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   7   <title>The rEFInd Boot Manager: Theming rEFInd</title>
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  12   <h1>The rEFInd Boot Manager:<br />Theming rEFInd</h1>
  13
  14   <p class="subhead">by Roderick W. Smith, <a
  15 href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
  16
  17 <p>Originally written: 4/19/2012; last Web page update:
  18 1/16/2013, referencing rEFInd 0.6.5</p>
  19
  20
  21 <p>I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
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  63 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick">
  64 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
  65 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
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  69 </form>
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  73 <form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
  74 <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">
  75 <input type="hidden" name="business" value="rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">
  76 <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
  77 <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
  78 <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
  79 <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="rEFInd Boot Manager">
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  86
  87 <hr />
  88
  89 <p>This page is part of the documentation for the rEFInd boot manager. If a Web search has brought you here, you may want to start at the <a href="index.html">main page.</a></p>
  90
  91 <hr />
  92
  93 <h2>Theming Basics</h2>
  94
  95 <p>As described on various other pages of this document, rEFInd relies on icon files located in its <tt>icons</tt> subdirectory, and occasionally elsewhere, to define its overall appearance. It also uses a built-in banner and two selection images, which you may replace by using the <tt>banner</tt>, <tt>selection_big</tt>, and <tt>selection_small</tt> tokens in <tt>refind.conf</tt>. You can adjust rEFInd's theme in a few ways:</p>
  96
  97 <ul>
  98
  99 <li>You can create new icons, place them in a subdirectory of rEFInd's main directory, and tell the program to use the new icons by setting the <tt>icons_dir</tt> token in <tt>refind.conf</tt>. This will affect the appearance of the OS tags, the utility tags, and so on. The names of these icons should match those in the <tt>icons</tt> subdirectory, and are fairly self-explanatory. OS tags should be 128x128 pixels, while tags for 2nd-row utilities should be 48x48 pixels. If an icon is missing from the directory specified by <tt>icons_dir</tt>, rEFInd falls back to the icon from the standard <tt>icons</tt> subdirectory; thus, you can replace just a subset of the standard icons. rEFInd can use icons in either Apple's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Icon_Image">icon image (ICNS)</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics">Portable Network Graphics (PNG)</a> format. PNG files are easier to generate on most platforms. You can generate ICNS files in various Apple programs or by using the <a href="http://icns.sourceforge.net/">libicns</a> library (and in particular its <tt>png2icns</tt> program) in Linux.</li>
 100
 101 <li>You can do as above, but place your new icons in the default <tt>icons</tt> subdirectory. This method is discouraged because using the <tt>install.sh</tt> script to upgrade rEFInd will replace your customized icons.</li>
 102
 103 <li>You can customize the appearance of an individual boot loader by placing an ICNS or PNG file in its directory with the same name as the boot loader but with a <tt>.icns</tt> or <tt>.png</tt> extension. For instance, if your boot loader program is <tt>elilo.efi</tt>, you can create a custom icon by naming it <tt>elilo.png</tt>.</li>
 104
 105 <li>You can provide an icon for boot loaders stored in the root directory of a filesystem by placing a file called <tt>.VolumeIcon.icns</tt> or <tt>.VolumeIcon.png</tt> in that volume's root.</li>
 106
 107 <li>You can set a custom badge (the small icon that identifies the disk type) by creating a file called <tt>.VolumeBadge.icns</tt> or <tt>.VolumeBadge.png</tt> in that volume's root. This setting applies to all the boot loaders found on this volume, even if they're in subdirectories.</li>
 108
 109 <li>You can adjust the selection background (used to highlight a selected icon) by creating new icons in PNG or in Microsoft's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP_file_format">BMP format</a>. You should create both 144x144 and 64x64 images and tell rEFInd about them by using the <tt>selection_big</tt> and <tt>selection_small</tt> tokens, respectively, in <tt>refind.conf</tt>. If you omit the large icon, rEFInd will stretch the small icon to fit the larger space; if you omit the small icon, rEFInd will use the default small icon. Because BMP doesn't support transparency (alpha channels), you must use the PNG format if you want your selection background to show the underlying image beneath it. (You can create the illusion of transparency on a solid background by matching the colors, though.)</li>
 110
 111 <li>You can create a new background image and logo by placing a PNG or BMP file in rEFInd's main directory and passing its filename to rEFInd with the <tt>banner</tt> option in <tt>refind.conf</tt>. If the image is smaller than the screen, the color in the top-left corner of the image will be used for the rest of the display. This pixel's color is also used as the background color for submenu text. Using a full-screen background image can produce a dramatically different "look" for rEFInd:</li>
 112
 113 </ul>
 114
 115     <br /><center><img src="refind-background.png" align="center"
 116     width="750" height="472" alt="rEFInd provides extensive theming
 117     options." border=2> </center><br />
 118
 119 <p>Note that in this example, the text immediately below the icons is white, whereas the hint text at the bottom of the screen is black. The text color is determined by the brightness of the background; rEFInd uses black text against light backgrounds and light text against dark backgrounds. This adjustment is done on a line-by-line basis, so it copes better with horizontal lines than with vertical lines.</p>
 120
 121 <p>Of course, not all of these elements are likely to be included in themes. A minimal rEFInd theme would provide just a new icons subdirectory, to be set via <tt>icons_dir</tt>. A more thorough theme would include a changed background image or selection backgrounds.</p>
 122
 123 <p><b>Note:</b> If you'd like to design a logo for rEFInd, please do so! I lack the sort of artistic talent required for creating logos, so I just used plain text. I'd like to have something more eye-catching, though. I don't promise to use the first logo I'm given, but if you have some ideas, or would like to discuss some ideas, feel free to <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">e-mail me.</a></p>
 124
 125 <h2>Known Themes</h2>
 126
 127 <p>I used icons from the Oxygen Icons project, both from the <a href="http://deviantdark.deviantart.com/art/Oxygen-Refit-70199755">Oxygen Refit</a> package and from Gentoo's <tt>oxygen-icons</tt> package. These icons supplemented or replaced icons that rEFIt used; however, many OS icons (such as those for Windows and Mac OS) are carried over from rEFIt. I've also used a handful of icons for individual Linux distributions from other sources&mdash;usually documentation associated with the distribution in question.</p>
 128
 129 <p>In addition to this default icon set, I've received word of two other rEFInd themes:</p>
 130
 131 <ul>
 132
 133 <li><a href="http://ecto-plazm.deviantart.com/art/rEFInd-Icon-Theme-296571397">ecto-plazm's theme</a></li>
 134
 135 <li><a href="http://opendesktop.org/content/show.php?content=153267">The Gris Theme</a> (also available as an <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=61917">Arch Linux package</a>.)</li>
 136
 137 </ul>
 138
 139 <p>If you've created or discovered another rEFInd theme, please <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">tell me about it</a> so that I can provide a link to it from this page.</p>
 140
 141 <hr />
 142
 143 <p>copyright &copy; 2012&ndash;2013 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
 144
 145 <p>This document is licensed under the terms of the <a href="FDL-1.3.txt">GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.</a></p>
 146
 147 <p>If you have problems with or comments about this Web page, please e-mail me at <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com.</a> Thanks.</p>
 148
 149 <p><a href="index.html">Go to the main rEFInd page</a></p>
 150
 151 <p><a href="linux.html">Learn about methods of booting Linux with rEFInd</a></p>
 152
 153   <p><a href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/">Return</a> to my main Web page.</p>
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