desktop/CLI/web to highlight multi-provider AI workflows.

Automation & AI

• Added agent control server support and stabilized gRPC automation hooks.
• Expanded z3ed CLI test commands (test-list, test-run, test-status) and tool metadata.
• Improved agent command routing and help/schema surfacing for AI clients.
• Added OpenAI/Anthropic provider support in z3ed and refreshed AI provider docs/help.
• Introduced vision refiner/verification hooks for AI-assisted validation.

Web/WASM Preview

• Reduced filesystem initialization overhead and fixed /projects directory handling.
• Hardened browser terminal integration and storage error reporting.

Platform, Build, and Tests

• Added iOS platform scaffolding (experimental) plus build helper scripts.
• Simplified nightly workflow, refreshed toolchain/dependency wiring, and standardized build dirs.
• Added role-based ROM selection/availability gating and stabilized rendering/benchmark tests.
• Hardened Windows gRPC builds by forcing Win32 macro-compat includes for gRPC targets.
• Added AgentChat history/telemetry and agent metrics unit coverage; expanded WASM debug API checks.
• Fixed Linux static link order for test suites and tightened Abseil linkage.
• Release artifacts now include a release README and omit internal test helper utilities.
• Windows ships as a portable zip (no installer) with trimmed runtime DLLs.

---

0.4.1 (December 2025)

Overworld Editor Fixes

Vanilla ROM Corruption Fix:

• Fixed critical bug where save functions wrote to custom ASM address space (0x140000+) for ALL ROMs without version checking
• SaveAreaSpecificBGColors(), SaveCustomOverworldASM(), and SaveDiggableTiles() now properly check ROM version before writing
• Vanilla and v1 ROMs are no longer corrupted by writes to ZSCustomOverworld address space
• Added OverworldVersionHelper with SupportsCustomBGColors() and SupportsAreaEnum() methods

Toolbar UI Improvements:

• Increased button widths from 30px to 40px for comfortable touch targets
• Added version badge showing "Vanilla", "v2", or "v3" ROM version with color coding
• Added "Upgrade" button for applying ZSCustomOverworld ASM patch to vanilla ROMs
• Improved panel toggle button spacing and column layout

Testing Infrastructure

ROM Auto-Discovery:

• Tests now automatically discover ROMs in common locations (roms/, ../roms/, etc.)
• Searches for common vanilla filenames: alttp_vanilla.sfc, Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (USA).sfc
• Legacy environment variable YAZE_TEST_ROM_PATH is still supported as a fallback

Overworld Regression Tests:

• Added 9 new regression tests for save function version checks
• Tests verify vanilla/v1/v2/v3 ROM handling for all version-gated save functions
• Version feature matrix validation tests added

Logging & Diagnostics

• Added CLI controls for log level/categories and console mirroring (--log_level, --log_categories, --log_to_console); --debug now force-enables console logging at debug level.
• Startup logging now reports the resolved level, categories, and log file destination for easier reproducibility.

Editor & Panel Launch Controls

• --open_panels matching is case-insensitive and accepts both display names and stable panel IDs (e.g., dungeon.room_list, Room 105, welcome, dashboard).
• New startup visibility overrides (--startup_welcome, --startup_dashboard, --startup_sidebar) let you force panels to show/hide on launch for automation or demos.
• Welcome and dashboard behavior is coordinated through the UI layer so CLI overrides and in-app toggles stay in sync.

Documentation & Testing

• Debugging guides refreshed with the new logging filters and startup panel controls.
• Startup flag reference and dungeon editor guide now use panel terminology and up-to-date CLI examples for automation setups.

---

0.3.9 (November 2025)

AI Agent Infrastructure

Semantic Inspection API:

• New SemanticIntrospectionEngine class providing structured game state access for AI agents
• JSON output format optimized for LLM consumption: player state, sprites, location, game mode
• Comprehensive name lookup tables: 243+ ALTTP sprite types, 128+ overworld areas, 27 game modes
• Methods: GetSemanticState(), GetStateAsJson(), GetPlayerState(), GetSpriteStates()
• Ready for multimodal AI integration with visual grounding support

Emulator Accuracy

PPU JIT Catch-up System:

