WPFHexaEditor 3.1.3

WPFHexaEditor

A full-featured WPF hex editor UserControl for .NET 8.
Drop it into any WPF window — no IDE, no plugin host, no external dependencies.

dotnet add package WPFHexaEditor

Quick Start

1 — Add the namespace

<Window
    xmlns:hexe="clr-namespace:WpfHexEditor.HexEditor;assembly=WpfHexEditor.HexEditor">

2 — Place the control

<hexe:HexEditor x:Name="HexEdit" />

3 — Open a file

HexEdit.FileName = @"C:\path\to\file.bin";

4 — Open a stream

HexEdit.Stream = File.OpenRead("data.bin");

5 — Read or modify bytes

// Read
byte b = HexEdit.GetByte(offset);

// Write (adds to undo stack)
HexEdit.SetByte(offset, 0xFF);

// Undo / redo
HexEdit.Undo();
HexEdit.Redo();

// Save
HexEdit.SubmitChanges();          // save to original file
HexEdit.SubmitChanges("out.bin"); // save to new file

Standalone setup (no IDE host)

Merge the resource dictionary so themes and brushes resolve correctly:

<Application.Resources>
    <ResourceDictionary>
        <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
            <ResourceDictionary Source="pack://application:,,,/WpfHexEditor.HexEditor;component/Resources/Dictionary/Generic.xaml" />
        </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
    </ResourceDictionary>
</Application.Resources>

Context menus use opaque backgrounds by default. No extra theming is needed.

Features

Viewing & Navigation

• Hex + ASCII panels with configurable column count
• Column and row cursor highlighting
• Line numbers and offset display (hex / decimal)
• Scroll marker panel
• Column ruler
• Go to offset (Ctrl+G)
• Read-only mode

Editing

• In-place byte editing in hex or ASCII panel
• Multi-byte selection with keyboard and mouse
• Drag-selection auto-scroll
• Undo / redo with UndoGroup transactions and coalescence
• Undo history dropdown
• Cut / copy / paste
• Fill selection with value

Format Detection

• 600+ built-in format definitions (.whfmt) — auto-detection on open
• Format field overlay — semi-transparent colored blocks over detected structures
• Syntax coloring driven by format rules
• Shannon entropy, byte distribution, anomaly detection

Search

• Find (hex sequence, ASCII text, regex)
• Match case / whole word
• Search result highlighting with scroll-bar tick marks

Import / Export

• Intel HEX (.hex) import/export
• Motorola S-Record (.srec/.s19) import/export
• Binary template compiler (010 Editor compatible)
• ParsedFields export templates

UI Controls

• HexBreadcrumbBar — visual structure navigator
• HexScrollMarkerPanel — overview of bookmarks, search hits, and changes
• Settings panel with auto-generated UI and ColorPicker

Settings

• Full DependencyProperty API for programmatic control
• JSON settings persistence (export / import)
• ByteToolTipDisplayMode, ByteToolTipDetailLevel, MouseWheelSpeed, FontSize, BytePerLine, and 30+ more

What's New in 3.1.3

• Feat: 155+ new .whfmt format definitions added (Groups C–J) — total now exceeds 600 definitions.
• Feat: FormatSchemaValidator wired — .whfmt files are now validated against schema v2.3 at load time; violations are reported via FormatLoadFailure.
• Feat: .whfmt schema bumped to v2.3 — references and detection fields unified across all categories.
• Fix: Stream operations — contributor enhancements to stream-backed byte provider edge cases.
• Fix: ForensicPattern tolerant converter — invalid pattern values no longer throw; fallback to null with log entry.
• New: InputFilter control — reusable filter-bar UserControl for hex/byte input.
• New: HexStringToColorConverter — XAML binding converter for hex color strings.

What's New in 3.1.2

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

What's New in 3.1.1

• Fix: TechnicalDetails.SampleRate changed from int? to string?.
• Fix: MOBI.whfmt references structure corrected.
• Fix: GFX.whfmt, TIL.whfmt, CHR.whfmt Platform field corrected.
• Fix: 5 .whfmt files with invalid Strength values corrected.
• Perf: JsonSerializerOptions in ImportFromJson is now a static readonly field — avoids 463+ allocations at startup.

What's New in 3.1.0

• Fix: SignatureStrength enum now correctly deserialized — was silently falling back to None(0), causing all TIER 1 strong-signature formats to be excluded from detection.
• Fix: TIER 1 candidates scored before early-exit check.
• Fix: TIER 2 text-heuristic suppressed when TIER 1 has a match.
• Fix: Entropy check skipped for Strong/Unique signatures.
• Fix: EmbeddedFormatCatalog.GetAll() fully thread-safe.
• Fix: 463 .whfmt block-comment headers removed (fixes #229).
• Fix: HexBreadcrumbBar ContextMenu fully opaque in standalone apps.

What's New in 3.0.4

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

What's New in 3.0.0 (since WPFHexaEditor 2.1.7)

Breaking changes: .NET 8.0-windows only, namespace WPFHexaEditor → WpfHexEditor.HexEditor, assembly renamed, modular architecture.
See full changelog in the GitHub repository.

Included Assemblies

All bundled inside the package — zero external NuGet dependencies:

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

License

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

Links

• GitHub Repository
• Report Issues