acdream/docs
Erik bcc34ee301 feat(chat): retail text style — two-plane glyph outlines, authored SpewBox/chat styles
Campaign CH round 4, user-gate items 1+2. Root cause: retail ships a
second (background) glyph atlas per font, dilated 2px on every side,
plus two border-pixel scalars (Font.NumHorizontalBorderPixels/
NumVerticalBorderPixels) that acdream's font reader never read — so
even the pre-existing outline parameter drew almost nothing once
enabled. Landed together (either half alone is a no-op or a
regression):

- UiDatFont carries BorderX/BorderY from the DAT font resource.
- UiRenderContext.DrawStringDat inflates the background blit's source
  and destination rect by that margin and restructures into retail's
  exact two-pass whole-string outline-then-fill model
  (UIElement_Text::DrawSelf), plus the 8-neighbour +-1px fallback for
  fonts with no background atlas. Corrects the stale "property 0xd"
  comment to the real ids, 0x21 (Outline) / 0x22 (OutlineColor).
- LayoutDesc property 0x21/0x22 import (ElementInfo.Outline/
  OutlineColor, LayoutImporter.ReadState, ElementReader.Merge/
  ApplyCanonicalLegacyProjection, DatWidgetFactory.BuildText) so every
  authored-outline element across the DAT set is correct at once.
- SpewBox: RetailFontId corrected from a round-3 heuristic
  (0x40000025) to the actually-authored 0x40000001 (18px bold serif),
  Outline=true set on the controller's UiText. Fill colour stays the
  user-gate-round-1-pinned yellow — font atlases are alpha-only
  (PFID_A8), so there is no baked shading that could explain the
  screenshot's gold as anything other than the outline itself.
- Chat transcript: default fill now seeds from its authored
  ARGB(255,204,204,204) instead of an unrelated color-table slot
  (ChatTranscriptRenderer.BuildLines takes the transcript's own
  DefaultColor as a parameter); the 34-entry LogTextType table is
  untouched, and every existing CH1 conformance test stays green
  unmodified.

Regenerated the committed chat_2100006f.json fixture from the real
installed DAT, confirming end to end (not by missing-field default)
that the transcript carries no outline.

Tests: font-reader border fields + inflation math pinned against the
real DAT font, two-pass draw ordering/tint/inflation via a new
TextRenderer.DebugSpriteSegmentVerts test seam, property 0x21/0x22
import at both the ElementReader.Merge and StateDesc-property layers,
SpewBox font/outline, and the chat default-shade seed with the color
table proven untouched.

Full Release suite: 12,610 passed / 4 skipped / 0 failed
(AcDream.slnx, complete solution).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-10 19:28:34 +02:00
..
architecture feat(chat): retail text style — two-plane glyph outlines, authored SpewBox/chat styles 2026-08-10 19:28:34 +02:00
audit docs: update audit — Sprint 1 items verified (sequence counters + scenery LCG) 2026-04-13 13:51:39 +02:00
plans feat(chat): retail text style — two-plane glyph outlines, authored SpewBox/chat styles 2026-08-10 19:28:34 +02:00
reference docs(reference): preserve local ACE command catalog 2026-07-27 00:03:58 +02:00
reports docs: the overnight consolidation report, open questions first 2026-07-29 03:54:43 +02:00
research feat(chat): retail text style — two-plane glyph outlines, authored SpewBox/chat styles 2026-08-10 19:28:34 +02:00
superpowers fix(world): remove non-retail portal exit fade 2026-07-15 23:20:52 +02:00
bugs.md docs: reconcile project status and navigation 2026-07-20 13:00:41 +02:00
ISSUES.md fix(chat): round 4 — no user-visible meta text, real /help groups, indicator buttons toggle 2026-08-10 18:46:34 +02:00
README.md docs: reconcile project state and refresh README 2026-07-27 12:53:31 +02:00

acdream documentation map

This page is the entry point for project documentation. It distinguishes current sources of truth from implementation history so an old plan or issue banner cannot silently override the current program state.