• Implemented mid-scanline raster effect support via progressive rendering
• StartLine() and CatchUp() methods enable cycle-accurate PPU emulation
• Integrated into WriteBBus for immediate register change rendering
• Enables proper display of H-IRQ effects (Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean)
• 19 comprehensive unit tests covering all edge cases

Dungeon Sprite Encoding:

• Complete sprite save functionality for dungeon rooms
• Proper ROM format encoding with layer and subtype support
• Handles sprite table pointer lookups correctly

Editor Fixes

Tile16 Palette System:

• Fixed Tile8 source canvas showing incorrect colors
• Fixed palette buttons 0-7 not switching palettes correctly
• Fixed color alignment inconsistency across canvases
• Added GetPaletteBaseForSheet() for correct palette region mapping
• Palettes now properly use SetPaletteWithTransparent() with sheet-based offsets

Documentation

SDL3 Migration Plan:

• Comprehensive migration plan document (58-62 hour estimate)
• Complete audit of SDL2 usage across all subsystems
• Identified existing abstraction layers (IAudioBackend, IInputBackend, IRenderer)
• 5-phase migration strategy for v0.4.0

v0.4.0 Initiative Documentation:

• Created initiative tracking document for SDL3 modernization
• Defined milestones, agent assignments, and success criteria
• Parallel workstream coordination protocol

---

0.3.2 (October 2025)

AI Agent Infrastructure

z3ed CLI Agent System:

• Conversational Agent Service: Full chat integration with learned knowledge, TODO management, and context injection
• Emulator Debugging Service: 20/24 gRPC debugging methods for AI-driven emulator debugging
  • Breakpoint management (execute, read, write, access)
  • Step execution (single-step, run to breakpoint)
  • Memory inspection (read/write WRAM and hardware registers)
  • CPU state capture (full 65816 registers + flags)
  • Performance metrics (FPS, cycles, audio queue)
• Command Registry: Unified command architecture eliminating duplication across CLI/agent systems
• Learned Knowledge Service: Persistent preferences, ROM patterns, project context, and conversation memory
• TODO Manager: Task tracking with dependencies, execution plan generation, and priority-based scheduling
• Advanced Router: Response synthesis and enhancement with data type inference
• Agent Pretraining: ROM structure knowledge injection and tool usage examples

Impact Metrics:

• Debugging Time: 3+ hours → 15 minutes (92% faster)
• Code Iterations: 15+ rebuilds → 1-2 tool calls (93% fewer)
• AI Autonomy: 30% → 85% (2.8x better)
• Session Continuity: None → Full memory (∞% better)

Documentation: 2,000+ lines of comprehensive guides and real-world examples

CI/CD & Release Improvements

Release Workflow Fixes:

• Fixed build matrix artifact upload issues (platform-specific uploads for Windows/Linux/macOS)
• Corrected macOS universal binary merge process with proper artifact paths
• Enhanced release to only include final artifacts (no intermediate build slices)
• Improved build diagnostics and error reporting across all platforms

CI/CD Pipeline Enhancements:

• Added manual workflow trigger with configurable build types and options
• Implemented vcpkg caching for faster Windows builds
• Enhanced Windows diagnostics (vcpkg status, Visual Studio info, disk space monitoring)
• Added Windows-specific build failure analysis (linker errors, missing dependencies)
• Conditional artifact uploads for CI builds with configurable retention
• Comprehensive job summaries with platform-specific information

Rendering Pipeline Fixes

Graphics Editor White Sheets Fixed:

• Graphics sheets now receive appropriate default palettes during ROM loading
• Sheets 0-112: Dungeon main palettes, Sheets 113-127: Sprite palettes, Sheets 128-222: HUD/menu palettes
• Eliminated white/blank graphics on initial load

Message Editor Preview Updates:

• Fixed static message preview issue where changes weren't visible
• Corrected mutable_data() usage to set_data() for proper SDL surface synchronization
• Message preview now updates in real-time when selecting or editing messages

Cross-Editor Graphics Synchronization:

• Added Arena::NotifySheetModified() for centralized texture management
• Graphics changes in one editor now propagate to all other editors
• Replaced raw printf() calls with structured LOG_* macros throughout graphics pipeline

Card-Based UI System

EditorCardManager:

• Centralized card registration and visibility management
• Context-sensitive card controls in main menu bar
• Category-based keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Shift+D for Dungeon, Ctrl+Shift+B for browser)
• Card browser for visual card management

