kUI-0.81a

The biggest kUI release yet: 44 commits since 0.27a, headlined by over-the-air updates, The Dude moving into the launcher, screen-fit bezel overlays, and Artbook theme variants.

Updating

• Over-the-air (new!): on kUI 0.27a with WiFi connected, open Tools → Updater, pick kUI-0.81a, and let it do its thing. No SD card reformat, no data loss — a boot-time migration handles everything. This is kUI's first OTA-capable release.
• Fresh install: format an SD card as FAT32 (MBR), unzip kUI-0.81a.zip onto it, add your ROMs and BIOS files, insert, and power on.

sha256: 1d5731db7f0288896d790ebc5c308e96b940cfea48d9da4ea6c572e6bd40763a

Highlights

Over-the-air updates

The Updater now shows a live download progress bar, and the whole update path was audited end-to-end: the release zip ships its payload exclusively via MinUI.zip, and binaries that are running during an update (the updater itself, the bundled unzip) are staged as *.new and swapped in at boot. Future releases install from the couch.

The Dude lives in the launcher now

The Dude is no longer a separate pak — he's built into the launcher itself. Quest launches go through the exact same code path as launching any game (resume, recents, play-time tracking all just work), returning from a quest drops you back at his screen, and a cold boot centers the carousel on him. Also new: the Mystery quest — a blind launch of a random game from your library for +75 XP. Several tracking bugs fixed along the way (quest completions counting, vanished-ROM guards).

Screen-fit bezel overlays

Shin & KrutzOtrem's MIT-licensed bezel pack ships for 17 platforms — console-shaped bezels for handhelds (GB, GBC, GBA, GBH, GG, Lynx, NGPC) and CRT frames for home consoles. Handhelds default to pixel-perfect Native scaling inside their bezel. Your existing per-game settings are never overridden.

Artbook theme variants

Settings → Themes now offers five local Artbook variants — Default, Nintendont, Noir, Outline, Circuit (art by Anthony Caccese) — applied instantly, no downloads, no catalog. Clearing a theme restores the stock look in one press.

UI Modes: Lists / Covers / Carousel

Choose how the launcher presents your library in Settings → Appearance → UI Mode:

• Lists — pure text, fastest possible browsing
• Covers — vertical lists with boxart
• Carousel — the full kUI experience: carousel, boxart, metadata, platform pill

Launcher polish

• Platform pill anchored to the tray everywhere — launcher, in-game menu, settings
• L1/R1 platform hop — jump between consoles from inside any game list (empty platforms skipped)
• Metadata footer — year · publisher · genre under the boxart, marquee-scrolls when long
• Simple Mode is now a native toggle (Settings → Appearance) — games only, no Tools, minimal in-game menu

For ROM hack players

The GBH (Game Boy hacks) system now picks the right bezel per game by file extension — mixed folders of GB, GBC, and GBA hacks each get matching overlays.

Also in this release

• White point correction (Settings → Display) with per-channel RGB gain — absorbed from upstream NextUI (LoveRetro#760)
• Launch hooks (.userdata/<platform>/.hooks/ — boot, pre/post-launch, pre-sleep, post-resume) for pak authors — absorbed from upstream (LoveRetro#690)
• Scraper: broader platform coverage and fuzzier ROM-name matching
• RetroAchievements offline: RA PreFetch reliably populates the offline cache; wiping a game also clears its RA cache
• Storefront: 7 paks removed that duplicated kUI built-ins; every remaining pak re-audited before release
• Fixes: crash entering Tools from the Quick Menu, Quick Menu resume state, PakDek scroll position memory, metadata footer rendering races, shader original-texture support (LoveRetro#720, thanks DrFlarp)

Supported systems

47 systems out of the box — see SUPPORTED_SYSTEMS.md. Heavier emulators (DraStic, N64, Dreamcast, PSP, ScummVM) install on demand through PakDek.

Credits

Built on NextUI (GPL-3.0), itself built on Shaun Inman's MinUI. Bezel art by Shin & KrutzOtrem (MIT). Artbook Next artwork by Anthony Caccese (CC-BY-NC-SA). Thanks to the upstream NextUI team — four upstream improvements are absorbed in this release, tracked in UPSTREAM_TRACKING.md.