eblitui

Shared UI framework for retro emulators. Provides common interfaces, front ends, and utilities so multiple emulator cores can share the same UI code while remaining fully independent applications.

Each emulator links the components it needs and ships as its own binary. This is not a multi-system emulator -- it is a shared UI layer that individual emulators build on top of.

Components

coreif

Shared interface contract between emulator cores and UI implementations. Defines the CoreFactory, Emulator, and optional capability interfaces (SaveStater, BatterySaver, MemoryInspector, MemoryMapper) that allow cores and UIs to work together without knowing each other's internals.

Zero external dependencies.

desktop

Full-featured desktop application UI built on Ebiten. Includes a game library with scanning and artwork, settings, save states, rewind, shader effects, RetroAchievements integration, gamepad and keyboard navigation, and audio-driven timing.

libretro

Libretro core wrapper that bridges the coreif interfaces to the libretro API. Builds as a shared library (.so/.dylib/.dll) loadable by any libretro-compatible frontend such as RetroArch.

rdb

Parser for RetroArch/libretro RDB files. These are MessagePack-encoded binary databases containing game metadata (name, developer, publisher, genre, CRC32, MD5, serial, release date, etc.). Provides fast lookups by CRC32 and MD5 for identifying ROMs and retrieving their metadata.

Zero external dependencies.

romloader

ROM loading utility that handles raw files and compressed archives (ZIP, 7z, gzip/tar.gz, RAR). Auto-detects formats via magic bytes and extracts ROMs by extension.

How It Works

An emulator core implements the interfaces defined in coreif. The core then links one of the UI packages (desktop or libretro) and provides its CoreFactory as the entry point. The UI handles everything else: rendering, audio, input, saves, settings, and any additional features.

Emulator Core (e.g. emkiii, emmd)
    |
    implements coreif interfaces
    |
    +---> desktop      (desktop app)
    +---> libretro     (shared library for RetroArch etc.)

Optional interfaces are detected at runtime via type assertion. A core only implements what it supports and the UI adapts accordingly.

Module Structure

This is a Go workspace. Each component is its own Go module:

Module	Import Path
coreif	github.com/user-none/eblitui/coreif
desktop	github.com/user-none/eblitui/desktop
libretro	github.com/user-none/eblitui/libretro
rdb	github.com/user-none/eblitui/rdb
romloader	github.com/user-none/eblitui/romloader

Building

Individual emulators are built from their own repositories by importing the eblitui modules they need. There is no single binary built from this repository directly.

Tests for each component can be run from their directories:

go test ./coreif/...
go test ./romloader/...
go test ./desktop/...
go test ./libretro/...
go test ./rdb/...