PokerStars XThemes - Customize Your Poker Table

PokerStars Theme Guide (save as a file doc_icon.gif)

PokerStars are coming out with a new version where every player can create and share customized poker skins and themes.

This page describes how to add a third-party “theme” to the PokerStars client, where “theme” describes the look and feel of the GUI (graphic user interface) on the table. The information on this page can be used to create a custom theme for individual use or for a theme intended for distribution.

The information on this page is provided “as is” from PokerStars, without warranties of any kind, expressed or implied. PokerStars reserves the right to change these specifications at any time without notice. If these specifications change, PokerStars will attempt to maintain backward compatibility of its software with any themes that meet the specifications laid out in this document, but it is not guaranteed that this will be the case.

Creation and Registration of New Theme to PokerStars

Each new theme added to the PokerStars client must be included in the XThemes folder within the main PokerStars client folder. For the purposes of this explanation, we will assume that your folder for the PokerStars client is C:\Program Files\PokerStars\

Each theme (at this time) is based off of an existing “root” theme (that is, a theme that is included with the installation direct from PokerStars). To create a new theme, follow the steps listed below. For the purposes of this example, we will assume that you are going to name your new theme NEWTHEME-1 and base it off of the default PokerStars folder.

II.1.Create a subfolder in the XThemes folder for all of your custom themes. To avoid naming problems if you will ever want to share any of your themes with other players, we recommend naming this folder “your_PokerStars_user_name.pokerstars.com”. For the purposes of this example, we will use folder “user456.pokerstars.com”.

II.2.Create a subfolder in the user456.pokerstars.com folder for your theme. In our example, your new folder should be: C:\Program Files\PokerStars\XThemes\user456.pokerstars.com\NEWTHEME-1\

II.3.From the Gx client folder (C:\Program Files\PokerStars\Gx) or folder containing the theme off of which you are basing your new theme (see Appendix A.1 for more detailed explanation), copy the following files into the NEWTHEME-1 folder: a) bg.bmp b) fg.bmp and fg.a.bmp c) the entire folder “label” Note that all these items are optional.

II.4.Using image editing software, edit the files above to your liking.

II.5.In the folder C:\Program Files\PokerStars\XThemes\, find a file named xthemes.ini (create an empty file if it doesn't exist). This file is a standard Windows INI file with each section describing one theme; it must be edited for your new theme to be displayed within the PokerStars client. When editing this file, it is important that you do not remove any content previously in the file; add theme information to the end of the file. After you have added your new theme definitions to xthemes.ini, it should look like this:

[NEWTHEME-1@user456.pokerstars.com] - this line begins the definitions portion for each theme. name=New Theme 1- defines the name of the theme shown within the client copyright=(c) Your-name-here 2006 - optional display of copyright information within the client folder=user456.pokerstars.com\NEWTHEME-1 - path to the theme, relative to the XThemes folder. base=default@pokerstars.com - base theme name used for new theme, which enables the client to display the appropriate non-editable graphics for the given customized theme. Note that if the base theme used is not installed on the PokerStars client that any XTheme based on said theme will not function. deck=default – optional name of default deck for the theme; currently may have one of the following values: "default", "large", "simple".

The whole section for the new theme NEWTHEME-1 will look as follows:

[NEWTHEME-1@user456.pokerstars.com] name=New Theme 1 copyright=(c) John Q. Public 2006 folder=user456.pokerstars.com\NEWTHEME-1 base=default@pokerstars.com

**Important Note**: It is essential that each theme added to xthemes.ini has a unique name. Furthermore, it is strongly recommended that a backup copy of xthemes.ini is created before the file is modified.

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