(V)eGa's - How to create a basic theme - TUTORIAL

[(V)eGa]

This is a pretty basic tutorial on how to create Windows Mobile 5/6 themes for the Sprint Mogul or devices that have the same screen resolution as the mogul. I just want to go into a few things of what this tutorial will NOT be showing you:

·How to size images to fit the PDA’s resolution
·Special effects added to theme files
·How to change the color of each and every aspect of your theme

This will show you how to easily create a theme in under 5 minutes. Please DO NOT PM ME ASKING HOW TO GET THIS EFFECT OR THAT EFFECT! If you want to learn, I suggest you do as I did and play around with the software for an hour or two until you learn what does what. This tutorial just serves as a basic how to since the ones that are floating around are dodgy at best.

To make a theme, you really only need two things:

* Wallpaper(s)
* ThemeGenCE

To get a wallpaper, the best thing to do is use images.google.com and put in what you are looking for. For the sake of sanity, I will simply go here and put in "Wallpapers" (Without the quotes). I found a orange picture of a bridge that I liked so I'll use that. The picture is located here:

http://www.drweb.de/img/wa2.jpg

Save the picture to your desktop so you can access it quickly. Now go and download

ThemeGenCE 2.5.

To get ThemeGenCe 2.5, Go here:
http://www.codeppc.com/telechargemen...themegence.htm

Once you download ThemeGenCe, you have to extract the zip to a folder. Once you extract the zip, start the application by double-clicking the ThemeGenCe.exe file in the folder (Note. If you have Windows Vista, you must run this program as an Administrator or else it will not work correctly!!!!)




Now your screen will differ from mine since I have already made a few themes. But I'm going to point out the only important places you need to go to make a theme. Notice that you have five tabs. They are:

Options, Pictures, Colors, WM5 Settings, AS

The only tabs we will touch are the first four tabs. If you are not on the Options tab, click on it now. You will see the words "Theme Format." To the right of that, you will see an options button, click it:



On this screen, you will select the theme size. For this example, we will use QVGA (TD 320x293, ST 319,292). Select that option and then hit validate:



What we just did was tell ThemeGenCE that we want to a QVGA theme that will use one

image for the background and one image for the start menu. You should now be back at the options screen. Click the images tab and click on the picture of the mona lisa. You should have a screen like this:

[(V)eGa]

Right now, the only icons you need to worry about are the first and the fourth icons. Now remember the wallpaper we saved? Hit the first icon and navigate to where the wallpaper is and select the file. Notice when you select this file, because it is much bigger than the PDA's screen, you can a gray box. This box lets you select what section of the picture you will use as the theme's wallpaper. Position the box and then hit the fourth icon to save that section as the Today Wallpaper. Since this is your first time making a theme, it should not ask you to overwrite an existing file.

If you ever get that, just answer yes. Your just updating the STWater files with your new images. Noticed that the area you select now fills up the entire box. The next thing we will do is save a start menu image. We will save the same image to give the start menu that "transparent gif" look. Select the Start option in the Image to Build section and hit the fourth icon again. It might not look like anything happened but it saved the same image as the start menu's image.



Now hit the sixth icon (Power Button and it will take you back to the images tab. Now we will move to the colors tab. Select the colors tab and you will notice that the background you see is the one you just saved. Don't worry about selecting any colors right now. Just hit the D button and then give your theme a name and select a location to save the theme. I always save to the desktop because you can get to it very easy by holding your Windows Key and hitting D (Tech guys tip) Your screen should looks something like this:



Now go to the WM5 options tab. Select the BaseHue option. This is how WM5/WM6 figures out what colors to base all of options on. Take your mouse over the color bar at the top of this screen until you find a color that goes good with the theme. Once you have selected a color, make sure to check the options of:

Create BaseHue Key for Theme & Create DPI Key for the Theme and then hit Validate:

[(V)eGa]

The only thing left to do now is save the theme file. You do this by hitting the
fourth icon on the main program screen and it will write the theme to a .tsk file.



Now pat yourself on the back because you just made your first theme. Now take the theme as copy it to your phone and see how it looks

MeGa

[(V)eGa]

You can also use ThemeGenCE 2.5 to preview your theme by clicking the theme preview button.



In the preview, to view WM6 bars just click the WM6 button. To save a screenshot of your theme, just click on the PDA's preview screen.



And that's it

MeGa

[JRANGER]

wow nice write up

[InvincibleLiving]

i missed this thread when you made it, but yeah very nice walkthru, thanks.

[bkhoste]

Awsome walk through, I am going to be up late making themes. Vega, you da man!

[smorales02]

How do I use the themes from your site? Dont get not .tsk file with them..???

[(V)eGa]

Originally Posted by smorales02

How do I use the themes from your site? Dont get not .tsk file with them..???

My themes are cab files because I want you to be able to install and un-install the themes easy. No everyone is computer or PDA-literate, so I tried to make it easier for everyone.

MeGa

PS - Thanks for the love guys. I'm glad you like the write up. I was telling people I was going to do it but I been so busy. Now everyone can give it a try.

[smorales02]

Maybe I just not understanding. I downloaded the Texas Longhorns and Poker themes and when I unzip it I get three things.

setup.xml
and two other files with no extension