ROM hacking tools in mGBA

[endrift]

I've gotten a request for a bunch of tools to be added for ROM hacking purposes, including:

• A palette exporter
  
• text translation table support (.tbl?)
  
• A way to trace RAM data back to ROM
  

Are there any other tools that people would want?

As for these tools, what file formats would be useful? For palettes, I could easily do .aco or .act exporting, two Photoshop formats. Are there other formats that would be useful? And what of .tbl files? I don't have any information on this file format, which would make it a bit challenging to implement. I found http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Text_Table, but it's a bit incomplete.

[suspendedhatch]

Don't know if this is related, but I've heard of a concept of patching games on the fly. That way you preserve your roms unaltered.

[endrift]

That generally refers to automatic loading of a patch in the emulator, patching the ROM in memory. That's been supported in mGBA since 0.1.0, so it doesn't need to be added.

[anjbe]

Are there any other tools that people would want?

A window to view the contents of video RAM graphically (unless that feature already exists).

And what of .tbl files? I don't have any information on this file format, which would make it a bit challenging to implement. I found http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Text_Table, but it's a bit incomplete.

Here’s a spec—written probably 15 years after the first tools using .tbl (and IMO quite overcomplicated, most tools support little more than basic A0=a\nA1=b\n…).