Let’s get creative! The last article I touched on was how to install already made NX themes on your Nintendo Switch. But how would you like to create your own theme? In this tutorial, I will be covering on how to create themes for your Nintendo Switch!
First things first we will have to grab images that are in 1280×720 format, If not you can always resize them in paint or any other program on your PC.
So to complete this task this is what we are going to need:
It is stored in the channel's savegame on the Wii, so you can safely remove your SD card or USB mass storage device without losing the theme. If you delete the savegame from the Wii, your theme will be lost. You can also send the theme.zip using Wiiload. To create your own theme, extract a theme.zip and replace the graphics. The Wii Remote and Wii Balance Board use bluetooth. You can pair them with your PC and write your own PC apps that interact with them (like this guy). If you want to make something that actually runs on the Wii, you can try finding some homebrew development help. If you want to actually sell your software for Wii, you need: game development.
How To Make A Wii Theme
1. Six images that are in 1280×720 format.
2. Switch theme injector, make sure you transfer the nro to the switch folder. ( with the new version, you do not have to dump your keys going forward?)
3. A folder called “themes” at the root of your memory card
4. A switch with CFW.
We are first going to start out getting Six images, that’s right Six images! There are Seven screens but the news screen we are going to leave out since that part will require internet access anyway?. The Six screens that we are going to be editing are the Homescreen, Lockscreen, Userpage, allappsmenu, Settingsapplet, andplayerselect. Also, it will be good to name these images to each of the screens you will be using. Like for example (NAME OF THE IMAGE-LOCK SCREEN) and so on. Once we grab those images we will want to make sure they are converted to 1280×720. This should be the second step after you grab the Six images you want, these images can be in jpeg format or png.
1. Launch NX-THEMES INSTALLER 4.0, the one that you downloaded. At the top bar on the left select NXTHEME BUILDER, then select the arrow bar where it says HOME MENU PART.
How To Make A Custom Wii Theme
You will then see Seven selections as I discussed earlier. Let’s start off by getting a new image for our home menu. So grab the image that’s in 1280×720 to use for your home screen.
2. After you select a Pic hit Build NXTHEME located at the bottom right. If you notice right below image you will see a option Layout patch, here you will be presented with a couple of home screen layouts that will change the look of the home screen.
Try to experiment and see which one looks the best, you can also hit the preview button to see how the layout looks but you will not be able to see the image you added just yet. If you want you can leave it on don’t patch, this will leave the layout on the default setup. After that you will then be required to name the theme and the author. After you are done hit ok.
3. Finally, this will bring you to the last screen. Name the image again that you created with NX build and save it anywhere on your desktop or a place you will remember.
That’s it, you are done! You created your first home screen theme. Now put the converted theme in your folder on your Switch memory card and run the program NX themes installer on the Nintendo Switch. If this your first time running this program, you will have to hit extract home menu.
Then after you are done doing that part, go into themes and install each theme you transferred. To make the process a little quicker you can multi-select each one, after you done reboot and you should now see the theme you installed!
Also it would be a good idea to separate your themes into folders. If you want to edit the other screens Repeat the operation in step 2, but this time select a different screen on the drop-down menu and select your image for that screen.
It’s worth noting that you will not be able to see “show all apps icon“ if you don’t have 13 or more titles installed!
Was this tutorial helpful? Show us what theme you created @hackinformer.com
When we released the Homebrew Channel 1.0.7, we supplied a new look and the announcement of a surprise. I must apologize for the delay in the revelation of this surprise, which is mostly owed to a complete meltdown of my work machine. Without much further ado, it is my pleasure to give you: Homebrew Channel themes, and a first theme: HBC Classic.
While the reactions to HBC 1.0.7’s new default theme – dubbed “Dark Waters” – were generally positive, some complained about it being too dark, unfitting, or simply “exceedingly ugly.” We’re usually not the makers of elaborate plots (that you know of), but this was actually fully intentional to draw a bit of attention not only to the function but also to the looks of the Homebrew Channel.
Applying themes to the Homebrew Channel
There are two options for you to apply a theme to the Homebrew Channel.
The first way is to treat a theme file just like you would treat an application: A subfolder in the apps folder on the SD card or USB stick, only with the file theme.zip containing the theme files instead of boot.elf containing an application. The theme file will then show up in the application browser, loading it will apply it to the Homebrew Channel. This allows you to conveniently switch between themes as you can store them along each other on the media of your choice.
The second way is to simply wiiload the theme.zip to the Homebrew Channel, after which it will be immediately applied.
Once you apply a theme, it is permanently stored with the Homebrew Channel’s “savegame”.
How to revert the Homebrew Channel to the default theme
Currently, this only works by deleting the Homebrew Channel’s “savegame” via the System Menu’s data management. This, of course, also deletes the other preferences, so you will have to visit the Homebrew Channel’s options screen again. We may come up with a better way to remove a theme, but this is how it works for now.
Creating your own themes
Theming the Homebrew Channel is currently limited to skinning the user interface, i.e., replacing its graphics with same-sized ones. You can skin pretty much any graphical element of the Homebrew Channel, with the exception of the Wii remote pointer and the Homebrew Channel logo in the bottom right. (Yes, you can even insert your own bubble graphics. I propose: mice.)
Please take careful note that the graphics need to be the exact size of the ones they are replacing, there is no stretching/cropping mechanism in place. If the image dimensions mismatch, the image will be ignored and the default image will be used in its place. The same happens if you don’t include a file in the first place. This allows you to selectively skin the HBC. For example, if you only wanted to change the background image, your theme would only include the two background files.
Accompanying the image files is a small XML file named theme.xml. For now, it only includes a few color values and the name of the theme. The color values are in RGBA for the font (which is currently limited to one color GUI-wide) and the gradient to be used in the progress bar.
I believe I can leave you with the new HBC Classic theme as a template for both the sizes and the file naming. I trust you will be able to figure out the purpose of the various image files by their file name. You will notice that the Homebrew Channel’s GUI isn’t terribly complicated and re-uses many of its images in various places.
For theme publishing, I suggest you package theme files like an application. You can even include a screenshot or a cutout as icon.png and your name with the meta.xml file (note that you will still have to supply a theme.xml inside the theme.zip file).
Theme repository – or lack thereof
As with applications, we do not intend to create a repository for themes ourselves. Since Wiibrew.org has proven to be a great repository for applications, we think it is a great place to store the accompanying themes. As usual, with Wiibrew, please don’t upload copyrighted content. For themes, this means: No copyrighted imagery, neither of photographic nor illustrative nature. Also, I would think that it is rather pointless to upload background-only themes.
So, there you have it. We are very much looking forward to see how you feel the Homebrew Channel should look like.