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Changing the selection bar highlight using iPodWizard.

I've been trying for literal months to change the selection highlight using ipodwizard. For those who don't know, this software (which will be referred to as ipw from hereon out) is a sort of GUI for a hex editor, specifically made for editing the firmware on iPods. Back when iPods were popular, there was a site which hosted themes people made, but this site, along with most of the themes and guides, have long since 404d. That leaves us in the dark when trying to figure stuff out. The simple stuff has been passed on through word of mouth, I've shown quite a few people how to do basic text and image edits on the discord server for example. Yet no one knew how to do the selection highlight, since it relies on extensive hex editing. But after several months and extensive messaging around I got it working with the help of u/MZ6Alex on Reddit, who explained the process to me.

So how is it done?

The colour of the selection bar is controlled by the values "Z5" and "Z6" in ipw. 



Click the values below and you'll be shown the hex values for the standard bar:




You need to open your iPod's firmware file in a hex editor such as HxD next, in order to do a replace all for the selection bar colour as the hex for it appears literally thousands of times. Once it's open go to Search, Replace (or press control R) and then go to the "hex values" tab.



Assuming you're using a stock firmware (or backgroundhack as I am here) you will enter the top value, as those are the default Z5 and Z6 values, in the bottom, enter the colour you want, followed by a space and then an FF, and then the same again. So if you wanted black (hex code #000000) you would enter 00 00 00 FF 00 00 00 FF in the second box. Press replace all and then save the firmware file.

Now open that file up in ipw, and go to the top left where you can see the "firmware information" box. There are 4 lines, 0, 1, 2 and 3, you want them to show "OK" in the Status column, for the ones which show "Read-only" you need to right click and press "Fix Checksum" otherwise you iPod will be stuck in disc mode.

And you're done, write the firmware to the iPod and you've got a different colour for your selection bar, combine this with one of Milli's dark themes, or use MZ6Alex's backgroundhack to create a custom background and change the font colour to be more legible if using a dark selection bar theme.

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