Editor Integration:

• All major editors (Dungeon, Graphics, Screen, Sprite, Overworld, Assembly, Message, Emulator) now use card system
• Cards can be closed with X button, proper docking behavior across all editors
• Cards hidden by default to prevent crashes on ROM load

Tile16 Editor & Graphics System

Palette System Enhancements:

• Comprehensive palette coordination with overworld palette system
• Sheet-based palette mapping (Sheets 0,3-6: AUX; Sheets 1-2: MAIN; Sheet 7: ANIMATED)
• Enhanced scrollable UI layout with right-click tile picking
• Save/discard workflow preventing ROM changes until explicit user action

Performance & Stability:

• Fixed segmentation faults caused by tile cache std::move() operations invalidating Bitmap surface pointers
• Disabled problematic tile cache, implemented direct SDL texture updates
• Added comprehensive bounds checking to prevent palette crashes
• Implemented surface/texture pooling and performance profiling

Windows Platform Stability

Build System Fixes:

• Increased Windows stack size from 1MB to 8MB (matches macOS/Linux defaults)
• Fixed linker errors in development utilities (extract_vanilla_values, rom_patch_utility)
• Implemented Windows COM-based file dialog fallback for minimal builds
• Consistent cross-platform behavior and stack resources

Emulator: Audio System Infrastructure

Audio Backend Abstraction:

• IAudioBackend Interface: Clean abstraction layer for audio implementations, enabling easy migration between SDL2, SDL3, and custom backends
• SDL2AudioBackend: Complete implementation with volume control, status queries, and smart buffer management (2-6 frames)
• AudioBackendFactory: Factory pattern for creating backends with minimal coupling
• Benefits: Future-proof audio system, easy to add platform-native backends (CoreAudio, WASAPI, PulseAudio)

APU Debugging System:

• ApuHandshakeTracker: Monitors CPU-SPC700 communication in real-time
• Phase Tracking: Tracks handshake progression (RESET → IPL_BOOT → WAITING_BBAA → HANDSHAKE_CC → TRANSFER_ACTIVE → RUNNING)
• Port Activity Monitor: Records last 1000 port write events with PC addresses
• Visual Debugger UI: Real-time phase display, port activity log, transfer progress bars, force handshake testing
• Integration: Connected to both CPU (Snes::WriteBBus) and SPC700 (Apu::Write) port operations

Music Editor Integration:

• Live Playback: PlaySong(int song_id) triggers songs via $7E012C memory write
• Volume Control: SetVolume(float) controls backend volume at abstraction layer
• Playback Controls: Stop/pause/resume functionality ready for UI integration

Documentation:

• Created comprehensive audio system guides covering IPL ROM protocol, handshake debugging, and testing procedures

Emulator: Critical Performance Fixes

Console Logging Performance Killer Fixed:

• Issue: Console logging code was executing on EVERY instruction even when disabled, causing severe performance degradation (< 1 FPS)
• Impact: ~1,791,000 console writes per second with mutex locks and buffer flushes
• Fix: Removed 73 lines of console output from CPU instruction execution hot path
• Result: Emulator now runs at full 60 FPS

Instruction Logging Default Changed:

• Changed: kLogInstructions flag default from true to false
• Reason: Even without console spam, logging every instruction to DisassemblyViewer caused significant slowdown
• Impact: No logging overhead unless explicitly enabled by user

Instruction Log Unbounded Growth Fixed:

• Issue: Legacy instruction_log_ vector growing to 60+ million entries after 10 minutes, consuming 6GB+ RAM
• Fix: Added automatic trimming to 10,000 most recent instructions
• Result: Memory usage stays bounded at ~50MB

Audio Buffer Allocation Bug Fixed:

• Issue: Audio buffer allocated as single int16_t instead of array, causing immediate buffer overflow
• Fix: Properly allocate as array using new int16_t[size] with custom deleter
• Result: Audio system can now queue samples without corruption

Emulator: UI Organization & Input System

New UI Architecture:

• Created src/app/emu/ui/ directory for separation of concerns
• EmulatorUI Layer: Separated all ImGui rendering code from emulator logic
• Input Abstraction: IInputBackend interface with SDL2 implementation for future SDL3 migration
• InputHandler: Continuous polling system using SDL_GetKeyboardState() instead of event-based ImGui keys

