Good news everyone! I decided to make a

The Switch brew page has information on theming the homebrew menu.
https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Menu

I figured I would write up a way to just change the Background and asset images, For full theming see above link.

REQUIREMENTS

1. HBtheme PAK Zip (Attatched Below) I included My Skeletal theme. And 2 .bat files to make this easier!
   
2. Download latest HACTOOL! Used to extract and repack the theme you are altering. This tutorial uses this version. The switchbrew tutorial uses a different tool.
   
3. Images to replace the existing ones! I believe JPG is supported however, the wiki says if you want transparency use PNG images.The files and types I typically see are:
   • background.png. It's the wallpaper, It should be PNG in Size:720 x 1280
     
   • icon.jpg - This is what appears in HBmenu's Theme Menu Size: 256 x 256
     
   • wifi1_icon.png. wifi2_icon.png and wifi3_icon.png These are the different connection levels for the WIFI indicator.(3 bars, 2 bars, 1 bar respectively) PNG format to support transparencies and 50 x 50 resolution.

PREPARATION

1. Make a working directory. I like it easy type so I go for C:\hbtheme
2. Extract the hactoolnet archive in to the hbtheme directory
3. Extract hbtheme stuff.zip in to the hbtheme directory
   
4. Place your source.romfs (Skeletal v420 white.romfs from the zip or whatever you have!) in the hbtheme directory

Now that everything is there lets extract the source theme.

EXTRACT THE SOURCE

I INCLUDED AN EXTRACTED FOLDER IN THE ZIP. CONTAINING THE FILES FOR MY SKELETAL THEME. YOU CAN USE THAT AND SKIP TO "BUILD YOUR NEW THEME" OR EXTRACT YOUR OWN THEME!.....

1. Drag the theme .romfs file you are extracting on to the "Extract Theme - Drop Theme Romfs Here.bat"

• Type a directory name in to extract the Theme to and press ENTER. Leave blank to extract to a folder named EXTRACTED in the current directory

Your Theme Is EXTRACTED Joy!

The theme files that will be used to build your new theme are all in the EXTRACTED folder or wherever you told it to put them. Editing these files will change your theme.

You can change any of the image files by replacing them with any image named the same and the same size!

Edit the CFG file to alter theme elements color and positioning. Instructions at SwitchBrew


Make sure your replacement images are the same size, file name and type as the original ones and overwrite the originals!. If you use a different name or image type the CFG file MUST be altered to reflect the new name and type Best to stick with what's there.

BUILD YOUR NEW THEME

Once you have swapped out the desired images in the C:\hbtheme\extracted\ and C:\hbtheme\extracted\assets\ folders (and altered the CFG if you are brave and or knowledgeable.) Do the following to build your theme!:

1. Drag N Drop the entire Theme Folder on to "Build Theme - Drop Theme Folder Here.bat" (Theme folder is the folder you changed the pictures in..hbtheme/extracted if you left defaults)
2. Type in a Name for your new theme's romfs file. (example new.romfs)
3. Type a path to the folder you want the new theme file to output to. Leave it blank to put file in to current folder! (HBtheme if you are following) Then press ENTER.

This should pack all the files back in to a romfs file.

INSTALLING YOUR NEW THEME

1. Put your theme.romfs in to SD "\config\nx-hbmenu\themes\
2. Put the SD in your Switch, boot and open HBMenu
3. Press Minus Button (-) to open the "Theme Menu"
4. Select your new theme!

That's about it! If you want to get more in depth please check out the original tutorial on Switchbrew. There are many other customizations possible. I was just writing this so you can change the background. Please let me know if there is anything I can help with. I will try.

CHEERS!

Spoiler: Preview

Spoiler: Original Tutorial

Good news everyone! I decided to make a quick and dirty...

HOMEBREW MENU THEME CUSTOM IMAGES GUIDE!!!
The Switch brew page has information on theming the homebrew menu.
https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Menu

I figured I would write up a way to just change the Background and asset images, For full theming see above link.

