release_2.4.0

This release marks a significant milestone in the evolution of ROM Validator, focusing on architectural stability, performance optimizations, and enhanced support for the No-Intro ecosystem.

🔍 Enhanced Validation & DAT Support

• SHA256 Support: Full integration of SHA256 hashing for No-Intro XML DATs, including parsing, indexing, and multi-hash verification.
• Improved Format Detection: Advanced scanner to proactively identify and reject incompatible formats (ClrMamePro text, MAME XML, HTML, and ZIP) with descriptive user notifications.
• Smart File Renaming: New option to automatically rename local files to match DAT entries when hashes match but filenames differ.
• Internal Archive Renaming: Added support for renaming files inside ZIP archives to ensure full collection compliance.
• Multi-ROM Support: Improved handling of game entries containing multiple ROM files.

🚀 Performance & Reliability

• Library Migration: Replaced SevenZipSharp with SharpCompress, enabling native support for Zip, 7z, and RAR without requiring external 7z DLL dependencies.
• Async Architecture: Fully migrated to OpenArchive and OpenEntryStreamAsync APIs for non-blocking I/O.
• UI Responsiveness:
  • Implemented background file counting for dynamic, accurate progress bar updates.
  • Added UI virtualization (limiting displayed logs to 500 items) to prevent lag during large scans.
  • Offloaded DAT serialization to background threads.
• Thread Safety: Integrated Interlocked counters and thread-safe buffers for UI updates.

📂 Collection Management

• Permanent Deletion: Added a safety-confirmed option to permanently delete failed or unknown files from the disk.
• Sequential Processing: Switched to a robust sequential processing model to prevent race conditions during file move/rename operations.
• ZIP Fallback: Added a fallback extraction mechanism for ZIP files using incompatible compression methods.

💻 System & UX

• Centralized Logging: Introduced LoggerService for standardized error and activity logging.
• Automatic Bug Reporting: Integrated BugReportService to automatically capture and report application exceptions for faster troubleshooting.
• Modern Standards: Updated codebase to .NET 10 and C# 14, utilizing GeneratedRegex and other modern language features.

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Note: This version exclusively supports No-Intro XML DAT files. Users attempting to load ClrMamePro or MAME-specific DATs will be notified to download compatible XML files from the No-Intro website.