Current snapshot — 2026-07-27

  • Milestone state: M3, “Cast a spell,” landed 2026-07-21. M4, “Live in the world,” is active.
  • M4 gameplay program: resume the pre-M4 world-interaction completion program. Favorite-spell overflow, status Use/Assess, and the complete assessment surface are user-accepted. Equipped-child picking and vendor browse/transactions remain Slices 46.
  • Structural/runtime state: all eight GameWindow decomposition slices, Modern Runtime Slices AJ, and the connected visual/lifecycle gates are complete. GameWindow is a 1,622-line composition/callback shell. AcDream.Runtime.GameRuntime owns canonical session, entity/object, gameplay, movement, physics, projectile, environment, and portal state; graphical and no-window hosts borrow the same owner graph.
  • Headless state: Slice K is complete. AcDream.Headless is a presentation-free Windows/Linux host with deterministic commands/events, shared immutable content, multi-session isolation, reconnect, resource telemetry, and 1/5/10/30-session gates. The final two-account native-Linux soak completed ten minutes, logged out through ACE, and converged every ownership ledger.
  • Linux graphical state: Slice L0 and the L1 implementation checkpoint are complete at 66f114b2 and 11501d52. Native Windows passes the active modern-GL/audio/window smoke. WSLg X11/Wayland correctly reject their missing GL_ARB_bindless_texture. Physical-Linux validation and L2L6 are explicitly deferred; resume at the supported AMD/NVIDIA L1 gate.
  • Completed gameplay gates: R6 locomotion/collision/projectile/teleport/ radar, two-client portal-out/materialization, indoor prepared collision, loot ordering, local/remote ground drops, and selection-marker lifetime.
  • Separate visual verification: issue #225, the shared-alpha lifestone/particle result; its connected resource-lifetime and performance routes pass.
  • Carried behaviour debt: issue #153 (far teleport onto an unstreamed edge), #116 (narrowed slide response), #235 (capped/RDP jump cadence), and the active temporary-stopgap rows in the divergence register.
  • Divergence audit: 189 active rows — IA 18, AD 38, AP 91, TS 38, and UN 4 — plus retained struck/retired historical rows such as TS-37.
  • Latest automated baseline: the Release build succeeds with the 17 test-project warnings tracked by issue #228; 8,826 tests pass and five are intentionally skipped. App passes 3,763 / 3 skips. The L1 Windows supported smoke and WSLg X11/Wayland negative-capability reports all end with zero window/GL/input/audio ownership.

Sources of truth

Read these in this order when deciding what to do next:

  1. plans/2026-05-12-milestones.md — the active playable outcome, freeze boundaries, and visual gates.
  2. plans/2026-04-11-roadmap.md — strategic phase ledger: shipped, active, deferred, and future work.
  3. ISSUES.md — tactical defects and small follow-ups. The status inside an issue is authoritative; physical order is not.
  4. architecture/retail-divergence-register.md — every known place runtime behavior can differ from retail.
  5. architecture/acdream-architecture.md and architecture/code-structure.md — ownership, dependency, update-thread, and extraction rules.
  6. architecture/worldbuilder-inventory.md — rendering/DAT code already owned in-tree versus mechanisms still ours to port.

If these disagree, milestones control the current outcome, the roadmap controls work ordering, the issue status controls the individual defect, and the architecture documents control implementation shape. Reconcile the stale document in the same change; do not leave both claims standing.

Research and implementation records

  • research/named-retail/ is the primary retail oracle: named pseudo-C, headers, symbols, and types from the Sept 2013 build.
  • research/decompiled/ is the older Ghidra fallback.
  • research/ contains focused pseudocode, traces, fixtures, and gate reports. A dated research note records evidence; it does not become a new roadmap.
  • superpowers/specs/ and superpowers/plans/ are per-slice design and execution records. Completed plans remain historical.
  • audit/ contains completion and conformance audits.
  • reference/ace-commands.md preserves the local ACE server's complete in-game command catalog and points to the authoritative per-command help surface.

Durable memory

  • ../claude-memory/MEMORY.md indexes the live subsystem memories and the render/physics digests. Read a domain digest before changing that subsystem, especially its DO-NOT-RETRY table.
  • ../memory/ contains stable engineering references such as the modern rendering pipeline, two-tier streaming, and toolchain notes.

Memory accelerates recall; it does not outrank the canonical documents above. When current truth changes, update the relevant canonical document and distill only the durable lesson into memory.

Historical and deprecated documents

  • bugs.md is the April 2026 bug snapshot. It is preserved for archaeology and is not an active ledger.
  • Dated plans and specs describe the decision at that time. Their completion wording is historical unless the current milestone/roadmap explicitly links the item as active.
  • Old R1→R8 architecture sequencing is superseded. Current execution comes from the milestones and strategic roadmap.

Documentation maintenance rules

  • Update milestone, roadmap, issue, divergence, architecture, and memory claims in the same commit when a shipped change affects them.
  • Keep one issue ID per defect. Narrow an issue in place; do not reuse another issue's number as a shorthand.
  • Mark automated, connected, and visual gates separately. An automated pass is not a visual acceptance, and an RDP throughput sample is not a local-display visual comparison.
  • Preserve research history, but remove stale “current/next” claims from living documents once the state advances.