P.S. I like it the way Windows Basic is, without the lines going across.

I would like the Date to be on the left side and time on the right, in smaller font.

The AT&T, if possible to say: Jayden 6.20.6
Thanks again.

This might be very stupid, however; the first time I tried to make one I forgot to save it as whatever.xml.

Final of X factor is on tonight so though I'd do something constructive. This is basically what goes through my head when making an xml and I hope it encourages other people to produce and share their homescreens with us. So here goes...

Example of Homescreen making
Firstly Ill show you how to make this homescreen....


Its a simple little homescreen but I just want to show the just of compiling an xml file.
>>Beginning
Firstly, you must have an idea of what the outcome is going to look like and what plugins your going to include. So I sat there and thought to myself "I'm going to create a homescreen with a nice cartoony Santa at the bottom surrounded by snow and maybe implement a tree and presents. Ill keep this homescreen neat n simple so Ill only use the Messaging plugin, Profile plugin and Date/Time/Carrier plugin."

>>Plugins
Before I continue Ill briefly explain what a plugin is. To me, a plugin is basically a layer in the screen that when scrolled down/up onto the layer using the joystick, you can click and open it up(scrolling onto the Messaging plugin and clicking it will open up Messaging).

Some layers (eg// Date/Time/Carier plugin) cannot be selected and when scrolling through the plugins using the joystick you will skip this layer(ie... if from top to bottom you have the Message plugin, the Date/Time/Carrier plugin and then at the bottom the Profile plugin and you press down on your joystick when on the Message plugin, it will not go down and select the Date/Time/carrier plugin but skip it and select the profile plugin.)

Heres an image to understand the plugin layers in the skin were going to create...

Each plugin is specific to what it can display (eg// the Profile plugin will display what profile you are currently using. The Date/Time/Carrier plugin can display the current date and time and the network you are on.)

>>Creating Background
I tend to create the image (using photoshop) before the xml so I can fit the words onto the background image but others may create the xml and then create an image that fits around the words. Anyway heres the background image I created for this homescreen....

Oh by the way, the background image will be 240x295pixels (as 25 pixels get taken up by the soft keys)

>>Starting the XML

Every XML begins with...

The version if its firstly created will be 1.0 .. if you update the homescreen then you can change it to 1.1 or whatever.
Once we have added all the colour scheme and xml codes we will close the xml with

Next we add the Author, Contact, Title and Version...


Inside the author tag will be your name(obviously)
The contact URL can be a site or email address so that people can get hold of you with any feedback etc
The title is what wil be displayed when you selecting the homescreen on your phone in Start-> Settings-> Homescreen
Why is the version there again? Well I couldn't tell you is my simple answer!

Anywho we then add the default settings...


These are the default settings for evything in your homescreen. So for example, in the Messaging Plugin, if you do not say what size font to use it will be 19.

Then we say what background image to use...


If the background image is in the same folder as the XML then theres no need to specify its pathfile. But if for example the XML is in storage/application data/home and the background image is in a folder called xmas in the home folder then your code becomes...


valign stands for vertical alignment. So the image is pushed to the top of the screen and as our background image is 240x295pixels it will fill the screen.

>>Colour Scheme

We then introduce a colour scheme. Well I'm simply going to show you an example of a colour scheme and show you what each stands for.



The colours are Hex colours. If you have Adobe Photoshop then the code for any colour can easily be found out. If not then there are plenty of sites that can help you. Just make a Google for Hex colour codes.
Anywho, heres what each stands for...