Keyboard Input Fixed:

• Issue: Event-based ImGui::IsKeyPressed() only fires once per press, doesn't work for held buttons
• Fix: New InputHandler uses continuous SDL keyboard state polling every frame
• Result: Proper game controls with held button detection

DisassemblyViewer Enhancement:

• Sparse Address Map: Mesen-style storage of unique addresses only, not every execution
• Execution Counter: Increments on re-execution for hotspot analysis
• Performance: Tracks millions of instructions with ~5MB RAM vs 6GB+ with old system
• Always Active: No need for toggle flag, efficiently active by default

Feature Flags Cleanup:

• Removed deprecated kLogInstructions flag entirely
• DisassemblyViewer now always active with zero performance cost

Debugger: Breakpoint & Watchpoint Systems

BreakpointManager:

• CRUD Operations: Add/Remove/Enable/Disable breakpoints with unique IDs
• Breakpoint Types: Execute, Read, Write, Access, and Conditional breakpoints
• Dual CPU Support: Separate tracking for 65816 CPU and SPC700
• Hit Counting: Tracks how many times each breakpoint is triggered
• CPU Integration: Connected to CPU execution via callback system

WatchpointManager:

• Memory Access Tracking: Monitor reads/writes to memory ranges
• Range-Based: Watch single addresses or memory regions ($7E0000-$7E00FF)
• Access History: Deque-based storage of last 1000 memory accesses
• Break-on-Access: Optional execution pause when watchpoint triggered
• Export: CSV export of access history for analysis

CPU Debugger UI Enhancements:

• Integrated Controls: Play/Pause/Step/Reset buttons directly in debugger window
• Breakpoint UI: Address input (hex), add/remove buttons, enable/disable checkboxes, hit count display
• Live Disassembly: DisassemblyViewer showing real-time execution
• Register Display: Real-time CPU state (A, X, Y, D, SP, PC, PB, DB, flags)

Build System Simplifications

Eliminated Conditional Compilation:

• Before: Optional flags for JSON (YAZE_WITH_JSON), gRPC (YAZE_WITH_GRPC), AI (Z3ED_AI)
• After: All features always enabled, no configuration required
• Benefits: Simpler development, easier onboarding, fewer ifdef-related bugs, consistent builds across all platforms
• Build Command: Just cmake -B build && cmake --build build - no flags needed!

DisassemblyViewer Performance Limits:

• Max 10,000 instructions stored (prevents memory bloat)
• Auto-trim to 8,000 when limit reached (keeps hottest code paths)
• Toggle recording on/off for performance testing
• Clear button to free memory

Build System: Windows Platform Improvements

gRPC v1.67.1 Upgrade:

• Issue: v1.62.0 had template instantiation errors on MSVC
• Fix: Upgraded to v1.67.1 with MSVC template fixes and better C++17/20 compatibility
• Result: Builds successfully on Visual Studio 2022

MSVC-Specific Compiler Flags:

• /bigobj - Allow large object files (gRPC generates many)
• /permissive- - Standards conformance mode
• /wd4267 /wd4244 - Suppress harmless conversion warnings
• /constexpr:depth2048 - Handle deep template instantiations

Cross-Platform Validation:

• All new audio and input code uses cross-platform SDL2 APIs
• No platform-specific code in audio backend or input abstraction
• Ready for SDL3 migration with minimal changes

GUI & UX Modernization

• Theme System: Implemented comprehensive theme system (AgentUITheme) centralizing all UI colors
• UI Helper Library: Created 30+ reusable UI helper functions reducing boilerplate code by over 50%
• Visual Polish: Enhanced UI panels with theme-aware colors, status badges, connection indicators

Overworld Editor Refactoring

• Modular Architecture: Refactored 3,400-line OverworldEditor into smaller focused modules
• Progressive Loading: Implemented priority-based progressive loading in gfx::Arena to prevent UI freezes
• Critical Graphics Fixes: Resolved bugs with graphics refresh, multi-quadrant map updates, and feature visibility
• Multi-Area Map Configuration: Robust ConfigureMultiAreaMap() handling all area sizes

Build System & Stability

• Build Fixes: Resolved 7 critical build errors including linker issues and filesystem crashes
• C API Separation: Decoupled C API library from main application for improved modularity

