Winterboard theming guide?

[Travisimo]

I have a Verizon iPhone that I jailbroke with Greenpois0n and it is working great. I installed Winterboard and I have tried a few apps from the Themes section of the Cydia store (all iOS 4 themes, of course). At any rate, I can't get them to work right. I know some of them need further customizations to work fully, but I don't understand how any of this works.

Is there a RECENT guide to theming with Winterboard? Something that explains in great detail how to install them and get them to work right?

I'll give you an example. I purchased the Obsidian HD theme from Cydia. In the Winterboard settings, I have checked different combinations of Obsidian tweaks but still have some problems. For example, on the lock screen it shows weather from "Modesto" and I can't figure out how to get it to show my local city/temp. Also, on the main springboard, if I click on a Folder, my user background will appear while it is expanded and then the themed background will reappear when I close it.

Thanks for any help to get me started!

 

[Ipheuria]

This link is in the Jailbreak section but I'll save you the time of searching for it Jailbreak and unlock the iPhone - Make and use themes with WinterBoard go there and it explains not how to use Winterboard but how to create your own themes. I know you don't want to do that but it will also explain a bit of what you want to know. There are things that don't work in iOS anymore like the switching to your wallpaper when you expand folders. You can either get the wallpaper that came with the theme and set it as your homescreen background or you can make whatever wallpaper you prefer as the wallpaper for the theme. You have to have both set as wallpapers because User Background in Winterboard no longer works in iOS.

 

[Travisimo]

Thanks, I will check that out!

EDIT: I'm still having a hard time understanding how the wallpapers work. The guide you pointed me to mentions the following:

"The User Wallpaper and User Lock Background themes have been made obsolete with iOS 4. You now have direct control over what image goes on your lock screen and SpringBoard pages through the Settings application in the Wallpaper menu. "

However, with the themes I am trying (full themes from the Cydia store), I can't seem to change the background wallpaper at all like the above statement says. I go into Settings / Wallpaper and choose my own wallpaper, click on Set to Home Page, and it does not appear. It only appears when I click on a folder; then it shows up while the folder is expanded. But when I collapse the folder, my own wallpaper goes away and the one that came with the theme is back. Isn't there a way to use my own wallpaper as the background when using one of these themes?

 

[Ipheuria]

You have to go deeper which is why I said you might not want to do it. So as I see it you have two options depending on how you want to proceed.

Method One - Easier Method
Press your icons till they start to jiggle you will get an empty page scroll to the empty page and take a screenshot this will give you the wallpaper. Once you get the wallpaper onto your computer edit it in a graphic editor to crop off the dock. You can use GIMP which is free if you don't have an editor. Then upload it back to your phone, I save my backgrounds in a folder that is synced with my iPhone called backgrounds. Once you have the wallpaper back on the iPhone go into the settings and set that as your wallpaper. When you expand a folder the wallpaper expands downward anyway so the part you cropped off shouldn't matter.

Method Two
This method will give you alot more power. Go through the tutorial(Make sure you click the link for iOS 4) about installing OpenSSH, changing the passwords on your device and SSHing into the phone. You can use any FTP software(Firefox with FireFTP is a free plugin) and keep following the tutorial and it will show you where the themes are installed on your phone. You have two options you can turn the theme off on your phone. Go to the location and download the wallpaper inside the them to your computer and follow the steps above to set it as your wallpaper. You can also once you've downloaded the wallpaper to your computer rename the file on your phone inside the theme which should disable the wallpaper and allow you to use the theme without the wallpaper and control your own wallpaper.

 

[Travisimo]

Thanks, I used Method #2 but instead of using SSH, I used the Cydia app called iFile which worked perfectly. I just renamed the wallpaper.png file in the theme I was using and now I am able to use my own wallpaper.

I appreciate you taking the time to help me out!

 

[Ipheuria]

No problemo man that's what the forums are for  Yeah I heard about that app but prefer SSHing myself. I'm glad you got it working.

 

[Snownation]

TiPb needs to do something about these ads! They're everywhere now.

 

[GadgetMomma]

I have a question to add to this.

Thanks for the info on how to make the "expanded folders" background the same as my theme. That was driving me nuts! I know you said the user wallpaper doesn't work anymore, so how do I go about making a wallpaper the background of my entire theme? If you explained that already and I missed it, I apologize.

Also - there is a theme I like, that also changes the look of the dock. It is the "glass orb" theme. You also have to have the five icon dock installed, which I do and it works fine. The theme changed fine, but the dock didn't change. The icons did, but the look itself of the dock did not (even though I had the dock at the top of the tier and checkmarked). Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Ipheuria]

Background - SSH into your phone and go to your active theme. Then look for the background file it will be called Background.png or something like that rename it, add a 1 at the end. So for example it will become Background1.png, this will disable the wallpaper that came with the theme and you can change the wallpaper from the settings just like you would regularly on the phone.

The dock you need to SSH into the theme and look in the folder Bundles/com.apple.springboard. Look for the file SBDockBG@2x.png if there isn't one that is why the dock didn't change. If you have a file but it's not named exactly like above ie. SBDockBG.png add whatever is missing or incorrect. The caps is very important in the naming of the files. If you can't get it to work email me the theme folder and I'll see what I can do for ya.