WPFHexaEditor

Main WPF Hex Editor control library - a fast, fully customizable hex editor for .NET applications.

📁 Project Structure

WPFHexaEditor/
├── 🎯 Main Controls
│   ├── HexEditor.xaml.cs       # Primary hex editor control (6000+ lines)
│   ├── HexBox.xaml.cs          # Container/layout control
│   ├── HexByte.cs              # Hexadecimal byte display control
│   ├── StringByte.cs           # Text/ASCII byte display control
│   ├── BaseByte.cs             # Base class for byte display controls
│   └── FastTextLine.cs         # Optimized text rendering component
│
├── 📂 Core/                    # Core infrastructure and utilities
│   ├── Bytes/                  # ByteProvider, byte manipulation
│   ├── CharacterTable/         # TBL file support
│   ├── Converters/             # WPF value converters
│   ├── EventArguments/         # Custom event args
│   ├── Interfaces/             # Core interfaces
│   ├── MethodExtention/        # Extension methods
│   └── Native/                 # Windows API P/Invoke
│
├── 🔧 Services/                # Business logic services (10 services)
│   ├── ClipboardService.cs
│   ├── FindReplaceService.cs
│   ├── UndoRedoService.cs
│   ├── SelectionService.cs
│   ├── HighlightService.cs
│   ├── ByteModificationService.cs
│   ├── BookmarkService.cs
│   ├── TblService.cs
│   ├── PositionService.cs
│   └── CustomBackgroundService.cs
│
├── 💬 Dialog/                  # UI dialogs
│   ├── FindWindow.xaml
│   ├── FindReplaceWindow.xaml
│   ├── GiveByteWindow.xaml
│   └── ReplaceByteWindow.xaml
│
├── 🌍 Properties/              # Assembly info and localization
│   ├── AssemblyInfo.cs
│   ├── Resources.resx          # English (default)
│   ├── Resources.fr-CA.resx    # French Canadian
│   ├── Resources.pl-PL.resx    # Polish
│   ├── Resources.pt-BR.resx    # Brazilian Portuguese
│   ├── Resources.ru-RU.resx    # Russian
│   └── Resources.zh-CN1.resx   # Simplified Chinese
│
└── 📦 Resources/               # Embedded resources (icons, images)

🎯 Main Component: HexEditor

HexEditor.xaml.cs is the primary control that users interact with.

Key Features:

✅ Binary file editing with full undo/redo support
✅ Read/write streams and files (any size)
✅ Hexadecimal and ASCII/text views side-by-side
✅ Search and replace (byte patterns, text, regex)
✅ Insert/overwrite modes with dynamic file resizing
✅ Copy/paste with multiple formats (hex, text, binary)
✅ Bookmarks and custom highlighting
✅ TBL file support for custom character encodings
✅ Selection and multi-byte operations
✅ Scroll markers for visual navigation
✅ Customizable appearance (colors, fonts, width)
✅ High performance with lazy loading for large files

Architecture (Service-Based):

The HexEditor delegates business logic to 10 specialized services:

HexEditor (Main Controller - 6000+ lines)
    │
    ├── ByteProvider (Data Access Layer)
    │   └── Stream/File I/O with modification tracking
    │
    └── 10 Services (Business Logic Layer)
        ├── ClipboardService      - Copy/paste operations
        ├── FindReplaceService    - Search with caching
        ├── UndoRedoService       - History management
        ├── SelectionService      - Selection logic
        ├── HighlightService      - Visual markers (stateful)
        ├── ByteModificationService - Insert/delete/modify
        ├── BookmarkService       - Bookmark management
        ├── TblService            - Character table handling
        ├── PositionService       - Position calculations
        └── CustomBackgroundService - Background colors

Benefits:

Separation of concerns (UI vs business logic)
Testable services (see WPFHexaEditor.Tests)
Reusable logic (services used in samples)
Maintainable codebase (reduced complexity)

🧩 Byte Display Controls

HexByte.cs

Displays byte as hexadecimal (FF, A0, etc.)
Handles keyboard input for hex editing
Two-character input with validation
Inherits from BaseByte

StringByte.cs

Displays byte as character (., A, é, etc.)
ASCII/ANSI display mode
Custom character table (TBL) support
Inherits from BaseByte

BaseByte.cs

Abstract base class for byte display controls
Provides common functionality:
- Selection rendering
- Mouse interaction
- Focus management
- Read-only mode
- Action indicators (modified, deleted, inserted)
- Color schemes

🎓 Usage Example

Basic Usage:

// In XAML
<wpfHexEditor:HexEditor x:Name="HexEdit"
                        Width="Auto"
                        Height="Auto"/>

// In code-behind
// Open a file
HexEdit.FileName = @"C:\data\file.bin";

