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Syplheed-Reborn/docs/re/structures/ui-resting-pose.md
Sylpheed RE agent 5414db34bf re: the rest() fix gets its disc-wide check, and one question back to the
port agent

Closing the two things I flagged as unconfirmed when I committed the fix.

The unit gate is green: cargo test -p sylpheed-formats with SYLPHEED_DISC
set gives 131 passed, 0 failed across six binaries including the
disc-gated ones. The earlier background run that produced an empty log
had died with SIGTERM, which is why it looked like nothing happened.

And the disc-wide check the classification requires. Reimplementing both
rules over every RATC bundle on the disc -- 2859 bundles, 13991 elements
with at least two keyframes -- the fix moves rest for 30 elements, which
is 0.21 percent. Four go invisible to visible. Zero go visible to
invisible, which is the safety property I wanted and did not have when I
committed. The four are ptframe1 and ptframe2 in GP_TITLE entries 5 and
8, the same pair once per language.

That surfaces a discrepancy worth handing back rather than smoothing
over. On the English main menu exactly TWO elements satisfy the port
agent's pose-equality condition, not six, so their six must span the
whole twelve-screen export. That fits their own observation that the
timeline and rest differ in exactly one region, the bounding box of
ptframe1 and ptframe2 and nothing else. But if any of their other four
have a TRANSPARENT trailing run, my alpha rule leaves them alone
deliberately -- that exclusion is what protects PAUSE -- so I have asked
which screens they are on and whether a capture shows any of them drawn.
If one is, the alpha rule is incomplete and needs a third discriminator.
2026-08-28 21:24:42 +00:00

