This release brings significant user-interface improvements, new features for game browsing and management, enhanced stability, and various under-the-hood technical refinements.
Improvements
- New System Selection Screen: Displayed a more visual screen when no system is chosen to simplify platform selection.
- Revamped Navigation Panel: Added a panel on the left side of the main window with quick-access buttons for Restart, Global Search, Favorites, Play History, Edit System (Expert Mode), Toggle View Mode, Toggle Aspect Ratio, Zoom In, and Zoom Out.
- Switchable View Modes: Enabled toggling between Grid View (with game-cover images) and List View (showing game details in a table).
- Enhanced Zooming: Allowed zooming in and out of game thumbnails in Grid View via the new buttons or the Ctrl + mouse-wheel shortcut.
- Displayed Game File Sizes: Showed file sizes in List View.
- Overhauled UI Layout: Redesigned the main window and multiple dialogs (Easy Mode, Download Image Pack, Global Search, Favorites, Play History, Edit System).
- Refined Error Handling: Improved error messages and user prompts throughout the application.
- Updated Documentation Links: Improved Help User section and parameters guide links.
- Enhanced Gamepad Logic: Made controller navigation more reliable.
- Standardized Sound Effects: Switched to a consistent notification sound across the app.
- Updated Batch Convert To CHD: Added support for 7z and RAR files, enabled parallel processing, and improved multithreading.
- Added Batch Convert To RVZ: Introduced a tool to convert GameCube and Wii ISO files to RVZ format.
- Updated Emulators: Upgraded to the latest emulator versions.
- Updated MAME Data File: Bumped to version 0.277.
mame.dat
Bug Fixes & Internal Changes (for developers/advanced users)
- Fixed various Gamepad Controller issues
- Corrected typos and added null checks
- Addressed default-logic errors in emulator error notifications
- Prevented potential XML vulnerabilities during file loading/saving
- Fixed context-menu parameter-handling bugs
- Refactored and reorganized code for better maintainability and performance
- Replaced Newtonsoft.Json with System.Text.Json for JSON processing
- Improved file-path handling: more robust relative-path resolution and folder-name sanitization
- Enhanced asynchronous operations for smoother UI responsiveness
- Implemented stricter code-quality checks
- Consolidated “Please Wait” dialog logic
- Removed redundant or unused code
- Improved the structure and reusability of context-menu creation logic
- Integrated
IHttpClientFactoryfor HTTP client management