[Feature] Run pattern from file

[NoaFayn]

What feature would you like to see?

The Pattern editor is great to start simple, but when working with larger pattern files, some nice features of robust text editors start to become more and more missed.

Also, the tendency of ImHex to regularly crash makes it very difficult to trust it.

It would be nice to leave the edition part to text editors, and make ImHex load the file and run the pattern (instead of forcing to edit inside ImHex).

To further improve the UX, it would be nice to automatically detect when the pattern file is modified and automatically run the pattern on ImHex.

How will this feature be useful to you and others?

It will allow the development of new patterns to be done in a code editor that has all of the features expected of a text editor, while still being able to use ImHex for what it is created for: highlighting the data of a hex file.

It will also prevent the cumbersome task for copy/pasting every time we make a small update to the pattern file.

Request Type

• I can provide a PoC for this feature or am willing to work on it myself and submit a PR

Additional context?

No response

[paxcut]

If you switch to the latest version (1.38.0wip) that can be obtained from the nightly builds you will find all the features mentioned in this request already added and working. Not only you can use any external editor of your choice, but Imhex will notify you of changes and there is an auto run to automatically run patterns when they change.

As for the pattern editor not having features that makes you want to use other editors I would find it very useful if you could make a small list of said features so that they can be added if possible. I am currently developing features for the pattern editor and so far have added things like find/replace, subpixel font rendering, full utf8 support, full syntax highlighting for all pattern language components, parenthesis matching, non scrolling line numbers, smooth scrolling, delimiter completion, scroll until the last line is only visible and many more too long to list all. Currently I am working on fully featured code folding that is almost completed.In the near future i''l be attempting code completion, sticky lines, macro recording/playback, etc...

About crashing it is obviously not the developers intention to create software that crashes 'regularly' and I find the latest nightly builds to be an order of magnitude less crash prone than the latest release 1.37.4. Also note that the reason behind the crashes are known for the most part as they have been already fixed so it is easy to avoid doing things that are known to crash Imhex. If you come across some new way to make ImHex crash, making that known to the developers makes it normally one of the highest priorities to investigate and fix.

If nothing else we can find whats causing the crash and explore ways to avoid crashing so that you can once again start trusting ImHex as much as any other hex editor if not more. There are some key features like autosaves, project restoration after crashing , easily accessible shortcuts to save patterns and projects that can make losing work to crashes pretty difficult if not impossible as long as they are used intelligently.

[NoaFayn]

Can you point me to the documentation or quickly tell me how to enable this?

I don't see anything on the ImHex documentation website...

For the features, I could work on a small list and propose them here, but the real "problem" (which isn't one at all, is just me), is that I like having an editor that I customize, I like changing the shortcuts, the font, the layout, and in general making it "my own". And having to re-learn a new editor, re-bind my shortcuts, find that it is missing a small and useless feature that I liked is not very practical.

Don't misunderstand me, I still think that having an editor internal to ImHex is useful (to debug, to show useful information related to other sub-systems of ImHex, to highlight the patterns, etc), and I'm very grateful and impressed by all of the work that has been done! But I prefer using one tool for one purpose. I love ImHex for hex parsing and editing, but much less for code editing (again, it's a matter of personal preference).

And for the "regular" crashes, I've started using ImHex one or two years ago, and I agree that it is less prone to crashing than before. Sadly, from a user perspective, 1 crash is one too many. And I prefer not loosing any work that I've done.

[paxcut]

There's no documentation yet afaik. You are using an app while it is being developed, but for this case it is not something that really needs documentation. Just open the same file in the pattern editor and in your editor, make some changes and save them. you'll see what happens then. One of ImHex's many charms is making new features discoverable if you like exploring.

[NoaFayn]

I would assume that even if the documentation is not released on the website yet, it could be written as the features are implemented.

I've done the following without any success:

1. Write a pattern in the Pattern editor.
2. Click on File > Export > Pattern file
3. Save in a known location
4. Open with other editor
5. Make changes
6. Save
7. Go back to ImHex
8. Nothing happens

Another thing:

1. Write a pattern in another editor
2. Click on File > Import > Pattern file > Browse...
3. Select the pattern file
4. The pattern is correctly imported in the Pattern editor
5. Open same file with other editor
6. Make changes
7. Save
8. Go back to ImHex
9. Nothing happens

Another thing:

1. Write a pattern in another editor
2. Click on File > Open Pattern... > Browser...
3. Select the pattern file
4. The pattern is correctly imported in the Pattern editor
5. Open same file with other editor
6. Make changes
7. Save
8. Go back to ImHex
9. A blue ribbon appears with the message "File has been modified by an external source. Do you want to reload it?"
10. Click on "Reload"
11. Nothing happens

So while I understand that documentation might not always be needed for simple features, I'm having trouble understanding how ImHex works with pattern files. What am I doing wrong? I'm assuming that the import/export doesn't get linked to the underlying file (and so doesn't track changes). Am I correct? I'm also assuming that the last test that I've made is the closest that I am to achieving what I want. But I don't understand why the file is not reloaded when I click on the "Reload" button.

[paxcut]

Yes, you are correct about how import/export differ from open/save. the later track changes and notify you while the former does neither. If you want to change the tracking to a different file then you use Save As.

I agree about documentation being useful when it exists and how it is preferable to have it rather than not. Some documentation is being written and it is on prs waiting to be merged on the documentation repository. The people writing documentation are not the same as the people adding features so they don't always occur synchronously.

There is also another aspect that we haven't mentioned that affects how easy to understand an undocumented feature may be. New features are often also including errors that can obscure how the feature is supposed to work in the absence of documentation. In this case the inclusion of the function that does the actual file saving was missing from the original code when it was merged. It was later discovered that even if it wasn't missing it wouldn't have been thread safe, so a patch was created that is awaiting to be reviewed #2457 .

Despite all the difficulties you managed to correctly ascertain how it works and wrote enough information to remind me the details of where this feature is currently standing.For now you will have to apply the changes by saving (not exporting) the pattern which should have the default shortcut Ctrl-S assigned to it

[NoaFayn]

Thank you for the status! And for all the responses to my questions!