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# A keyframe is the start of a ramp, not a pose that is held
**Status:**`CONFIRMED` against the framebuffer capture of the running title
screen — the new rule aligns at **zero shift**, the old one had to be moved.
🟡 the fallback for groups that never hold is unverified. ❔ interpolation
between keyframes is still not implemented, only the resting pose.
## The rule that was wrong
`Element::rest()` answers "where is this element when the screen is just sitting
there", and every composite the port draws depends on it. It used to pick the
keyframe with the **largest gap to the next keyframe's time** — the frame that
"dwells longest".
That reads a keyframe as a value held until the next one. It is not: a keyframe
is the **start of a ramp toward the next one**. So a long gap after keyframe *k*
means the screen spends that whole time *arriving at* `k+1` — the settled pose is
at the **far** end of the gap, not the near one.
The title wordmark makes it concrete. `ptlogo1.t32` zooms in from off-screen:
```
kf0 150% (-116, -7) a=0x00 t=26 off-screen, invisible
kf1 150% (-116, -7) a=0x00 t=34
kf2 112% ( 109, 123) a=0x80 t=38
kf3 103% ( 165, 171) a=0xc0 t=40
kf4 101% ( 179, 186) a=0xe0 t=42 ← old rule picked this
kf5 100% ( 184, 193) a=0xff t=251 ← the settled pose
kf6 100% ( 184, 193) a=0xff t=264 ← held here
kf7 100% ( 184, 193) a=0x00 t=None fades out
```
The gap 42 → 251 is by far the largest, so the old rule picked **kf4** — 1 % too
large and 5 px up-left, a frame from mid-zoom. The pose the screen actually holds
is kf5kf6.
## The rule that is right
**The resting pose is the hold: the longest run of consecutive keyframes with an
identical pose.** Ties go to the later run, matching the in → hold → out shape.
Groups that ramp through every frame and never hold fall back to longest-dwell.
## The measurement
`docs/re/captures/title-screen-oracle.png` is a framebuffer capture of the
running title screen. It is a **1:1 crop** of the 1280×720 frame (1279×675) —
verified by the copyright line landing on row 669 in the capture and in both
composites — so frame coordinates map directly and a shift is meaningful.
Edge-correlated over the wordmark box (x 1501150, y 200400) with
`tools/re-capture/align_to_capture.py`. Gradient magnitude, not colour: the
capture's planet is mid-explosion and orange while ours is blue, and the wordmark
materials are undecoded, so a pixel diff would measure everything except the
question being asked.
| resting rule | best correlation | at shift | at (0,0) |
|---|---|---|---|
| **plateau** (landed) | **0.4597** | **(0, 0)** | 0.4597 |
| longest dwell (old) | 0.1511 | (+3, +8) | 0.1268 |
The old composite peaks 3× lower **and only after being moved** — displaced by
about the (5,7) that kf4-instead-of-kf5 predicts. The new one is already where
the game puts it.
* [composited with the plateau rule](../captures/ui-layout/title-composited-plateau-rest.png)
* [composited with the old longest-dwell rule](../captures/ui-layout/title-composited-longest-dwell-rest.png)
## What else it fixed, on the same screen
The old rule systematically picked the **invisible** end of a fade-in. On the
title screen it rested these at alpha `0x00`, where the capture plainly shows
them:
`ptlogo_tm` (the ™), `ptcopyright`, `ptlogo_back2`, `ptlogo_back2eff`,
`ptloop01`/`ptloop02`.
And `pteff00.prm` — the full-screen fade quad that paints **last** — rested at
**opaque black**. That is the whole screen, and it is why `.prm` compositing was
blocked ([`ui-prm-primitives.md`](ui-prm-primitives.md)).
None of that was visible before, because `compose` never applied the `fade`
alpha at all: `blit` modulates by `tint` only, and `tint` is `0xffffffff` on
essentially every keyframe. The wrong keyframes were being chosen and then their
one distinguishing field was ignored. That is worth stating as its own finding —
see below.
## The `fade` alpha, applied (same day)
`blit` modulated by `tint` only — `0xffffffff` on essentially every keyframe — so
the `fade` word was decoded, stored, and then thrown away. Applying it as an
**ARGB** modulate on top of `tint` is what turns the resting pose from an
academic result into a picture:
| composite | best correlation vs the capture | at shift |
|---|---|---|
| plateau rest, `fade` applied | **0.9538** | (0, 0) |
| plateau rest, `fade` ignored | 0.4597 | (0, 0) |
| longest-dwell rest | 0.1511 | (+3, +8) |
0.95 against a framebuffer capture of the running game.
[The composite](../captures/ui-layout/title-composited-fade-applied.png) now has
the white wordmark with its blue outline, the ™, the copyright, and the orange
exploding planet — the last of which appeared because a full-screen blue effect
that rests at alpha 0 had been painting over it at full opacity.
**ARGB is measured, not assumed.** Across a fade-in the *high* byte walks
`0x00 → 0x80 → 0xc0 → 0xe0 → 0xff` while the low three stay `ffffff`, and the low
24 bits are `0xffffff` on 5 276 of the disc's 5 453 resting keyframes (with
`0x000000` on 165 — the `.prm` blacks — and `0x5dc9ff` on 12).
Risk checked, because a modulate can only ever remove pixels: it is a **no-op on
4 060 of 5 200** sprite elements, partial on 453, and hides 687 — which are
transient HUD indicators (`pb_emergency`, `pb_refilling`, `pbcm1_arrow1`) that
should not be lit on a resting screen. **No build is left with nothing visible**,
and a disc test asserts it.
### And it caught a bug in the resting rule
With `fade` applied, the pause menu lost the word **PAUSE**, which the capture of
the running game plainly shows
([`pause-tutorial-real-vs-rebuilt.png`](../captures/ui-layout/pause-tutorial-real-vs-rebuilt.png)).
`pgptitle.rat` has **three** runs of two identical keyframes — invisible,
visible, invisible:
```
kf0 a=0x00 t=5 kf1 a=0x00 t=13 pre-roll
kf2 a=0xff t=23 kf3 a=0xff t=28 the hold
kf4 a=0x00 t=30 kf5 a=0x00 t=None the exit
```
A group carries the screen's entry animation **and its exit**. The tie-break
