Here’s how to customize Gboard using Rboard Theme Creator and Patcher
In the infinitely customizable world of Android, hobbyists and modders alike are on a constant journey to better tailor our devices to our personalities. We love to tweak anything we can get our hands on, be it a new wallpaper, the hottest new icon pack, or a fully customized theme. This is why many users prefer Gboard as their keyboard app since you can modify the default UI with custom themes via projects like Rboard Theme Manager.
Although Google offers a plethora of themes for Gboard by default, there is a whole community for homebrew themes and other mods for the keyboard app. However, customizing an existing theme pack or building a custom theme from scratch is no easy task. To fill the gap, two experienced Gboard designers – XDA Senior Member RKBD and XDA Member DerTyp7214 – have developed two apps: Rboard Theme Creator and Rboard Patcher.
- Rboard Theme Creator allows you to create rudimentary Gboard themes.
- Rboard Patcher allows you to further edit various aspects of the themes.
- The custom themes can be applied through the Rboard Theme Manager.
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Internal structure of a Gboard theme
In the Gboard Themes scene, a theme pack can be identified by its .pack extension. Essentially, the file is a collection of image assets, style sheets, and metadata—all compressed into a special container format.
Since most theme components are unencrypted, you can also write additional patches to modify specific parts of a theme on the fly. The 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 simple Gboard theme right on their phone. You don’t even need access to a PC to put together the theme pack as the app does it all for you.
To create your own Gboard theme, do the following:
- Install the app from the Google Play Store link above.
- Open the app and find the color picker wheel.
- Next, choose the color scheme (ex Dark or Monet) and the corresponding UI component (eg AMOLED or Tertiary Accent). With the app you can try all possible combinations.
- Now adjust the color pickers until you get your desired themed UI in the preview area.
- To save your custom theme, tap the share icon in the lower left corner, select the file picker and save it after giving it an appropriate name and author information.
Alternatively, you can transfer the newly created theme directly to Rboard Patcher (if installed) for further editing. To do this, tap on this add topic button and follow the wizard.
For all app developers reading this, Rboard Theme Creator is fully open source. You are free to explore the code, submit new patches, or compile the app yourself.
Rboard Theme Creator GitHub repository
Notably, the developer also hosts a web version of the app, which might come in handy for designing Gboard themes from your PC/Mac.
How to patch a Gboard theme using Rboard Patcher
Rboard Patcher is a versatile tool for Gboard themes. To begin with, the app allows you to customize the base theme pack (*.pack) created by the Rboard Theme Creator app. Additionally, you can also edit existing community-made themes and modify various aspects of them with the publicly hosted theme patches. The patcher has yet to support third-party patch repos, but the feature is expected to land soon.
Here’s how to customize any Rboard-compatible theme via Rboard Patcher:
- Install the app from the Google Play Store link above.
- Open the app and use the file picker to open a valid Gboard theme *.pack file.
- For example, you can point the app to a theme pack created by Rboard Theme Creator.
- Rboard Patcher fetches the publicly hosted theme patches and lists them categorically.
- Tap the one you want to apply (such as a font or rounded icon).
- To save the customized theme, tap the share icon in the lower left corner, choose the file chooser and save it after giving it an appropriate name and author information.
In case you want to immediately prepare the customized theme for flashing via Rboard Theme Manager, you can do so by tapping Add to manager button and follow the wizard. Of course, the Rboard Theme Manager app must be installed on your device beforehand, otherwise the option will not work. Also, you need root access to install the themes.
Rboard Patcher is also open source, which means you’re welcome to play around with the codebase. If you want to try the latest builds without compiling the app yourself, go for the continuous integration releases.
Rboard Patcher GitHub repository
Conclusion
That’s all there is to it. As you can see, creating custom themes for Gboard is not that difficult, especially when you can take advantage of the great tools available from the Rboard community. How much granularity you get with Gboard themes is entirely up to you, but if you’re not happy with what Google offers, your best bet is to build your desired theme from scratch.
Do you regularly customize your keyboard app with various mods, or is such a theme not of interest to you? Let us know in the comment section below.