Hacking The M3 Kaura FAQ

[Jaylen]

well i do have an idea concerning the skinning of kaura.
ok it is true that we dont know the specifics on the format, but since it still does use the .skn extension i can assume this:

it still uses the same toolsets provided long ago by moonshell and m3 team.

with that in mind i believe by enduring a small tedium, we may be able to get started on skinning.

i am going to condense or remove any redundant and unneeded information to explain some of my hypothesis (cause i havent done any of what i am saying, so calling it a theory)

ok first i believe the key to making a skin would be within editing the "MakeSkin.lst" file in the current skin tool.


colortbl.ini,0,0 (in order to ensure compatibility i would probably edit this to match constraints of kaura or delete it all together...)

ErrorDialogBG.png,192,78

cmps_BoxMin.png,13,13
cmps_BoxPlus.png,13,13
cmps_ChkOff.png,13,13
cmps_ChkOn.png,13,13
cmps_RadioOff.png,12,12
cmps_RadioOn.png,12,12
cmps_Ok.png,16,16
cmps_Cancel.png,16,15

ok this is pretty much the setup here...so i would replace this with the names of all of the kaura picture and icon files with their coresponding resolutions

but here is where we could possibly run into a hiccup if all of this actually works...the version of MakeSkin.exe
moonshell uses version 0.4 and even with tweaks that the normal joe would think necessary to compile sakura skins, it doesnt work.
that is somewhat irrelevant, but i deem it a necessary point as kaura skins dont work with sakura...if they were compiled with the same compiler, it would at least boot with sakura and make it crash when it encounters a situation in which it needs a said icon and doesnt have it, in this case being nearly all of them because there are little to no similarity in filenames, and if there were, it is negligible because there are not enough similarities to at least have the menu boot up...

ok, you still with me...good

since they do not work even the slightest bit with each other in the fashion that it wont even make sakura crash when you try to use a kaura skin and based off of the same experience with moonshell skins. i think it is safe to assume that the compiler for kaura is above 0.3 which sakura uses, and by elimination it has to be the 0.4 version that moonshell uses. it is unlikely that it is an even higher version, because idk, i think there is an A: a lack of development from moonlight of moonshell, and B: i think m3 team and moonlight have beef...lol

driving the point home, by saying that i think with a little work (that i dont have the time to do, not because i have a fast paced "life" or anything...just laziness)
it may be possible to create a skin for kaura, before m3 team releases their package, on the basis that there is a strong chance they are using existing tools, just slightly tweaked.

if anybody has any luck with this idea...umm...let the communitty know...btw makeskin.lst can be edited with any windows based text editor or hex i think, but that just makes it complicated...i think the standard restrictions apply from sakura as far as what encoding to use...

well thats my time...holla at ya boy...i gets money [ignore that]

 

[DeltaBurnt]

Yah I had already deduced that making a skin in Kaura would be similar to moonshell or sakura but with just a different version of the skin maker and edited list.

However, I don't have much of a way to tell the resolutions of the images. And I don't think anyone has a way of telling what the names of the images should be (I considered making up my own names and just adding them to the list, but I think Kaura looks specifically for each image in the .skn file by file name).

I think it'd just be easier to wait til the M3 Team releases their new format for us to make skins with.

 

[Jaylen]

@DeltaBurnt

the filenames for the skin are the same ones located in the SKINS folder in kaura, it includes the files for a basic skin there.

as far as the resolution, idk when i single click in windows vista/7 at the bottom of the window it shows the res of the image, and so does any standard image editor.

actually i do think i have the nerve to try my idea...im going to recreate the default skin and see if it works...lo

*UPDATE*

nope didnt work...some other variables interfere with it...some some stuff is missing

 

[DeltaBurnt]

@DeltaBurnt

the filenames for the skin are the same ones located in the SKINS folder in kaura, it includes the files for a basic skin there.

as far as the resolution, idk when i single click in windows vista/7 at the bottom of the window it shows the res of the image, and so does any standard image editor.

actually i do think i have the nerve to try my idea...im going to recreate the default skin and see if it works...lo

*UPDATE*

nope didnt work...some other variables interfere with it...some some stuff is missing

I'm fairly certain that the files in the \Skin\Kaura\ folder are the same ones in the .skn file. Because when I edited one of the images in that folder the change took effect. So my guess is that some required images are in the folder and some required images are compiled into the .skn file.

 

[Jaylen]

that would definitely explain some things...i see

yeah you are right we should "wait" on m3 team...they are probably gonna wake up after chinese new year is over...it feels like waiting for english sakura all over again...

 

[DeltaBurnt]

Looks like we just got a touchpod update, hopefully a Kaura update is just around the corner.

 

[rockstar99]

Weird im almost done my ds menu skin so i just tested it out and it freezes when i select it from the skin menu

 

[DeltaBurnt]

Weird im almost done my ds menu skin so i just tested it out and it freezes when i select it from the skin menu

You might have saved one of the images to have a bigger file size or more colors than it should have.

Also be sure to rename Kaura.skn to something else (like ndsskin.skn).

 

[jurassicplayer]

ok first i believe the key to making a skin would be within editing the "MakeSkin.lst" file in the current skin tool.

but here is where we could possibly run into a hiccup if all of this actually works...the version of MakeSkin.exe
moonshell uses version 0.4 and even with tweaks that the normal joe would think necessary to compile sakura skins, it doesnt work.
that is somewhat irrelevant, but i deem it a necessary point as kaura skins dont work with sakura...if they were compiled with the same compiler, it would at least boot with sakura and make it crash when it encounters a situation in which it needs a said icon and doesnt have it, in this case being nearly all of them because there are little to no similarity in filenames, and if there were, it is negligible because there are not enough similarities to at least have the menu boot up...

since they do not work even the slightest bit with each other in the fashion that it wont even make sakura crash when you try to use a kaura skin and based off of the same experience with moonshell skins. i think it is safe to assume that the compiler for kaura is above 0.3 which sakura uses, and by elimination it has to be the 0.4 version that moonshell uses.

This might have been some time ago, but it was only just now that I thought about it. Most likely, either the M3team took and used the source code provided in ms2 (v0.4) to build a custom version or customized their own (I'm betting that they obtained the source code for v0.3 while they were still working with Moonlight). The actual skin file seems to be different from either sakura or moonshell2.
If Moonlight used the same method for identifying .skn files on moonshell2/m3sakura as the makeskin.exe, then its possible that the M3team could be using either v0.3 or v0.4 while the M3 and Moonshell2 can't load the kaura skin by just taking out the identifying thread that both look for.
Although this doesn't hold any use for making kaura skins that I can think of, but if it is true then it might be possible to attempt recompiling the makeskin.exes while removing the header that is placed. But we are still stuck without knowing what files are inside the .skn file.

 

[DeltaBurnt]

ok first i believe the key to making a skin would be within editing the "MakeSkin.lst" file in the current skin tool.

but here is where we could possibly run into a hiccup if all of this actually works...the version of MakeSkin.exe
moonshell uses version 0.4 and even with tweaks that the normal joe would think necessary to compile sakura skins, it doesnt work.
that is somewhat irrelevant, but i deem it a necessary point as kaura skins dont work with sakura...if they were compiled with the same compiler, it would at least boot with sakura and make it crash when it encounters a situation in which it needs a said icon and doesnt have it, in this case being nearly all of them because there are little to no similarity in filenames, and if there were, it is negligible because there are not enough similarities to at least have the menu boot up...

since they do not work even the slightest bit with each other in the fashion that it wont even make sakura crash when you try to use a kaura skin and based off of the same experience with moonshell skins. i think it is safe to assume that the compiler for kaura is above 0.3 which sakura uses, and by elimination it has to be the 0.4 version that moonshell uses.

This might have been some time ago, but it was only just now that I thought about it. Most likely, either the M3team took and used the source code provided in ms2 (v0.4) to build a custom version or customized their own (I'm betting that they obtained the source code for v0.3 while they were still working with Moonlight). The actual skin file seems to be different from either sakura or moonshell2.
If Moonlight used the same method for identifying .skn files on moonshell2/m3sakura as the makeskin.exe, then its possible that the M3team could be using either v0.3 or v0.4 while the M3 and Moonshell2 can't load the kaura skin by just taking out the identifying thread that both look for.
Although this doesn't hold any use for making kaura skins that I can think of, but if it is true then it might be possible to attempt recompiling the makeskin.exes while removing the header that is placed. But we are still stuck without knowing what files are inside the .skn file.

I think if we can figure out the format that the .skn files used and make a decompiler then we could possibly get somewhere. But it's entirely possible that the M3 Team will come out and released the required files before we get to that stage.

 

[GreenBanana]

Um...it corrupts save data? That's like...a big frigging deal there. Seeing as how the save data contains all the progress for video games. So basically with Kaura we can expect to restart games every time we want to play them?

They "forgot" to include an auto dldi patcher!? They "FORGOT"!? That's like making coffee and "forgetting" to put the water in, and then drinking it anyway.

This is the kind of mentality that keeps the team from simply FIXING the problems with not giving Sakura the latest engine and removing its short cheat code bug (which, by the way, also only displays cheat names in black regardless of skin, but nobody seems to notice).

All this kinda makes that sarcastic two-three whole bugs comment fall flat, but then I just ask that people don't put their underpants on their head, so you see how unreasonable this is.

 

[DeltaBurnt]

Um...it corrupts save data? That's like...a big frigging deal there. Seeing as how the save data contains all the progress for video games. So basically with Kaura we can expect to restart games every time we want to play them?

They "forgot" to include an auto dldi patcher!? They "FORGOT"!? That's like making coffee and "forgetting" to put the water in, and then drinking it anyway.

This is the kind of mentality that keeps the team from simply FIXING the problems with not giving Sakura the latest engine and removing its short cheat code bug (which, by the way, also only displays cheat names in black regardless of skin, but nobody seems to notice).

All this kinda makes that sarcastic two-three whole bugs comment fall flat, but then I just ask that people don't put their underpants on their head, so you see how unreasonable this is.

1. There have been a couple Sakura firmwares that corrupted saves too because of a small mistake (even AKAIO 1.6 RC1 has a save corruption problem). Like I said in the bugs section it can be fixed for the most part if you rename sav to SAV. I actually have only had 1 or 2 games where it actually corrupted it. It also doesn't apply if Kaura originally made the save.

2. The DLDI thing is just speculation, but things like that can happen. There's alot of files and lines of code that need to be managed, it's understandable.

3. The long cheat cutoff in Sakura has actually been said to be unfixable because that's how the whole engine does it, so fixing it would actually be a huge pain for the M3 Team.

I see your arguments, but most of the bugs in Kaura don't really affect most people. If you don't like Kaura then just set it to boot to touchpod or Sakura automatically. I think all the bugs come into existence because of the fact that the M3 team needs to manage like 6 different firmwares at once, I'd cut them some slack.

 

[KingVamp]

Um...it corrupts save data? That's like...a big frigging deal there. Seeing as how the save data contains all the progress for video games. So basically with Kaura we can expect to restart games every time we want to play them?

They "forgot" to include an auto dldi patcher!? They "FORGOT"!? That's like making coffee and "forgetting" to put the water in, and then drinking it anyway.

This is the kind of mentality that keeps the team from simply FIXING the problems with not giving Sakura the latest engine and removing its short cheat code bug (which, by the way, also only displays cheat names in black regardless of skin, but nobody seems to notice).

All this kinda makes that sarcastic two-three whole bugs comment fall flat, but then I just ask that people don't put their underpants on their head, so you see how unreasonable this is.

Not sure completely what you are talking about 'cause I'm sleepy , but this post here help solve kaura bugs plus kaura is only an option , u do not have to use it.

 

[DeltaBurnt]

Um...it corrupts save data? That's like...a big frigging deal there. Seeing as how the save data contains all the progress for video games. So basically with Kaura we can expect to restart games every time we want to play them?

They "forgot" to include an auto dldi patcher!? They "FORGOT"!? That's like making coffee and "forgetting" to put the water in, and then drinking it anyway.

This is the kind of mentality that keeps the team from simply FIXING the problems with not giving Sakura the latest engine and removing its short cheat code bug (which, by the way, also only displays cheat names in black regardless of skin, but nobody seems to notice).

All this kinda makes that sarcastic two-three whole bugs comment fall flat, but then I just ask that people don't put their underpants on their head, so you see how unreasonable this is.

Not sure completely what you are talking about 'cause I'm sleepy , but this post here help solve kaura bugs plus kaura is only an option , u do not have to use it.

If there's a fix to a bug then it's been noted in the bugs section of this faq, but thanks for trying to help out

 

[Deleted User]

Sorry if this is already talked about, but I really couldn't find anything definitive. Maybe add a section to the faq about this. But why exactly is this needed? I watched the video, but I don't really get it. What does this do that Sakura or touchpod don't? It seems like it can boot games, but using a slightly better than touchpod, slightly worse than Sakura interface. It can view your file structure I think. And it can boot into Sakura and Touchpod. What am I missing? I love Sakura, so I don't think I'll be switching to Kaura, unless there is some killer feature I overlooked.

Also, I think there's other people with me on this one, but I don't understand why m3team is doing this. They should focus on improving their existing firmwares and giving us new and exciting features, stability, compatibility, speed in creating real time saves, just to name some things that could be better, instead of making (most likely) useless updates such as this one. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong if this is actually useful somehow.

 

[DeltaBurnt]

Sorry if this is already talked about, but I really couldn't find anything definitive. Maybe add a section to the faq about this. But why exactly is this needed? I watched the video, but I don't really get it. What does this do that Sakura or touchpod don't? It seems like it can boot games, but using a slightly better than touchpod, slightly worse than Sakura interface. It can view your file structure I think. And it can boot into Sakura and Touchpod. What am I missing? I love Sakura, so I don't think I'll be switching to Kaura, unless there is some killer feature I overlooked.

Also, I think there's other people with me on this one, but I don't understand why m3team is doing this. They should focus on improving their existing firmwares and giving us new and exciting features, stability, compatibility, speed in creating real time saves, just to name some things that could be better, instead of making (most likely) useless updates such as this one. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong if this is actually useful somehow.

To be honest there is no real use for this for people who use normal firmwares. However, Kaura is really valuable because it's allowed us to make the hex boot, which is a compilation of 6 different firmwares that can all be run on the M3. Some might question why you would want that many firmwares, it's more for novelty and personal perference really. Some people really miss the ysmenu/r4 menu, so what you can do is get the hex boot and run the R4i RTS menu.

There's really no real way to tell what Kaura might turn into. If you take into account that Sakura's base was made by moonlight, that means that the M3 Team's updates can sometimes be limited (like they can't really do anything about the long cheat description bug). So I think they did this so it'd be easier to have 1 firmware that is worthwhile to update and can be updated easier.

 

[ZeWarrior]

I followed you're tutorial for the hex-boot, and put my Sakura 1.46 startnds.eng into it but its still 1.44, when I go into R4i it boots up but as soon as it gets finished the bottom screen goes black and i can't do anything on it, and I'm not sure how to launch iTouch DS Firmware, help?

 

[DeltaBurnt]

I followed you're tutorial for the hex-boot, and put my Sakura 1.46 startnds.eng into it but its still 1.44, when I go into R4i it boots up but as soon as it gets finished the bottom screen goes black and i can't do anything on it, and I'm not sure how to launch iTouch DS Firmware, help?

1. It'll still say 1.44, but have the 1.46
2. I had that problem as well, I suggest downloading the r5 hex boot and just copying over the folder from the "bin" folder.
3. Just goto "_system_" in the Sakura with the latest hex boot and run the itouch nds file.

 

[ZeWarrior]

I followed you're tutorial for the hex-boot, and put my Sakura 1.46 startnds.eng into it but its still 1.44, when I go into R4i it boots up but as soon as it gets finished the bottom screen goes black and i can't do anything on it, and I'm not sure how to launch iTouch DS Firmware, help?

1. It'll still say 1.44, but have the 1.46
2. I had that problem as well, I suggest downloading the r5 hex boot and just copying over the folder from the "bin" folder.
3. Just goto "_system_" in the Sakura with the latest hex boot and run the itouch nds file.

Got a link to the R5(R4?) Hex Boot?

 

[DeltaBurnt]

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=212507

It was on the first page :\