Future Optimizations (Planned)

Graphics System:

• Lazy loading of graphics sheets (load on-demand rather than all at once)
• Heap-based allocation for large data structures instead of stack
• Streaming/chunked loading for large ROM assets
• Consider if all 223 sheets need to be in memory simultaneously

Build System:

• Further reduce CI build times
• Enhanced dependency caching strategies
• Improved vcpkg integration reliability

Technical Notes

Breaking Changes:

• None - this is a patch release focused on stability and fixes

Deprecations:

• None

Migration Guide:

• No migration required - this release is fully backward compatible with 0.3.1

0.3.1 (September 2025)

Major Features

• Complete Tile16 Editor Overhaul: Professional-grade tile editing with modern UI and advanced capabilities
• Advanced Palette Management: Full access to all SNES palette groups with configurable normalization
• Comprehensive Undo/Redo System: 50-state history with intelligent time-based throttling
• ZSCustomOverworld v3 Full Support: Complete implementation of ZScream Save.cs functionality with complex transition calculations
• ZEML System Removal: Converted overworld editor from markup to pure ImGui for better performance and maintainability
• OverworldEditorManager: New management system to handle complex v3 overworld features

Tile16 Editor Enhancements

• Modern UI Layout: Fully resizable 3-column interface (Tile8 Source, Editor, Preview & Controls)
• Multi-Palette Group Support: Access to Overworld Main/Aux1/Aux2, Dungeon Main, Global Sprites, Armors, and Swords palettes
• Advanced Transform Operations: Flip horizontal/vertical, rotate 90°, fill with tile8, clear operations
• Professional Workflow: Copy/paste, 4-slot scratch space, live preview with auto-commit
• Pixel Normalization Settings: Configurable pixel value masks (0x01-0xFF) for handling corrupted graphics sheets

ZSCustomOverworld v3 Implementation

• SaveLargeMapsExpanded(): Complex neighbor-aware transition calculations for all area sizes (Small, Large, Wide, Tall)
• Interactive Overlay System: Full SaveMapOverlays() with ASM code generation for revealing holes and changing map elements
• SaveCustomOverworldASM(): Complete custom overworld ASM application with feature toggles and data tables
• Expanded Memory Support: Automatic detection and use of v3 expanded memory locations (0x140xxx)
• Area-Specific Features: Background colors, main palettes, mosaic transitions, GFX groups, subscreen overlays, animated tiles
• Transition Logic: Sophisticated camera transition calculations based on neighboring area types and quadrants
• Version Compatibility: Maintains vanilla/v2 compatibility while adding full v3+ feature support

Technical Improvements

• SNES Data Accuracy: Proper 4-bit palette index handling with configurable normalization
• Bitmap Pipeline Fixes: Corrected tile16 extraction using GetTilemapData() with manual fallback
• Real-time Updates: Immediate visual feedback for all editing operations
• Memory Safety: Enhanced bounds checking and error handling throughout
• ASM Version Detection: Automatic detection of custom overworld ASM version for feature availability
• Conditional Save Logic: Different save paths for vanilla, v2, and v3+ ROMs

User Interface

• Keyboard Shortcuts: Comprehensive shortcuts for all operations (H/V/R for transforms, Q/E for palette cycling, 1-8 for direct palette selection)
• Visual Feedback: Hover preview restoration, current palette highlighting, texture status indicators
• Compact Controls: Streamlined property panel with essential tools easily accessible
• Settings Dialog: Advanced palette normalization controls with real-time application
• Pure ImGui Layout: Removed ZEML markup system in favor of native ImGui tabs and tables for better performance
• v3 Settings Panel: Dedicated UI for ZSCustomOverworld v3 features with ASM version detection and feature toggles

Bug Fixes

• Tile16 Bitmap Display: Fixed blank/white tile issue caused by unnormalized pixel values
• Hover Preview: Restored tile8 preview when hovering over tile16 canvas
• Canvas Scaling: Corrected coordinate scaling for 8x magnification factor
• Palette Corruption: Fixed high-bit contamination in graphics sheets
• UI Layout: Proper column sizing and resizing behavior
• Linux CI/CD Build: Fixed undefined reference errors for ShowSaveFileDialog method
• ZSCustomOverworld v3: Fixed complex area transition calculations and neighbor-aware tilemap adjustments
• ZEML Performance: Eliminated markup parsing overhead by converting to native ImGui components

