8bitworkshop Notes – Include binary files

By default, 8bitworkshop uses chr_generic.s as the source of CHR data. The CHR pattern tables is embeds directly as byte arrays in the .s assembly file within the web editor. However, I can’t edit that file directly using YY-CHR or my custom Processing 4 tools. I have no intention of migrating to 8bitworkshop entirely, as I want to keep my established ROM hacking tools in my workflow.

• Go to the top menu and select Upload… to upload your .chr file. Note that this step can be a bit unintuitive: you need to select [Open As New Project] so it gets saved as a standalone file in your workspace directory.
• Once uploaded, add a resource directive at the very top of your main file to include the .chr asset.

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// 8BITWORKSHOP ASSET LINK DIRECTIVES
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
//#resource "my.chr"

• In my chr_include.s file (a new .s file I created based on chr_generic.s to avoid confusion), I replaced the original byte array with .incbin "my.chr".
• My chr_include.s now looks like this, with all the original .byte lines removed:

;;{w:8,h:8,bpp:1,count:256,brev:1,np:2,pofs:8,remap:[0,1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]};;
.segment "CHARS"
.incbin "my.chr"

• After linking it in the main file, it was all set. Now I can edit the .chr file with my custom tools and update it whenever needed.”

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// 8BITWORKSHOP ASSET LINK DIRECTIVES
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
//#resource "my.chr"
//#link "chr_include.s"

The great news is I can do the same for external Nametable files. Upload individual Nametable file and add a resource directive for each of them in the main file. In the “nametable.s”:

.export _nametable_0, _nametable_1, _nametable_2, _nametable_3
.export _nametable_4, _nametable_5, _nametable_6, _nametable_7

.segment "RODATA"

_nametable_0: .incbin "pic0.nam"
_nametable_1: .incbin "pic1.nam"
_nametable_2: .incbin "pic2.nam"
_nametable_3: .incbin "pic3.nam"
_nametable_4: .incbin "pic4.nam"
_nametable_5: .incbin "pic5.nam"
_nametable_6: .incbin "pic6.nam"
_nametable_7: .incbin "pic7.nam"

Compared to the .byte array format, this approach is much cleaner.