How to Create or Edit a Theme(.tsk) for Windows Mobile Phone OS

Using a Windows Mobile Phone Device many of us might have got bored by using the same old themes and have also wanted to get new ones. Well that’s the reason why we have soo many different style of theme coming up on our site but now you can create your own theme. Yes your own theme and you do not need any theme creators for that. Use this Simple tutorial to create your own theme and flaunt it on your device. This is because the Theme file is no different to an Installation Cab file. Thus it is very important to know How to Create a Cab file.

This is all that you need to get it working for yourself:

• You should have read How to Create a Cab and Understanding the SYS Folder
• WinCE Cab Manager
• an Original Theme File, e.g. – Classicblue.tsk

Now lets get started. Follow the Steps below:

1. Decide for which Resolution you want to make the theme for – W/QVGA or W/VGA.
2. Get the original Classicblue.tsk from “Base_Lang_0409_DPI_96_RESH_240_RESV_320” folder in your SYS or take it from the Windows Folder from your Device.
3. Now open the Classicblue.tsk in WinCE Cab Manager and this is how it will look like,
    
4. You need to make sure if you create a new theme or edit a previous theme, that the Install folder should always be Windows. You can change the name of the theme if you like.
5. Now the 1st thing to change in a theme is the wallpapers. Now by default a theme will have wallpaper for the resolution of the device it was made for. For example QVGA, then it will have only 2 wallpapers, one for portrait “stwater_240_320.jpg” and other for landscape “stwater_320_240.jpg”.
   
   Which make the theme compatible only for QVGA resolution. But you can make the same theme compatible for WQVGA resolution by adding the relevant portrait “stwater_240_400.jpg” and landscape “stwater_400_240.jpg”. Thus making the theme compatible for both QVGA and WQVGA. Same goes for VGA and WVGA resolution aswel.
6. If you are editing or creating the theme for Windows Phone OS 6.1 you wont have many components attached to your theme but since Windows Phone OS 6.5/6.5.x alot has been added it the theme itself. Many graphics and images in the UI of your device are driven by the theme itself like the top taskbar background, softkey bar background, softkey bar buttons, etc. Now these are added in terms of registries in your theme file as in this picture,
    
    
   These images are found in the “Base_DPI_96/192” folder in your SYS folder. You can either edit these files or make your own images and change the desired name in the registry field in the theme file. If you want to experiment more them you can even change the size of these images to appear in you Device. For example some people like to have large menu Pop Ups but some prefer it small, you can do that aswel by editing the height and width of these files in these registries.
7. Next step is to play with the colors of the backgrounds that you find in the OS. You can change them aswel in these registry locations,
   
    

Once you play will all these settings in a theme file, just save the theme file and put it along with the desired images  from Step 6 to your windows folder or cook it to your ROM and NJOI.