Artist’s Guide

When posting a theme to one of the indexed forums, follow these guidelines to ensure that your theme will be properly indexed by IconHarvester.

Preview Image

The first image in a post will be chosen as the preview.

Primary Download

If the preview image is linked, that link will be chosen as the primary download. If not, it will look for a link named “Download” and use that if it exists.

If no link could be found, or the link is to a web page, the user will be shown an inline web browser where they can attempt to find the download link themselves. Their selection may be saved as the primary download for that theme if it proves to be correct.

Package Format

IconHarvester currently only supports the ZIP and RAR archive formats. You may include extra files that are not strictly part of the WinterBoard theme package, such as image templates or documentation, as part of the archive by putting the actual theme in a subdirectory.

The actual theme package is chosen by searching for a folder containing an Info.plist, Wallpaper.png, Wallpaper.jpg, or an Icons folder.

The order in which the subdirectories of the archive are searched is undefined however, so ensure that there is at most only one of any of the above files in the archive, and that they are all in the same directory.

For example, if you have two directories, each with an Info.plist in them, IconHarvester will not know which one is the actual theme package, and will choose one at random. This may be improved upon in the future.

If you wish to include multiple wallpapers or Info.plists in one archive, add suffixes to them. For example, Wallpaper-purple.png.

Alternate Icons

There are two ways to include alternate icons in your theme. The first is to put alternate icons in subfolders of the Icons folder. You may use as many subfolders, and however deep, as you like.

The second method is to add suffixes to the filenames. For example, Photos-alt1.png and Photos-alt2.png. You may also use color suffixes, such as Phone-red.png and Phone-blue.png. The supported color suffixes are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, black, and metal.

The two methods may also be combined, as shown in the Example Package Tree below.

Icon Generation

IconHarvester uses three image files to generate icons: an AppIconMask, AppIconOverlay, and AppIconShadow. These must be placed in the theme's UIImages folder.

The AppIconMask may be either an alpha mask, or a grayscale mask. For example, a black shape on a transparent background, or a white shape on a black background. The two types of masks are shown in the image to the right, as well as the other components.

With an alpha mask, the opaqueness represents what will show through the mask. Transparent parts represent what will be erased. Color is ignored. With a grayscale mask, white represents what will show, and black what will be erased.

The AppIconOverlay and AppIconShadow images are just regular transparent PNG files. Please ensure that all three files have the same dimensions.

Example Package Tree

  • my-awesome-theme.zip
    • My Awesome Theme.theme
      • Info.plist
      • Wallpaper.png
      • Icons
        • Alts
          • Music-alt1.png
          • Music-alt2.png
          • Photos-green.png
          • Videos.png
        • Music.png
        • Phone.png
        • Photos.png
        • Videos.png
      • UIImages
        • AppIconMask.png
        • AppIconOverlay.png
        • AppIconShadow.png
    • Template.psd
    • How to use the template.txt