REQUIREMENTS

HACTOOLNET https://github.com/Thealexbarney/LibHac/releases/download/v0.11.3/hactoolnet-0.11.3-win.zip Used to extract and repack the theme you are altering. This tutorial uses this version. The switchbrew tutorial uses a different tool,
An existing theme in .romfs format. (rename it source.romfs for the tutorial) Here's a link to my Skeletal Theme to match the theme I posted on reddit. https://paste.c-net.org/RealmDownload The Zip includes an extracted version of the theme. I edited an existing theme made by NSX (I think it was the PS4 one IDK...) NOTE: Keep in mind that whatever theme you choose for your source will dictate the style of your custom theme. Unless you manually edit the CFG file you'll have the same color text, same placement of any UI elements etc. Also if the theme you alter doesn't have an element,like a wallpaper or a custom WiFi icon there will be nothing to edit in the extracted theme, All these elements must be pre-defined in the CFG file. We are just changing the images, The Switchbrew link at the top is very detailed all the UI elements.
Images to replace the existing ones! I believe JPG is supported however, the wiki says if you want transparency use PNG images. The files and types I typically see are:
background.png. It's the wallpaper, It should be PNG in 720 x 1280
icon.jpg - This is what appears in HBmenu's Theme Menu Also 720 x1280
wifi1_icon.png. wifi2_icon.png and wifi3_icon.png These are the different connection levels for the WIFI indicator.(3 bars, 2 bars, 1 bar respectively) PNG format to support transparencies and 50 x 50 resolution.

PREPARATION

Make a working directory. I like it easy type so I go for C:\hbtheme
Inside the "hbtheme" directory make an "extracted" directory
Extract the hactoolnet archive in to the hbtheme directory
Place your source.romfs in the hbtheme directory

Now that everything is there lets extract the source theme.

EXTRACT THE SOURCE

Open a command prompt (Press Windows+R to open “Run” box. Type “cmd” and then click “OK”)
Then change to the working directory
Code:

cd c:\hbtheme

Run this command:
Code:

hactoolnet -t romfs source.romfs --romfsdir C:\hbtheme\extracted

That should extract your source.romfs in to the \hbtheme\extracted folder. Take a look in the folder.

You can change any of the image files by replacing them with any image named the same and the same size!

The C:\hbtheme\extracted\Assets folder contains all images except icon.jpg.

Make sure your replacement images are the same size, file name and type as the ones in C:\hbmenu\extracted\assets\ and overwrite the original ones. If you use a different name or image type the CFG file MUST be altered to reflect the new name and type Best to stick with what's there.

BUILD THE NEW THEME

Once you have swapped out the desired images in the C:\hbtheme\extracted\ and C:\hbtheme\extracted\assets\ folders (and altered the CFG if you are brave and or knowledgeable.) Do the following to build your theme!:

Open a command prompt if not already open (Press Windows+R to open “Run” box. Type “cmd” and then click “OK”)
Change to the working directory
Code:

cd c:\hbtheme

Run this command:
Code:

hactoolnet -t romfsbuild C:\hbtheme\extracted --outfile NewTheme.romfs

This should pack all the files back in to a file named NewTheme.romfs

INSTALLING YOUR NEW THEME

Put newtheme.romfs in to SD "\config\nx-hbmenu\themes\
Put the SD in your Switch, boot and open HBMenu
Press Minus Button (-) to open the "Theme Menu"
Select your new theme!

That's about it! If you want to get more in depth please check out the original tutorial on Switchbrew. There are many other customization possible. I was just writing this so you can change the background. Please let me know if there is anything I can help with. I will try.

CHEERS!

Preview



/|/|ike

SPECIAL THANKS:To TheAlexBarney for Hactoolnet, to the people at reswitched and all the devs for HBMenu., Also reswitched, qcean and the rest of discord for putting up with the questions and thanks to the great NSX for getting me in to theming again and all his contributions to the scene. Sorry man, I know I am an asshole ;P Thanks for everything!

DON'T FORGET TO PRESS THE LIKE BUTTON!!!

 

[chronoss]

U need to share one theme for exemple to see how it work.

 

[mathew77]

Please let me know if there is anything I can help with. I will try.

Very good! Please make some preview samples with the results in the end.

 

[Stealphie]

very nice

 

[mikefor20]

U need to share one theme for exemple to see how it work.

Done. I added a link for my Skeletal HBmenu Theme. I also included a folder containing the entire extracted theme. Just like you'll get half way through the tutorial.Ill eventually get to updating the tutorial so all the file names match the example. I'll notate the file structure. Add a screen shot or two. I really don't have all that much time lately and Paper Mario is stealing most of the free time I have

Very good! Please make some preview samples with the results in the end.

Got you covered.

 

[mathew77]

Got you covered.

Sorry, can't see any images / preview?!.. Where are they?

 

[mikefor20]

Sorry, can't see any images / preview?!.. Where are they?

SOON, due to COVID I no longer have any alone time outside of the wee hours of the night. Last night I slept. There is a zip now with the theme file and all the assets. So you can see the background and the WiFi strength images and look at the cfg file. As far as a preview.. will this work? Thought I attatched this lol ;P

What's a good file host you guys? One for images and one for nxtheme files, cfg files ,zip files etc?