COLOR_WINDOW
Background color for all application windows and controls, including the transparent portions of the scroll bar stripes.
COLOR_WINDOWTEXT
Text color for list views, controls, and labels. Does not set menu text color, soft key text color, or button text color.
COLOR_STATIC
Background color for static controls, such as labels. Also sets the background color for message boxes.
COLOR_STATICTEXT
Text color for static controls such as labels.
COLOR_HIGHLIGHT
Color of selection for list views, controls, menus, and soft key buttons.
COLOR_HIGHLIGHTTEXT
Color of text when an item has selection, such as a list view element or a control, and highlighted soft keys.
COLOR_MENU
Background color for menus.
COLOR_MENUTEXT
Text color for menu items.
COLOR_GRAYTEXT
Color for disabled text, such as disabled menu items and soft key buttons.
COLOR_GRADLEFT
Starting color value for the background gradient.
COLOR_GRADRIGHT
Ending color value for the background gradient.
COLOR_INTGRADLEFT
Starting color value for the secondary background gradient.
COLOR_INTGRADRIGHT
Ending color value for the secondary background gradient.
COLOR_HIGHGRADLEFT
Gradient highlights are not supported. COLOR_HIGHGRADLEFT and COLOR_HIGHGRADRIGHT must be set to the same value.
COLOR_HIGHGRADRIGHT
Gradient highlights are not supported. COLOR_HIGHGRADLEFT and COLOR_HIGHGRADRIGHT must be set to the same value.
COLOR_TRAYGRADLEFT
Starting color value for the title bar gradient.
COLOR_TRAYGRADRIGHT
Ending color value for the title bar gradient.
COLOR_TRAYTEXT
Color for the title bar text.
COLOR_WINDOWFRAME
Color of the dividing line between the main window and the soft key region, and the bounding rectangle around the scroll bar thumb.
COLOR_BTNFACE
Unselected background color for the soft key region.
COLOR_BTNTEXT
Unselected text color for the soft key region, navigation glyph and scroll bar thumb.
COLOR_SCROLLBAR
Color of the stripes on the scroll bar.
COLOR_alertTITLE
Color of the title text in an alert.
COLOR_alertWINDOW
Background color for alerts.
COLOR_alertRULE
Color of the dividing lines on the Home screen.
COLOR_HOMERULE
Color of unselected text on the Home screen.
COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHTTEXT
Color of selected text on the Home screen.
COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHT
Background color of a selected plug-in on the Home screen.

I do not like creating a new scheme for each of my screens so I use the one shown above and just change the red #e80000 to the colour of my new homescreen.

>>Adding whats displayed

Now we begin adding whats going to be displayed.
I start my homescreens with the Iconbar. Why? Because Im used to seeings it there and it displays the essentials like battery, signal strength, bluetooth, gprs etc etc...
So heres the code ...



Every plugin has its own clsid. I cant really explain what this is because I basically dont know !! But I think its just a way the phone identifies the plugin.
The height is usually how much pixels in height the plugin/layer is but in the iconbars case it takes up 25 by default so setting it to 0 basically means 25.
The bgcolor is transparent so we can see the image behind the plugin. If for example it was #000000 then the background of that plugin would be black
fgcolor being #ffffff means that the things displayed (signal meter, battery meter etc) will be white.
Plugins use x and y co-ordinates to place labels but this plugin is a pants one to explain how they work.


Onto the Message Plug-in....


Before I continue, anything between does not get read and is used to help keep the xml tidy so you can see where everything is.
Again you can see the plugin clsid and its name. You also see the height as 65. This is how tall the layer is in pixels (remembering the QVGA is 320pixels in height) Anything to do with this plugin (ie SMS count MMS count etc) can only be dislayed within these 65 pixels.
the y co-ordinate (20) is how many pixels down from the top of the plugin that the text is displayed. If for example the y co-ord was 70 (which is bigger than the plugin height of 65) then the text would not be seen.
The x co-ord is how many pixels from the left side of the screen the text is displayed.
halign stands for horizontal alignment. fgcolor is the colour that the text is and font size is pretty obvious. If you do not put in the font size, then it will be the size of the default font size you put in the default settings at the start of the xml.
The formatstate tags basically make the text bold when you scroll onto the layer so you know what your clicking on. You could also try changing the font colour when you scroll onto it or even the font size. Possibly a different background.
You can then add your own prefix (I chose SMS: and MMS:) and then the and will display any new messages you have.

Now the profile plugin ...

Same principles apply to this as the Messaging plugin

Now the date, time and the carrier....


Nothing much new here except the mode on the date and time
For the time you can choose 12 and 24 for 12 hour and 24 hour obviously.
For the date you can select short or long which will be dd/mm/yyyy or 17th June 2004.

And we end the xml with... dum dum dum...

And thats it! Now when your saving make sure your not saving it as a text file. So change text document(*.txt) to All Files in the dropdown and name your homescreen *.home.xml . In this example it is w411y - Xmas.home.xml .

Then copy the xml and the background image into the following folder on your phone ...
Storage\Application Data\Home
Press Start -> Settings -> Homescreen and chose your screen (ensurign the colour scheme and background image is set to default)


And thats it !! Please correct any stupid comments I've made and feel free to add any tips tricks and info. I was hoping to start a thread where people can ask and find the answers to problems theyre having in making their own homescreens or editing homescreens.

Well good luck, hope I helped a lil