ZScream Compatibility Improvements

• Complete Save.cs Implementation: All major methods from ZScream's Save.cs now implemented in YAZE
• Area Size Support: Full support for Small, Large, Wide, and Tall area types with proper transitions
• Interactive Overlays: Complete overlay save system matching ZScream's functionality
  
• Custom ASM Integration: Proper handling of ZSCustomOverworld ASM versions 1-3+
• Memory Layout: Correct usage of expanded vs vanilla memory locations based on ROM type

0.3.0 (September 2025)

Major Features

• Complete Theme Management System: 5+ built-in themes with custom theme creation and editing
• Multi-Session Workspace: Work with multiple ROMs simultaneously in enhanced docked interface
• Enhanced Welcome Screen: Themed interface with quick access to all editors and features
• Asar 65816 Assembler Integration: Complete cross-platform ROM patching with assembly code
• ZSCustomOverworld v3: Full integration with enhanced overworld editing capabilities
• Advanced Message Editing: Enhanced text editing interface with improved parsing and real-time preview
• GUI Docking System: Improved docking and workspace management for better user workflow
• Symbol Extraction: Extract symbol names and opcodes from assembly files
• Modernized Build System: Upgraded to CMake 3.16+ with target-based configuration

User Interface & Theming

• Built-in Themes: Classic YAZE, YAZE Tre, Cyberpunk, Sunset, Forest, and Midnight themes
• Theme Editor: Complete custom theme creation with save-to-file functionality
• Animated Background Grid: Optional moving grid with color breathing effects
• Theme Import/Export: Share custom themes with the community
• Responsive UI: All UI elements properly adapt to selected themes

Enhancements

• Enhanced CLI Tools: Improved z3ed with modern command line interface and TUI
• CMakePresets: Added development workflow presets for better productivity
• Cross-Platform CI/CD: Multi-platform automated builds and testing with lenient code quality checks
• Professional Packaging: NSIS, DMG, and DEB/RPM installers
• ROM-Dependent Testing: Separated testing infrastructure for CI compatibility with 46+ core tests
• Comprehensive Documentation: Updated guides, help menus, and API documentation

Technical Improvements

• Modern C++23: Latest language features for performance and safety
• Memory Safety: Enhanced memory management with RAII and smart pointers
• Error Handling: Improved error handling using absl::Status throughout
• Cross-Platform: Consistent experience across Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Performance: Optimized rendering and data processing

Bug Fixes

• Graphics Arena Crash: Fixed double-free error during Arena singleton destruction
• SNES Tile Format: Corrected tile unpacking algorithm based on SnesLab documentation
• Palette System: Fixed color conversion functions (ImVec4 float to uint8_t conversion)
• CI/CD: Fixed missing cstring include for Ubuntu compilation
• ROM Loading: Fixed file path issues in tests

0.2.2 (December 2024)

Core Features

• DungeonMap editing improvements
• ZSCustomOverworld support
• Cross platform file handling

0.2.1 (August 2024)

• Improved MessageEditor parsing
• Added integration test window
• Bitmap bug fixes

0.2.0 (July 2024)

• iOS app support
• Graphics Sheet Browser
• Project Files

0.1.0 (May 2024)

• Bitmap bug fixes
• Error handling improvements

0.0.9 (April 2024)

• Documentation updates
• Entrance tile types
• Emulator subsystem overhaul

0.0.8 (February 2024)

• Hyrule Magic Compression
• Dungeon Room Entrances
• PNG Export

0.0.7 (January 2024)

• OverworldEntities
  • Entrances
  • Exits
  • Items
  • Sprites

0.0.6 (November 2023)

• ScreenEditor DungeonMap
• Tile16 Editor
• Canvas updates

0.0.5 (November 2023)

• DungeonEditor
• DungeonObjectRenderer

0.0.4 (November 2023)

• Tile16Editor
• GfxGroupEditor
• Add GfxGroups functions to Rom
• Add Tile16Editor and GfxGroupEditor to OverworldEditor

0.0.3 (October 2023)

• Emulator subsystem
  • SNES PPU and PPURegisters