FRD yaml test.yml

version: 1.0beta
description: FreeRapid Downloader. Easy to use downloader that supports downloading from Youtube, Facebook, Picasa and other file-sharing services, include the new ones like mega.co.nz.
homepage: https://wordrider.net/freerapid/
license: GPL-2.0-or-later
suggest:
  java: oraclejdk-lts
url: https://wordrider.net/download/FreeRapid-1.0beta.zip
hash: c493b4fb4223c7a75fa748b309dc9342ca8bd68d4415b686d28d68c6a8b7b520
extract_dir: FreeRapid-1.0beta
post_install: |
  $delimeter = "`r`n"
  $start = @(
      '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>',
      '<!DOCTYPE preferences SYSTEM "http://java.sun.com/dtd/preferences.dtd">',
      '<preferences EXTERNAL_XML_VERSION="1.0">',
      '  <root type="user">',
      '    <map>'
  )
  $ents = @()
  $end =  @('    </map>', '  </root>', '</preferences>')
  $entryTemplate = "      <entry key=""%%key%%"" value=""%%value%%""/>"
  $entries = @{
      'enableDirectDownloads'             = 'true'
      'enableNewLinkCheckDownloadHistory' = 'true'
      'errorAttemptsCount'                = '-1'
      'openIncompleteFiles'               = 'true'
      'pluginUpdateCheckInterval'         = '1'
      'pluginUpdateMethod'                = '3'
      'preCreateFile'                     = 'true'
      'showInfoInFrameTitle'              = 'true'
      'showPercentProgress'               = 'true'
      'skipDuplicateFiles'                = 'true'
      'zoomCaptchaImage'                  = 'true'
  }
  foreach ($entry in $entries.Keys) {
      $ent = ($entryTemplate -replace '%%key%%', $entry) -replace '%%value%%', $entries.Item($entry)
      $ents += $ent
  }
  # Create file string
  $finalFile  = $start -join $delimeter
  $finalFile += $ents -join $delimeter
  $finalFile += $end -join $delimeter
  # Set File
  $FILE = "$env:AppData\VitySoft\FRD\frd.xml"
  if (-not (Test-Path $FILE)) {
      Write-Host 'File' $FILE 'does not exists. Creating.' -f Yellow
      New-Item $FILE -Type File -Force | Out-Null
      Set-Content $FILE $finalFile -Encoding Ascii -Force
  }
shortcuts:
  - - frd.bat
    - Freerapid Downloader
    - ''
    - frd.ico
checkver:
  url: https://wordrider.net/freerapid/download.htm
  regex: Current version is\s*<em>FreeRapid Downloader ([\d\.]+\w+)
autoupdate:
  url: https://www.wordrider.net/download/FreeRapid-$version.zip
  extract_dir: FreeRapid-$version

Definitely better than JSON manifests. But who's going to convert the JSON to YAML? An automated script, perhaps?

Ofcourse.
Basicly this script https://github.com/Ash258/scoop-Ash258/blob/master/bin/convert.ps1
with additional body of

Set-Manifest "$name.yml" (Get-Manifest "$name.json")

Looks good! I'd just suggest taking the opportunity to update the shortcuts syntax to something more descriptive, such as:

shortcuts:
  - name: Freerapid Downloader
    target: frd.bat
    icon: frd.ico
  - name: Another Shortcut
    target: prog.bat
    params: -F
    icon: Prog.ico

(Notice that a side benefit of this is that the params field is now truly optional: you don't need to specify a blank param just to get an icon.)

I'd do the same for bin and any other tags that use arrays inappropriately (i.e. where each array item is not of the same type, and they have special meaning based on solely on their position in the array).