This page will explain exactly what a theme is in rockbox terms, what makes up a theme and how the various bits work together.

If you got here just looking for themes then you probably want to head over to The Theme Site.

What is a theme

A theme in rockbox is a collection of skins, images, font(s), icons, settings, etc. The theme site requires them to be packaged in a .zip, but rockbox really only cares about there being a .cfg file in the /.rockbox/themes/ folder on your DAP.

What is in a theme?

A config file so the theme can actually be loaded

This .cfg must be placed in the /.rockbox/themes folder on your DAP. It should only have the settings which are required for your theme. (i.e if your theme doesnt care if the statusbar is set to top or bottom then don't include that setting.) Please create these files from Settings > Manage Settings > Save Theme Setting.

Skins

A complete theme should include a skin file for each skinnable screen (as of 2010-01-29 that means a WPS skin and a Base Skin (.wps and .sbs) )

For information on what these files should contain see CustomWPS. All images for skins live in the /.rockbox/wps// folder. may be the same for each skin, or could be different.

Skinnable screens (remote skins always prepend the extension with an 'r', i.e rsbs)

• The Base Skin (.sbs) - Used to skin the menus and browsers, and is used as the base when other skins dont disable it with the %wd tag.
• The While Playing Screen (.wps) - Used to make the music screen pretty
• The FM Skin (.fms) - Used to make the radio screen pretty.

Fonts

If your theme wants to load a font that is not in the standard rockbox-fonts.zip then it should be included. fonts live in /.rockbox/fonts/

Backdrops

Each skin can load its own backdrop with the %X tag. This backdrop bmp must be in /.rockbox/wps// .

If a skin doesn't specify a backdrop, and a backdrop is specified in the themes config file, then that backdrop will be loaded instead, from /.rockbox/backdrops/ . If you want to force no backdrop in a skin put the %Xd tag into your skin. If you want to force no backdrop in the theme, put backdrop: - in the .cfg.

Icon Sets

A bmp strip with the icons used by the menus. See IconSets and CustomIcons

File Browser Colours

• .colours file to tell the file browser how to colour the files in the listing. (See CustomFiletypeColours )