Overview¶
Info
Update 08/08/2026:
Upon further research it has been brought to my attention that the files are just serialised using MessagePack :p meaning that File Format is largely obsolete.
However, the contextual meaning of the file structure, attributes and how they link to each other are still relevant.
This site documents my findings from reverse-engineering LightShark's .lshw file format used in lightshows in an attempt to create a parser and editor for .lshw files.
Warning
All findings were deduced from manual inspection of existing .lshw files I had on hand. While these findings hold up well when editing .lshw files and loading them into an actual Lightshark lightboard, they were based on v1.4 of the software and have not accounted for new features since. The sections below are the parts that have been fully decrypted in-context.
If you would like to try out the Lightshark file parser and web editor I developed using these findings, you can find them here: