Hacking YSMenu on R4 - A Guide

[a2h]

What?
Some time ago, the R4 team discontinued providing updates for R4 users. Because the R4 was immensely popular once, this left many R4 users without updates, with a firmware that has many issues.

YSMenu is a replacement for the R4 firmware/loader. It fixes many of the issues with the R4 with an interface that is mostly similar to it.

Why?
Well, as previously mentioned, YSMenu provides bugfixes for major issues in the R4 firmware/loader. These include improved compatibility with games and fixing to the major cheat cut-off bug.

It also adds features such as rumble, RAM and ezflash 3-in-1 support.

Installing
As Yasu does not want ready-made packages to be distributed, you will need to make changes to ensure YSMenu works with your flashcart, in this case the R4DS.

There are currently two programs that automate this process for you that I know of; one is R4ysauto, which is a sticky here, and my own generator.

Both programs generate a ready-made package to be copied as-is to the root of your flashcart depending on your chosen options.

Skinning
YSMenu uses a different skinning system from the R4 firmware/loader.

It does not use images for its optional items screen, but otherwise, there are top/bottom images and the GBA frame image.

To change the colours, you will need to have BGR15 colours.

To convert from R4 skins, there is a generator floating around which I will upload soon if I or someone else can't find it...

To create colours from scratch/hex codes... here's something I wrote

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If you think I should add something do say.

 

[bamse111]

Another reason to use it is rumble, ram, gba support for the ezflash 3in1

 

[Aeter]

For the skinning part this link might be useful,
http://www.conradshome.com/html2bgr15/

 

[a2h]

For the skinning part this link might be useful,
http://www.conradshome.com/html2bgr15/
I already linked to http://a2h.uni.cc/proj/ysskincol/ which I think is better as it generates something to actually replace the original settings not manually copy in.
QUOTE(bamse111 @ Apr 8 2009, 10:24 PM) Another reason to use it is rumble, ram, gba support for the ezflash 3in1

Added, thanks.

 

[wiiluver135]

quick question about themes: I have the tools to convert R4DS themes to YSMenu but is there a way to have more than just one theme on YSMenu at once, like in R4 where you would push select and it would load the next skin in your themes folder?

that would be a nice addition if it's not already possible.

 

[a2h]

I remember there was a homebrew that could do that; if someone has a link or I find it I'll put it up.

 

[wiiluver135]

I remember there was a homebrew that could do that; if someone has a link or I find it I'll put it up.

kk thnx

btw u could just pm me it when u find it

 

[TornZero]

If you could, would you please make it possible so the files required for the ak2-clone R4-New/R4-SDHC would be generated instead (Like make a different version specifically for the ak2 clone, R4-New)?

 

[Aeter]

For the skinning part this link might be useful,
http://www.conradshome.com/html2bgr15/

I already linked to http://a2h.uni.cc/proj/ysskincol/ which I think is better as it generates something to actually replace the original settings not manually copy in.

It just doesn't work with all values.
It gives me the error "You must enter an integer decimal number!".
Only with values that have 00 in them.
So values like FF0000 (red) and 000000 (black) and some other colours won't generate.