Here’s how to customize Gboard with Rboard Theme Creator and Patcher

In the endlessly customizable world of Android, hobbyists and mods alike are on a constant journey to make our devices better fit our personalities. We like to modify anything and everything we can get, whether it’s a new wallpaper, the latest new icon pack, or a completely custom theme. This is the reason why many users prefer Gboard as their keyboard appwhere you can tweak the inventory UI with custom themes across projects like Rboard Theme Manager.

Although Google offers a large number of themes for Gboard out of the box, there is an entire community out there for homebrew themes and other tweaks for the keyboard app. However, customizing an existing theme pack or creating a custom theme from scratch is not a straightforward task. To fill in the blank, two veteran Gboard users – XDA Senior Member RKBD And an XDA member Dirtyp 7214 – Created a pair of apps: Rboard Theme Creator and Rboard Patcher.

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The internal structure of a Gboard theme

In the Gboard themes scene, a theme pack can be identified with its “.pack” extension. Essentially, a file is a collection of image assets, style sheets, and metadata – all compressed in a proprietary container format.

Since most of the theme components are not coded, one can also write additional patches to modify certain parts of the theme on the fly. Patches are usually distributed as ZIP files.

How to create a Gboard theme with Rboard Theme Creator

Rboard Theme Creator is a lightweight Android app that allows anyone to create a basic Gboard theme right on their phone. You don’t even need to have access to a computer to compile the theme pack, the app takes care of everything for you.

To design your own Gboard theme, do the following:

1. Install the app from the Google Play Store link mentioned above.
2. Open the app and locate the turntable to choose the color.
   
3. Next, select the coloring scheme (eg dark or Monet) and the corresponding UI component (eg AMOLED or dialect of higher education). The app allows you to try every possible combination.
4. Now adjust the color disks until you get the user interface with the desired themes in the preview section.
5. To save the created custom theme, click the share icon in the lower left corner, choose the file picker, and save it after giving it a proper name and author information.

Alternatively, you can move the newly created theme directly to Rboard Patcher (if installed) for further editing. To do this, press Add a topic button and follow the wizard.

For any app developers reading this, Rboard Theme Creator is completely open source. You are free to explore the code, submit new patches, or compile the application yourself.

Rboard Theme Creator GitHub Repository

It is worth noting that the developer also Hosts the web version of the appwhich can be useful for designing Gboard themes from PC/Mac.

How to patch Gboard theme with Rboard Patcher

Rboard Patcher is a versatile tool for Gboard themes. To get started, the app allows you to customize the basic theme package (*.pack) that the Rboard Theme Creator app produces. Furthermore, you can also modify the themes in the community and modify various aspects of it using publicly hosted theme patches. Patcher has not yet supported third-party patch repositories, but the feature is expected to arrive soon.

Here’s how to customize any Rboard compatible theme with Rboard Patcher:

1. Install the app from the Google Play Store link mentioned above.
2. Open the application and open the *. Valid for Gboard theme using file picker.
   • For example, you can point the app to a theme pack created by Rboard Theme Creator.
3. Rboard Patcher will fetch a file Generally hosted theme fixes It was stated emphatically.
   
4. Click on the one you want to apply (for example, a line or a round icon).
5. To save the custom theme, click on the share icon in the lower left corner, choose the file picker, and save it after giving it an appropriate name and author information.

In case you want to immediately set up your custom theme to flash via Rboard Theme Manager, you can do so by clicking on Add to manager button and follow the wizard. Of course you need to have Rboard Theme Manager It is already installed on your device, otherwise the option will not work. Furthermore, you need root access to install themes.

Rboard Patcher is also open source, which means you are welcome to tinker with the code base. If you want to try bleeding edge designs without compiling the app yourself, choose Continuous integration versions.

GitHub Rboard Patcher Repository

conclusion

Thats all about it. As you can see, creating custom themes for Gboard is not that difficult, especially when you can use the great tools provided by the Rboard community. How accurate you get with Gboard themes is entirely up to you, but if you’re not satisfied with Google’s offerings, building the theme you want from scratch is the best thing you can do.

Do you regularly customize your keyboard app with different tweaks, or do such themes don’t interest you? Let us know in the comments section below.