// Or use a stream
using var stream = File.OpenRead("data.bin");
HexEdit.Stream = stream;

// Modify bytes
HexEdit.SelectionStart = 100;
HexEdit.SelectionStop = 110;
HexEdit.FillWithByte(0xFF);

// Search
var positions = HexEdit.FindAll(new byte[] { 0x48, 0x65, 0x6C, 0x6C, 0x6F }); // "Hello"

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

// Save changes
HexEdit.SubmitChanges();

Advanced Usage:

// Load custom character table (TBL)
HexEdit.LoadTblFile(@"pokemon_gen1.tbl");

// Set custom background colors
HexEdit.AddCustomBackgroundBlock(100, 20, Colors.Yellow);

// Bookmarks
HexEdit.AddBookmark(500);
HexEdit.SetPosition(500, 1); // Jump to bookmark

// Insert mode (vs overwrite)
HexEdit.InsertMode = true;
HexEdit.InsertByte(0xFF, 1000);

// Events
HexEdit.ByteModified += (s, e) =>
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Byte at {e.Position:X} changed");
};

🔗 Multi-Targeting

Supports multiple .NET frameworks:

✅ .NET Framework 4.8 - For legacy Windows applications
✅ .NET 8.0-windows - Latest .NET with modern C# features

🌍 Internationalization

Built-in support for 6 languages:

🇬🇧 English (default)
🇨🇦 French Canadian
🇵🇱 Polish
🇧🇷 Brazilian Portuguese
🇷🇺 Russian
🇨🇳 Simplified Chinese

Language resources in Properties/ folder.

📚 Documentation

Detailed Component Documentation:

Core/ - Core infrastructure overview
Services/ - Service architecture (10 services)
Dialog/ - Find/Replace dialogs
Core/Bytes/ - ByteProvider and data layer
Core/CharacterTable/ - TBL file support
Core/Converters/ - WPF value converters
Core/EventArguments/ - Event argument classes
Core/Interfaces/ - Interface definitions
Core/MethodExtention/ - Extension methods
Core/Native/ - Windows API P/Invoke

Sample Applications:

See Samples/ for 7 example applications demonstrating various features.

Unit Tests:

See WPFHexaEditor.Tests/ for 80+ unit tests covering all services.

🎨 Customization

The HexEditor is highly customizable via properties:

// Appearance
HexEdit.Foreground = Brushes.White;
HexEdit.Background = Brushes.Black;
HexEdit.BytePerLine = 16;  // Bytes per line (8, 16, 32, etc.)

// Behavior
HexEdit.ReadOnlyMode = false;
HexEdit.AllowByteInsertion = true;
HexEdit.AutoScrollToHighlight = true;

// Display
HexEdit.ByteSpacing = 5;
HexEdit.HexDataVisibility = Visibility.Visible;
HexEdit.StringDataVisibility = Visibility.Visible;

// Data format
HexEdit.ByteOrder = ByteOrder.LittleEndian;
HexEdit.DataStringVisual = DataVisualType.Hexadecimal;

🚀 Performance

Optimizations for large files:

Lazy Loading: Only loads visible bytes into memory
Virtual Scrolling: Renders only visible portion
Memory-Mapped Files: Efficient I/O for multi-GB files
Change Tracking: Only modified bytes stored in memory
Native APIs: P/Invoke for high-performance operations
FastTextLine: Optimized text rendering component

Capable of handling multi-GB files with low memory footprint.

🔧 Building

# Build all targets
dotnet build WpfHexEditorCore.csproj

# Build specific framework
dotnet build -f net8.0-windows
dotnet build -f net48

# Run tests
cd ../WPFHexaEditor.Tests
dotnet test

📦 NuGet Package

Published as: WpfHexaEditor on NuGet.org

dotnet add package WpfHexaEditor

🎯 Design Philosophy

Separation of Concerns: UI (HexEditor) vs Business Logic (Services)
Testability: Services are stateless/testable in isolation
Performance: Optimized for large files
Extensibility: Plugin architecture via services
Backward Compatibility: No breaking API changes

🐛 Debugging

Common issues:

File locked: Ensure file is not open in another application
Out of memory: Enable read-only mode for very large files
Slow scrolling: Check BytePerLine setting (16 is optimal)
Character encoding: Load appropriate TBL file for custom encodings

📜 License

Apache 2.0 License - See LICENSE.txt

Original Author: Derek Tremblay
Contributors: ehsan69h, Janus Tida, Claude Sonnet 4.5

✨ High-performance WPF hex editor control for .NET applications

WpfHexEditorControl

Wpf Hexeditor is a powerful and fully customisable user control for editing file or stream as hexadecimal, decimal and binary. Can be used in Wpf or WinForm application