[Huawei Developers] Martin Bieber:
Hello, I hope you are doing well

Are you one of those who like to personalize the look of your device and often change themes on your phone depending on the current mood, weather conditions, or even depending on the occasion and clothing combination? Have you ever wondered how all these themes that you can download from the Huawei Themes app are created? In a recent topic from the HMS Official account, two HUAWEI Theme designers - Zint from Malaysia and Zhong Xia from China shared their stories with us and discovered how they turn their dreams and passion into the art of theming. Be sure to check them out by clicking the image below.

But, in addition to art, technology is also of great importance in the process of themes creation, so that Huawei Theme designers can easily and efficiently turn their aesthetics into functional themes. To make the production of themes as simple as possible so that developers can focus on the design, Huawei has developed the smart tool for Windows platform called Theme Studio, which enables efficient creation of themes in a visualized way. Although Themes Studio is intended primarily for Huawei Theme designers, you too can try your hand at creating themes with this intuitive tool if you follow the steps in the short intro below.

When you go to the Theme Studio landing page, you can get acquainted with detailed documentation, including a brief overview, version change history, recommended hardware configuration and installing instructions, as well as a complete guide for using the application. If you decide to get started quickly, you can simply download the latest version of the application (currently 11.0.0.100), start the installation by double-clicking the ThemeStudioSetup file from the downloaded package, and in no time you will be ready to take you first steps in designing themes.

When the application opens, you can start a new project or import and edit one of the historical projects. In the future, all the historical projects will be displayed as thumbnails on the home screen of the aplication, so you can access them more easily. When creating a new theme, you need to enter the name of the project, select the EMUI version and the scope of the project:

Small theme: With the small theme option you can change the skin of the lock screen, home screen and icons range

Large theme: With the large theme option you can change all of the above as well as contacts, messaging, quick settings and phone range

Lock screen theme: The lock screen theme is a theme that only changes the skin of the lock screen

Icon theme: Icon themes are themes that only changes the skin of the icons and the home screen

AOD theme: AOD themes are themes that only change the skin of Always On Display screen

Keep in mind that you can change the scope of the project at any time during the theme development. Optionally, you can also enter developer and designer name, a version number, and a brief description of your theme.

When a new project is opened, a preset theme with all the necessary design items is automatically loaded, so you have a good basis to start designing your own theme. The graphical user interface is very easy to use, it's clean and with logically grouped elements:

MENU BAR

From the Menu bar you can open a new project, import a theme in hwt format or open one of the historical projects, and you can also upgrade existing EMUI 10.1 theme to the EMUI 11 version. In addition, there is an option to set the preview images and take screenshots for each of the designed elements. The menu bar also has options for synchronizing finished themes to the phone that has USB debugging enabled or for exporting finalized themes to the PC storage.

NAVIGATION BAR

In the Navigation bar you can select the module you want to edit: AOD, unlock and home screens, icons, common elements colors, phone, messaging and notifications. Depending on the scope of the theme you have chosen, individual modules may be grayed out. For some of the modules in the Navigation menu, there are several options or screens that you can change to your liking. If you are editing a dynamic unlock screen, you can set specific options in the Menu bar, and individual layers can be edited in the Project area.

EDITING AREA

In the Editing area you can change the position, color, transparency, shape, background, icon... all the editable items of the module you have chosen. The required specifications are listed next to each item, and if you're not happy with the change you've made, you can simply revert each of the changed items to their default.

PREVIEW AREA

It's obvious that you can check any changes you make in real time in the Preview area.

PROJECT AREA

In the Project Area you can change the scope of the project, check which of the modules you can edit, and you can track all the edit steps you have made. You can collapse the project area by clicking on the arrow in the right corner as you wish, so that you have more space for other elements.

I hope that after this brief intro you are ready for the “My First Theme” challange. If you need additional info and detailed EMUI10.1 Themes Design Guidance & Specification, you can find them at this link. It's not that complicated, you will surely have a good time, and you may even discover content developer in yourself. Take a look how my first personalized AOD design turned out.

For details about Huawei developers and HMS, visit the website.

HUAWEI Developer Forum | HUAWEI Developer

forums.developer.huawei.com