Over 1000 views and not 1 like for the tutorial? Ill make it prettier i guess

 

[mathew77]

As far as a preview.. will this work?

Thank you, it's cool!..

Here's the hbtheme that I've created followed by your nice guide:

Spoiler: Image Preview

 

[chronoss]

This command dont work for me : hactoolnet -t romfsbuild C:\hbtheme\extracted --outfile NewTheme.romfs

 

[mikefor20]

This command dont work for me : hactoolnet -t romfsbuild C:\hbtheme\extracted --outfile NewTheme.romfs

• You must have the entire extracted theme in the C:\hbtheme\extracted folder.
  
• hactoolnet in C:\hbtheme

Then you must open the dos prompt in C:\hbtheme and run "hactoolnet -t romfsbuild C:\hbtheme\extracted --outfile NewTheme.romfs"

That should output newtheme.romfs to the C:\HBTheme directory. I just did a copy and paste directly from the tutorial and it worked. I need more information. The command specifies drive letter and path to the folder. If that is different you must change the command. What does the command do for you? If I made an error I'll fix it.

 

[chronoss]

• You must have the entire extracted theme in the C:\hbtheme\extracted folder.
  
• hactoolnet in C:\hbtheme

Then you must open the dos prompt in C:\hbtheme and run "hactoolnet -t romfsbuild C:\hbtheme\extracted --outfile NewTheme.romfs"

That should output newtheme.romfs to the C:\HBTheme directory. I just did a copy and paste directly from the tutorial and it worked. I need more information. The command specifies drive letter and path to the folder. If that is different you must change the command. What does the command do for you? If I made an error I'll fix it.

i can extract but build dont work

 

[mikefor20]

What does it say?

 

[chronoss]

What does it say?

Extract OK


Build KO

 

[mikefor20]

IDK, ill look in to it

 

[mikefor20]

Extract OK
View attachment 218181

Build KO
View attachment 218182

Looks to me like you didn't follow the tutorial. The command line has the entire path. You are just saying extracted. Try it the way I wrote it. Or try your entire path E:\RTU\Switch\hbtheme\extracted because it is not the same thing as "extracted". .. Or you could just do it how it was written. Also there seems to be another issue, you are getting errors on extraction for failed to match keys.

Put the hactoolnet file and the source .romfs in to C:\\hbtheme\ ... Run the first line of code to extract

  hactoolnet -t romfs source.romfs --romfsdir C:\hbtheme\extracted

OUTPUT shout look like

/assets/background.png
/assets/wifi1_icon.png
/assets/wifi2_icon.png
/assets/wifi3_icon.png
/icon.jpg
/theme.cfg

C:\hbtheme>

. You should get no errors. I didn't have to supply keys. Maybe you did something else outside of the scope of the tutorial that caused that. We all tinker... Maybe I have a key file in path somewhere I forgot about. You might have an out of date file laying around somewhere and that's why the mismatch? There are many tutorials to acquire key files but AFAIK hactoolnet does not require it. Also perhaps .net? I don't know if it needs it either.

Replace the images and edit the CFG if you dare in the C:\hbtheme\extracted folder. Hactool will build from this folder.

 hactoolnet -t romfsbuild C:\hbtheme\extracted --outfile NewTheme.romfs

WORKS

Hopefully that works. Let me know. ill add a link to a tutorial to get the keys and what not.

 

[chronoss]

sametyhing

 

[mikefor20]

Dump your keys with lockpick rcm.or Google switch keys... put them in the working directory. Hope it works. Mine does without the keys. Good luck. Let me know. I want everone to have zero issues

https://github.com/shchmue/Lockpick_RCM

Try typing or copy and pasting the command in to the command prompt instead of using a bat file IDK

Anyone else have issues? Details?

 

[chronoss]

Dump your keys with lockpick rcm.or Google switch keys... put them in the working directory. Hope it works. Mine does without the keys. Good luck. Let me know. I want everone to have zero issues

https://github.com/shchmue/Lockpick_RCM

Try typing or copy and pasting the command in to the command prompt instead of using a bat file IDK

Anyone else have issues? Details?

samething : key.txt and Key.dat
same error

 

[mikefor20]

I took chronoss in to a chat so the thread would not get a bunch of the troubleshooting posts. He needed the newest version of hactoolnet. Turns out the link in the tutorial to hactoolnet was an old version. I assumed GBATemp kept the newest one up. They don't. I apologize to anyone who might have experienced any issues. I guess I fucked up.

Anyway, updated the link. All is right in the shire.

 

[mathew77]

No issues for me, thanks!