WpfHexEditor.Plugins.DataInspector

Project: WpfHexEditor.Plugins.DataInspector Version: 0.7.0 License: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 Platform: net8.0-windows (WPF) Default dock: Bottom

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Description

The Data Inspector plugin interprets the bytes at the current cursor position (or selection) as every common primitive type simultaneously and displays all results in a single scrollable list. It also renders a byte-frequency or Shannon-entropy chart of the active data scope.

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Features

• 40+ byte interpretations at the caret: signed/unsigned integers (8/16/32/64-bit), floating-point (float, double), GUID, DateTime, Windows FILETIME, Unix timestamp, color (RGBA, ARGB, BGR), ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16, boolean, bitmask, and more.
• Byte-frequency chart (BarChartPanel) — custom-rendered FrameworkElement; 256 bars, one per byte value (0x00–0xFF).
• Entropy chart — sliding-window Shannon entropy rendered as a color-coded canvas (green = low, red = high).
• Three data scopes switchable from the toolbar:
  • Active view — bytes currently visible in the hex editor viewport; updates on scroll (coalesced).
  • Selection — selected byte range; async load with progress overlay for ranges > 1 MB.
  • Whole file — up to a 4 MB stratified sample; loaded once per file, cached.
• Zoom on the frequency chart: 1x–16x, mouse-wheel zoom, drag rubber-band zoom to a byte range.
• Chart position configurable (Left / Right / Top / Bottom) and persisted to DataInspectorOptions.json.
• Chart copy to clipboard as a PNG bitmap.
• Footer statistics: entropy value, most-common byte, null-byte %, printable-ASCII %.
• Auto-refresh toggle; manual Refresh button always available regardless of setting.
• Toolbar overflow (5 groups, ToolbarOverflowManager): collapses Layout → Action → Zoom → Mode → Toggles.
• Theme-aware: bar color, background, grid lines, and text color update on global theme switch.

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Panel

Property	Value
Panel ID	WpfHexEditor.Plugins.DataInspector.Panel.DataInspectorPanel
Default dock side	Bottom
Auto-hide	false
Preferred height	260
View menu entry	View > Data Inspector

Internal components

Component	Responsibility
DataInspectorPanel.xaml(.cs)	Layout engine, zoom/scope logic, toolbar overflow wiring
DataInspectorViewModel.cs	40+ interpretation rows, UpdateBytes(byte[])
BarChartPanel.cs	Custom FrameworkElement rendering 256 frequency bars
DataInspectorOptions.cs	Persisted settings (%AppData%\WpfHexaEditor\Plugins\DataInspector.json)
DataInspectorPlugin.cs	Plugin entry point; subscribes to SelectionChanged, ViewportScrolled, FileOpened, ThemeChanged

Architecture notes

• Pattern: Observer — DataInspectorPlugin subscribes to host events and forwards them to the panel.
• Circular dependency avoided: BarChartPanel has no reference to DataInspectorViewModel.
• Async reads use CancellationTokenSource — a new scope cancels the previous in-flight read.
• Whole-file chart data is cached (_wholeFileChartLoaded flag) and is not re-read on every SelectionChanged.

Theme compliance

All brushes use DynamicResource tokens (Panel_ToolbarButtonActiveBrush, PFP_PanelBackgroundBrush, DockMenuForegroundBrush, DockBorderBrush). RefreshTheme() is called by the plugin on every theme-switch notification.