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My name is Dungeonfire#0512 on Discord if you have any suggestions

Create/update your nand backup! When making changes to your device, there is always the chance you will brick.

Having a custom Home Menu installed breaks system updates. If you want to update your system, you will have to restore your Home Menu with a blank HomeMenu.cia first.

In this guide we will be customizing the looks of your Home and Sleep Menu. It will certainly not cover everything that you are able to customize, but this guide should give you an idea as to what extent you can personalize your device. If you would like to customize aspects of it that are not listed on here, I suggest checking out the documentation by Team homemenu.co

Prerequisites:

The latest version of Home Menu Rebuilding Tool by DeKay
The latest version of HxD
The latest version of MSBT Editor Reloaded
The latest version of Cheat Engine 6.6
The latest version of HME Positions by DeKay
Hex Colors
Knowledge of how to work with Coordinates

Section I - Preperation Work

Download and extract the contents of HMRT_Dev_Build_v0.7.7z
Download and install HxD, or alternatively download and extract the portable version
Download and extract the contents of MSBT.Editor.Reloaded.v0.9.8.rar
Download and install Cheat Engine 6.6
Download HME Positions by DeKay

Click to enlarge the image

Excluding 3DNUS.exe

Section II - Decompressing the `HomeMenu.cia`

In this section we will be dumping and decompressing your device-specific HomeMenu.cia in preparation for the editing process.

Insert the SD Card into your device
Launch your device and enter GodMode9

Navigate to [1:] SYSNAND CTRNAND
Navigate to title
Navigate to 00040030
Navigate to the folder corresponding to your region:

USA: 00008F02
EUR: 00009802
JPN: 00008202

Navigate to content
Press (A) on the .tmd file → TMD file options... → Build CIA (standard)

Turn off your system and insert your SD card into your computer
Backup the .cia you just build to a safe place on your computer
Rename the dumped .cia to HomeMenu.cia and place in the same folder as the Home Menu Rebuilding Tool
Launch the Home Menu Rebuilding Tool and press (8)

Section III - Editing the Sleep Menu

Launch MsbtEditor
Open
/ExtractedRomFS/message/<Region of your device>_<Language of your device>/menu_msbt.LZ
This is where the text of the Sleep Menu will be located:

lau_b_shutdown
lau_press_pow_u0
lau_press_pow_u1
lau_press_pow0
lau_press_pow1
lau_press_pow2
lau_press_pow3
lau_press_pow4
lau_press_pow5
lau_press_pow5_flw

To change the text, choose one of the strings from the list on the left and edit the text in the top left box
You can change any other text that is unrelated to the Sleep Menu if you like
When you are done, simply save and close the program

Launch HxD and open /ExtractedRomFS/sleep.LZ
These are the values you can modify:

Description	Bottom Screen	Top Screen
Background	0x00001260	0x00001CD4
Background Glow	0x00001264	0x00001CD8
Background Stripes	0x0000125C	0x00001CD0
Header Color	-	0x00001D70
Text Color	0x000012FC	0x00001DA4
Footer Color	0x0000122C	0x00001EA8
Line Color	0x00001554	0x00001E24
Button Text Color	0x000014D4	-
Button Text Mask	0x000014A0	-
Button Color	0x0000132C 0x000013E4	-
Button Glow	0x00001330 0x000013E8	-

To jump to a value without looking for it manually, press Ctrl+G and enter everything from the offset value excluding 0x
Each of these values are 3 size offsets, so only edit the next 3 pairs of hex for each offset

Use values like #213BBD instead of (33,59,189). They are both the same color, but only the first format is supported

After you are done replacing the hex values with the colors you desire, save

Section IV - Editing the icons of the Home Menu

In this section we will be editing the color of the icons displayed on the Home Menu. (Notes, Friends, Notifications, etc.)

Start off by opening /ExtractedRomFS/launcher.LZ in HxD
These are the values you can modify:

Icon	Color 1	Color 2
Miiverse	0x00031DA8	0x00031DAC
Internet Browser	0x00031E84	0x00031E88
Notifications	0x00031F60	0x00031F64
Friend List	0x0003203C	0x00032040
Game Notes	0x00032118	0x0003211C

Just as before, each value is a 3 size offset
After you are done making your edits, save
Now we also need to modify the banners displayed at the top screen
The files responsible for those banners are:

/ExtractedRomFS/3D/BannerAppletFriend.LZ (Friends)
/ExtractedRomFS/3D/BannerAppletMemo.LZ (Game Notes)
/ExtractedRomFS/3D/BannerAppletMvs.LZ (Miiverse)
/ExtractedRomFS/3D/BannerAppletNews.LZ (Notifications)
/ExtractedRomFS/3D/BannerAppletWeb.LZ (Internet Browser)

These are the offsets for the colors, they are the same for each file:

Color 1	Color 2
0x00001D7C	0x00001D80

Again, those are 3 size offsets
After you have saved every file, you are free to close HxD

Section V - Editing the HUD

In this section we will be editing the elements that are displayed on the top screen of the Home Menu.

Launch Cheat Engine and open the file /ExtractedRomFS/hud.LZ

If an error occurs, just press okay and continue

Drag & drop the HME_Positions_By_DeKay.CT in the Cheat Engine window
You can now edit the color- and position values of elements as you please
Colors are standard RGB format; for the coordinates please refer to this image:

If you want to remove an element, you can edit the position values of the corresponding element to a very high number
This does not work for the connection status bar. If you want to remove it, open hud.LZ in HxD and change the following offsets to 00:
0x000097E2
0x000098A2
0x00009962
Those are 1 size offsets, so only edit the pair your cursor jumps to when entering the offset value

When you are done editing the values, check the box of each one you edited and close Cheat Engine

Section VI - Installing the `.cia`

In this section we will be rebuilding, encrypting, and installing the .cia file.

Return to the Home Menu Rebuilding Tool window and press any key to rebuild the .cia

If you accidentally closed the prompt, open it up again and press 6 → 2 → 3

Move the HomeMenu_edited.cia to your SD Card
Remove the SD Card from your computer and insert it into your device
Launch your device and enter GodMode9

Press (A) on HomeMenu_edited.cia → CIA image options → Encrypt file (...) → Encrypt inplace

Restart your device and install the encrypted .cia file with your favorite .cia installer. If no error occurs, reset your device manually
You should now have your custom Home Menu installed!

Here a few pictures of what my Home Menu looks like: (This is almost entirely copied from Zyneros' Home Menu theme, because I actually really like it)

Restoring the Home Menu without a backup

This section is for those who forgot to backup their original HomeMenu.cia and want to update their system.

Extract and launch 3DNUS and enter the title ID and version of your Home Menu

If you don't know the title ID and version of your Home Menu, here is a pastebin

Wait for the download to finish and close the program
Rename the <titleID>.cia to HomeMenu.cia and place it anywhere onto your SD card
Insert the SD Card into your device
You should now be able to install the blank HomeMenu.cia

If you want to update your Home Menu with a newer one, you need to install a fresh HomeMenu.cia first which you can just download via 3DNUS.

Keep the decrypted HomeMenu_edited.cia file in the folder you did your edits in, in case you want to make changes later on.

If you have trouble with anything, ask on the Custom Home Menu Asset Discussion Discord server.

Credit goes to:
● DeKay for some of the files
● Minimal Mistakes since I blatantly stole some of their CSS (will remove/change upon request!)
● homemenu.co (currently down)
● Traiver, Romulator, DeKay, and everyone who contributed to the documentation
● Zyneros because I used his guide as a template
● ScribbL, Sobliv, Romulator, and Ms. Ferreira for their proofreading
● Merch for their suggestion to use GodMode9 to dump the HomeMenu.cia ourselves instead of downloading it via 3DNUS
● The Custom Home Menu Asset Discussion Discord Server for the great help.