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About theme installers
Learn how to use hShop's unique theme installers
DISCLAIMER: Anemone3DS and its developers are not affiliated with hShop.
For 3hs users:
3hs will automatically extract themes for you, and you can install more than one at a time. You will need Anemone3DS to apply them.
You can stop reading this page now.
What's the matter with the Themes?
The themes provided on hShop are actually theme installers. They do not install to the official theme selector on the HOME Menu. Rather, they are used with Anemone3DS.
Here are some reasons why:
- While it is possible to get the themes working in an official way, it is quite inconvenient and cannot be done with regular tools like 3hs or FBI. It would require the creation of a tool that installs the themes correctly, just like how the theme shop does it.
- Official themes are region-locked. If we were able to provide the themes in the regular format, you would not be able to use out-of-region themes. Anemone3DS does not have any limits regarding the region of themes.
- It is not possible to provide single themes in the official format as CIAs. Let's say you had two "official" theme CIAs. If you installed one of them, it would appear and work fine. But if you were to install the second one after that, it would overwrite the existing one, leaving you with only the second theme.
Considering all of this, we came up with a solution that aims to mitigate all of these issues.
NOTE: You can only have one theme installer on your 3DS at once. To install multiple themes, install a theme installer, run it, and then continue installing more.
What even is a "theme installer"? How do I use it?
A theme installer is a temporary application installed onto your 3DS to copy the Anemone3DS-compatible theme ZIP file to your SD card's "themes" folder.
That may have sounded a bit confusing, so let's break down what a theme installer actually does:
When you open a theme installer, you will see a bit of text on the top screen of your 3DS. It will show you where it will copy the theme ZIP, as well as asking you to press any key except the HOME button and the POWER button to start the process. It looks like this:
Once a key is pressed, it will start the copying process, while showing you the progress in form of a progress bar:
When the copying process is done, pressing any key will cause the application to exit and self-destruct. Yes, self-destruct. It will delete itself from your 3DS, leaving behind only the theme ZIP it just copied onto your SD card.
At this point, you are done installing the theme. Upon launching Anemone3DS, you should see the installed theme in the list and it is ready to be applied to your HOME screen.
Added: 27-05-2022 09:52 UTC
Updated: 18-06-2022 11:51 UTC