How to change the R4DS theme.ini

Putting a skin on the R4DS is easy, it’s just the matter of making 4 8bit or 24bit bitmap (.bmp) images, naming them correctly and transferring them onto the R4 (well, Micro SD card).

Making the skin ‘work’ better is how the text looks and that’s where the theme.ini file comes in. In that file are the ‘color’ commands to tell the R4 what colour text and stuff should be and this post is to show you which ‘color’ is for what. You can download a basic ini file from here which has the info in the pic on the right there (click for bigger pic) –>

There isn’t a specific way to ‘tell’ you how to change the theme.ini, it’s just a case of opening it up in notepad and changing the values of each hex number, there’s a chart below which has all the basic colours, but if you’re after a more obscure colour, using a paint/photo imaging program would be more useful.

Due to some big images, the post will continue after the jump…

There is the chart of all the standard colours which should get you started on making that skin a bit more unique, the next 2 images show the colour numbers and their theme.ini names.

I hope that’s given you the info needed to tweak your theme.ini to however you want it to make the colours in your skin appear, just remember to put it in the same folder as your skin for it to take effect. By the way, if anyone would like the Spongebob skin as used in the images, it’s available on the Spongebob skins page.