"later run wins" grabbed the exit. Fixed: a run ending on the last keyframe is
excluded unless it is the only one. The title's correlation is unchanged at
0.9538, and [PAUSE is back](../captures/ui-layout/pause-composited-fade-applied.png).
This is why the two changes landed together: the trailing-run defect is
invisible — in the literal sense — until `fade` is applied.
## What is not settled
***Blend mode.** Everything above is straight alpha-over. The near-white
flash quads and the coloured ones may well be additive, and nothing has been
measured; the title capture cannot separate the two because its resting
elements are all `0xffffff`.
* 🟡 **The fallback.** Groups with no two adjacent keyframes alike still use
longest-dwell. How many there are, and whether the correct answer for them is
the *last* keyframe instead, is unmeasured.
***Interpolation.** Only the resting pose is decoded; nothing tweens. A
viewer that animates these screens needs the ramp, and whether it is linear is
unknown.
* 🟡 One-shot flashes (`ptlogoall_eff`, `ptlogoall_eff2`) ramp 0 → 0x80 → 0x4b →
0 and never hold at a visible value, so the plateau rule rests them at alpha 0
— invisible. That is *probably* right for a settled screen, but the capture
cannot confirm it while `fade` is unapplied.
## 🔴 `rest_plateau` is wrong for elements with no exit animation (2026-08-28)
Reported by the port agent with a capture that proves it, and it affects
`sylpheed-cli screen render` too — this is not only a port concern.
`rest_plateau` drops a trailing run of identical keyframes because that run is
normally the **exit** animation. On an element that has **no exit**, the trailing
run *is* the hold, and dropping it puts the element back at its **first**
keyframe — off-position and transparent.
**The condition that identifies these exactly** (no false positives across the
port's whole export):
> the final untimed keyframe has the same pose as the last timed one
**Six elements** on `main_menu` match it and `rest()` misses all six. The
visible cost: on `main_menu` the timeline render and the `rest` render differ in
exactly one region — **400 × 470 at (440,108)**, the bounding box of `ptframe1`
and `ptframe2` and nothing else. That is the **bright circuit bracket around the
menu**, plainly present in
[`../captures/main-menu-oracle.png`](../captures/main-menu-oracle.png) and absent
from the `rest` render. Cropping the same region from the capture and from both
renders puts the ring and its elbow trace pixel-aligned with the game's in the
timeline render.
This also explains a long-standing ❔ on
[`ui-paint-order-key.md`](ui-paint-order-key.md): *"`ptframe1`/`ptframe2` rest at
`0x00ffffff` (alpha 0) and are therefore not drawn, but the capture shows the menu
frame plainly."* Same two elements, same cause — now identified.
## ✅ Fixed 2026-08-28 — but the condition is the ALPHA, not the pose
The report's proposed test — *"the final untimed keyframe has the same pose as the
last timed one"* — **misfires**, and on the exact case the exclusion was written
for. `pgptitle.rat`'s last two keyframes are also identical:
```
pgptitle.rat kf4: fade=0x00ffffff pos=(220,69) t=30
kf5: fade=0x00ffffff pos=(220,69) t=None <- same pose
```
Adopting it as stated would erase the word PAUSE again. What separates the two is
**visibility**:
| | trailing run | alpha | is it the hold? |
|---|---|---|---|
| `ptframe1`/`ptframe2` (main menu) | 3 × `0xffffffff` at (440,108) | `0xff` | **yes** — no exit animation |
| `pgptitle` (pause menu) | 2 × `0x00ffffff` | `0x00` | no — it is the fade-out |
An exit fades the element out, so its last keyframe is transparent; an element
with no exit ends on the pose you can see. **So a trailing run is the hold exactly
when it is visible**, and that is what `rest_plateau` now tests.
### Verified against a capture, not against another renderer
| check | result |
|---|---|
| `ptframe1` rest | `(620,108) t=16`**`(440,108) t=62`** |
| bracket region draws | mean 61.74 → **62.79** |
| **oracle correlation** over that region vs [`main-menu-oracle.png`](../captures/main-menu-oracle.png) | **0.9596 → 0.9748** |
| pixels changed, whole frame | 10 082, bounding box **x 440839, y 108577** — exactly the 400 × 470 at (440,108) the report predicted |
| **regression control**: PAUSE wordmark, 3 pause builds | **unchanged** (2833 / 2858 / 2833 bright px) |
**`cargo test -p sylpheed-formats` with `SYLPHEED_DISC` set: 131 passed, 0
failed** across 6 binaries including the disc-gated ones. (One pre-existing
`ignored` — the XBG7 shared-resource test — unrelated.)
### ✅ The disc-wide check
Both rules reimplemented over the parsed keyframes of **every** `RATC` bundle on
the disc — 2 859 bundles, 13 991 elements with ≥ 2 keyframes:
| | |
|---|---|
| elements whose `rest` moves | **30** (0.21 %) |
| invisible → visible | **4** |
| **visible → invisible** | **0** — the safety property |
The change is surgical and it never hides something that was being drawn. The
remaining 26 move `rest` between two *visible* poses (position, not visibility).
The 4 revealed are `ptframe1.t32` and `ptframe2.t32` in `GP_TITLE` **entry 5 and
entry 8** — the same two elements, once per language build.
### 🟡 Reconciling with the report's "six elements"
On the **English main menu exactly two** elements satisfy the report's condition
(last two keyframes identical), and both are `ptframe1`/`ptframe2`. So the six
must span its whole 12-screen export, not that one screen — consistent with its
own observation that the timeline and `rest` differ *"in exactly one region …
the bounding box of `ptframe1`/`ptframe2` and nothing else"*.
**Open, and it matters:** if any of the other four have a **transparent**
trailing run, this rule deliberately leaves them alone — that exclusion is what
protects the word PAUSE. If a capture shows one of them drawn, the alpha rule is
incomplete and needs a third discriminator. **Which screens are they on?**