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Welcome to WPF HexEditor Wiki

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What is WPF HexEditor?

WPF HexEditor is a full binary analysis IDE for Windows built entirely with WPF and .NET 8.0. Think Visual Studio for binary files — with a VS-style docking engine, a plugin system, an integrated terminal, and a powerful hex editor control at its core.

flowchart LR
    subgraph IDE["WpfHexEditor IDE"]
        App["IDE Application\nWpfHexEditor.App"]
        Editors["6 Editors\nHex · TBL · JSON · Text · Image · Code"]
        Panels["12 Panels\nSolution Explorer · Terminal\nPlugin Manager · Plugin Monitoring · ..."]
        Plugins["Plugin System\nSDK + PluginHost\n7 first-party plugins"]
    end
    Control["Standalone HexEditor Control\nembeddable in any WPF app"]
    App --> Editors
    App --> Panels
    App --> Plugins
    IDE -.->|reuses| Control

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Quick Links

Getting Started	Clone, build and run the IDE in minutes
Architecture	Complete IDE + control architecture with Mermaid diagrams
↳ Docking Engine	XAML setup, layout persistence, panel registration
↳ Project System	.whsln / .whproj, migration pipeline, IEditorPersistable
↳ Editor Registry	IDocumentEditor contract, format-aware editor selection
↳ ContentId Routing	Tab & panel ID mapping, duplicate prevention
Plugin System	Build your own plugin with the SDK
Terminal	31+ commands, scripting, plugin API
Plugin Monitoring	Real-time CPU/memory charts per plugin
ByteProvider	Virtual view, PositionMapper, undo/redo, smart save
Rendering Engine	DrawingContext pipeline, 99% faster than V1
Search Architecture	LRU cache, Boyer-Moore, SIMD, parallel search
API Reference	HexEditor control public API
FAQ	Frequently asked questions
Contributing	How to contribute

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IDE Features

Feature	Description
VS-Style Docking	Float, dock, auto-hide, colored tabs — 100% in-house, 8 themes
Project System	.whsln / .whproj, virtual & physical folders, format migration
Plugin System	IWpfHexEditorPluginV2, .whxplugin packages, hot-unload, permissions
Terminal	31+ built-in commands, HxScriptEngine, mode badge, session export
Plugin Monitoring	Per-plugin CPU% + memory charts, PerformanceCounter + GC, 1 s polling
400+ Format Detection	Format-aware editor routing, EmbeddedFormatCatalog
Inline Search	Ctrl+F quick bar + Ctrl+Shift+F advanced (Hex/Text/Regex/TBL/Wildcard)
Options	VS-style settings tab — theme, display, editing, behavior, plugins
8 Themes	Dark · Light · VS2022Dark · DarkGlass · Minimal · Office · Cyberpunk · VisualStudio

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Editors

Editor	Progress	Notes
Hex Editor	~75%	Insert/overwrite, 400+ formats, TBL, search, bookmarks
TBL Editor	~60%	Character table editor for ROM hacking
Code Editor	~55%	Syntax highlighting, find/replace, IEditorPersistable
JSON Editor	~65%	Live validation, diagnostics to Error Panel
Text Editor	~50%	Encoding support, caret persistence
Image Viewer	~30%	Zoom/pan, rotate/flip/crop/resize pipeline

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IDE Panels

Panel	Progress
Parsed Fields	~75%
Data Inspector (40+ types)	~65%
Structure Overlay	~55%
Solution Explorer	~75%
Properties Panel	~60%
Error Panel	~70%
Output Panel	~65%
Terminal Panel	~70%
Plugin Manager	~65%
Plugin Monitoring	~60%
Quick Search Bar	~55%
Advanced Search	~45%

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HexEditor Control — Key Stats

The WpfHexEditor.HexEditor UserControl can also be embedded in any WPF application without the IDE:

• 99% faster rendering — custom DrawingContext vs legacy ItemsControl
• 10-100x faster search — LRU cache + Boyer-Moore + SIMD + parallel multi-core
• 80-90% less memory — Span<T> + ArrayPool
• 21 specialized services — MVVM, 100% testable
• 19 languages — instant runtime switching
• Handles files from bytes to gigabytes

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Latest Changes (2026-03)

• Plugin Monitoring Panel — real-time CPU%/memory charts per plugin, pure WPF Canvas + Polyline
• Terminal Panel UX Overhaul — RichTextBox output, 6 export formats, mode indicator, auto-scroll, timestamps, tab completion
• Plugin Manager Overhaul — themed toolbar, RelayCommand, live status, diagnostics output
• Format-Aware Editor Selection — EmbeddedFormatCatalog + preferredEditor key in .whfmt
• Image Viewer Crop — 8 resize handles, veil overlay, FileShare.ReadWrite concurrent open
• HexEditor Navigation Fixes — keyboard scroll exact 1-line advance, VerticalScroll.Value sync
• Solution Explorer Multi-Select — DataTrigger driven, WPF native selection bypassed
• Properties Panel Auto-Refresh — DependencyPropertyDescriptor bypass of anti-recursion guard
• WelcomePanel — "What's Next" roadmap section restored (parser now handles ## without brackets)

See CHANGELOG for full history.

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Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/abbaye/WpfHexEditorIDE.git

Open WpfHexEditorControl.sln → set WpfHexEditor.App as startup → F5.

Embed the control in your own WPF app:

<ProjectReference Include="..\WpfHexEditor.Core\WpfHexEditor.Core.csproj" />
<ProjectReference Include="..\WpfHexEditor.HexEditor\WpfHexEditor.HexEditor.csproj" />

<hex:HexEditor FileName="data.bin" />

The V1 NuGet package (WPFHexaEditor) remains available but is no longer maintained. V2 targets .NET 8.0-windows exclusively.

👉 Full Getting Started guide →

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Community

• Author: Derek Tremblay (derektremblay666@gmail.com)
• Contributors: Claude Sonnet 4.6 · ehsan69h · Janus Tida
• License: Apache 2.0
• Issues: GitHub Issue Tracker
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions