Homebrew Menu

The Homebrew Menu (hbmenu) is the menu for launching homebrew applications. Applications are launched using the Homebrew ABI, hence normally nx-hbloader will do the actual launching.

Usage

See Homebrew Applications for SD layout etc.

Controls

Use the D-Pad/joystick to select the app/directory, up/down can be used for faster scrolling. Press A to launch the app. Navigating directories is supported, press A to enter a directory and press B to leave the current directory. Press Y to activate netloader and press B to deactivate netloader.

Press the - button to enter Theme Menu. Press X to (un)star the current menu entry.

Touch controls

To navigate through the list of folders and applications you can swipe left and right on the bottom list. To open an item you can tap on it in the list or with it highlighted tap the Open or Launch button prompt in the bottom right. To go back (a folder) you can swipe up or tap the Back button prompt in the bottom right (the latter is only available when no message-box is shown / netloader isn't active). To activate the netloader you can swipe down on the screen. To enter Theme Menu you can swipe left on the screen.

To (un)star the current menu entry you can touch the (un)star button prompt.

Status

The battery/charge status can be displayed, however this is only displayed when the required service is available/accessible.

The local-time and network status are also displayed.

Netloader

With netloader activated as described above you can load apps over the network with nxlink. With the toolchain setup run nxlink <nrofile> if your network can handle UDP broadcast messages. If nxlink fails with "No response from Switch!" you can use -a <ip address> before <nrofile> for the address to send the app to. See nxlink help for more options.

Themes

Themes can be optionally loaded from SD "/config/nx-hbmenu/themes/". The theme (or the default) can be selected using the Theme Menu via the - button. This uses libconfig. Default settings will be used for any settings not specified in the theme (including themeInfo).

See Homebrew Themes for a list of themes.

The string used for displaying the buttons/stars can be set with buttonAText, buttonBText, buttonXText, buttonMText, labelStarOnText, and labelStarOffText, but normally these can be left at the defaults. Change the value of the enableWaveBlending field to 1 to enable wave blending.

There's also borderColor, borderTextColor, and progressBarColor fields which can be set like the other color fields.

The color fields are RGBA.

Sample theme file (.cfg file extension):

themeInfo={
    name="Theme Name";
    author="Theme Author Name";
    version="1.0.0";
};

lightTheme={
    textColor=(0,0,0,255);
    frontWaveColor=(255,102,204,255);
    middleWaveColor=(255,51,153,255);
    backWaveColor=(204,0,153,255);
    backgroundColor=(233,236,241,255);
    highlightColor=(255,77,166,255);
    separatorColor=(128,0,128,255);
    enableWaveBlending=0;
};

darkTheme={
    textColor=(255,255,255,255);
    frontWaveColor=(255,51,153,255);
    middleWaveColor=(255,102,204,255);
    backWaveColor=(204,0,153,255);
    backgroundColor=(0,0,0,255);
    highlightColor=(255,77,166,255);
    separatorColor=(255,255,255,255);
    enableWaveBlending=0;
};

File Associations

File-association cfg files can optionally be loaded from SD "/config/nx-hbmenu/fileassoc/" during startup. There's 1 .cfg file for each app. During normal menu scanning, hbmenu will check for file_extensions/filenames from fileassoc cfg with the dir-list filename, when the file is not recognized otherwise (likewise for directories). This is processed in the same order that the cfg was loaded from SD / same order specified in the cfg file.

When processing directories where no NRO was detected, hbmenu will go through the dir-listing and use the first entry where the filename matches a fileassoc entry where filename is specified (file_extension entries are skipped).

The generated menu entry launches the specified app_path where the first passed argument (argv[1] in the launched app) is the absolute filepath for the associated file. See below regarding the icon used for the menu entry. The author and version fields for the menu entry are loaded from app_path, while the name is the filename (unless a directory is being processed, in this case the directory name is used). Git-only: when {$FILEPATH with extension changed to .nacp} exists, the aforementioned strings will be loaded from there instead.

The only optional setting is icon_path. All paths are absolute. Icon will attempted to be loaded from the following: {$FILEPATH with extension changed to .jpg} -> icon_path setting if it exists (target setting -> main file_assoc setting) -> icon from app_path.

If {$FILEPATH with extension changed to .nacp} exists the nacp is loaded from there, otherwise the fileassoc config is used.

If you have targets where file_extension and filename both have the same extension, the filename target should be located before that file_extension target in the cfg. Targets which have both file_extension and filename settings are ignored. Each target must have either a file_extension or filename setting.

Sample fileassoc file:

fileassoc={
  app_path="/switch/myapp/app.nro";
  icon_path="/switch/myapp/myicon.jpg";

  targets=(
    {
      file_extension=".ext3";
      icon_path="/switch/myapp/myicon2.jpg";
    },
    {
      file_extension=".ext4";
      icon_path="/switch/myapp/myicon3.jpg";
    },
    {
      filename="main.py";
      icon_path="/switch/myapp/myicon4.jpg";
    }
  );
};