Homebrew Channel

	Homebrew Channel
General
Author(s)	fail0verflow
Title ID	HAXX, JODI, 0xaf1bf516, LULZ, OHBC
Type	Loader
Version	1.1.3 (November 22, 2016)
Licence	GNU GPL v2
Links
	Download
	Website
	Bugs Discussion
	Source
Peripherals

Not to be confused with Homebrew Browser.

The Homebrew Channel is a self-updating homebrew application loader by Team Twiizers which allows users to load homebrew applications without having to run an exploit every time. Once installed, users can access the channel from the Wii System Menu just like any other Wii channel. It can launch or install homebrew applications from an SD or SDHC card or via TCP/USB Gecko using Wiiload. You can install the Homebrew Channel as part of the HackMii Installer by seeing the Installation part of this page.

Installation

See also: Homebrew status

READ THE DISCLAIMER! In the VERY unlikely case that your Wii gets bricked by the installer, this will let you know where you stand in regards to Team Twiizers.

For a less technical procedure, see homebrew setup.

Using the HackMii Installer

The HackMii Installer is most commonly used to install HBC. See the HackMii Installer page for more info.

Using CompatInstaller

In the vWii, CompatInstaller can be run in Wii U mode to install the Homebrew Channel.

Using the ISO installer

This method requires a drivechip and a DVD, and won't work with the 3.3 firmware update or newer. DVD images for more recent releases are currently unavailable, though you can get beta8 and then update. This method is not recommended, due to the requirement of hardware modification that could brick your Wii.

Install your drivechip into the Wii hardware.
Download the ISO here. Note that the file is actually a .rar, despite being named like a .zip. Be sure to remove the .zip from the end before extracting.
Burn the ISO to the DVD.
Put the DVD into the game disc slot.
Launch "the homebrew channel installer" on the Disc Channel.
The installer should now run. The system will reboot when it is finished, and the homebrew channel should be installed.
(Optional) If you are connected to the internet, a dialog should show up when you open the Homebrew Channel asking if you want to update the channel. Press "Yes" to update to the latest version.

Updating from a previous version

If you have an older version of the Homebrew Channel, you can use the auto update function to install the latest version.

Configuring Applications

In order to make an application appear in the Homebrew Channel, the following steps must be taken:

Make a folder on the root of your SD card called "apps".
In the folder "apps," create a folder for the application (for this example, ScummVM will be used).
Copy the files for the application into its folder (e.g. apps/scummvm/).
Find the executable file (either .elf or .dol) and rename it to boot.elf (or boot.dol if it was a .dol file) if it is not already named that (e.g. apps/scummvm/boot.dol). If the app comes with these files, copy the icon.png and meta.xml files into this folder.

Now the application will appear in the Homebrew Channel. However, if the application did not come with icon.png or meta.xml, its appearance on the menu is ugly, and difficult to distinguish from other applications. To fix this, text and an image can be added.

Adding Text

To add text to an application in the Homebrew Channel, do the following: (note: you may install the Open Shop Channel and download pre-formatted apps without performing this step for every app)

Make a file in the folder of the application (e.g. apps/ScummVM/) called "meta.xml" (e.g. apps/ScummVM/meta.xml).
Open "meta.xml" in Notepad and add the following text as a template:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
  <app version="1">
    <name></name>
    <coder></coder>
    <version></version>
    <release_date></release_date>
    <short_description></short_description>
    <long_description></long_description>
  </app>

Add the appropriate information in between the relevant indicators. For example, the name of the application goes between <name> and </name>. The purpose of each field is as follows:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
  <app version="1">
    <name>The name of the application</name>
    <coder>The name of the person or group that wrote the code for the program.</coder>
    <version>The version of the application.</version>
    <release_date>The data the application was released.
    It has to be a timestamp using this format: YYYYmmddHHMMSS</release_date>
    <short_description>This is displayed on the main menu of the Homebrew Channel 
    (before you select an application) and is used as a space to add a few words
     to describe the program.</short_description>
    <long_description>This is displayed once the application is chosen. It describes 
     the program and its function in great detail, and can be used to elaborate 
     on a program's controls.</long_description>
  </app>

An example of a completed "meta.xml" for ScummVM is provided below:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
  <app version="1">
    <name>ScummVM</name>
    <coder>dhewg</coder>
    <version>rev32231</version>
    <release_date>20080523000000</release_date>
    <short_description>Point &amp; Click Adventures</short_description>
    <long_description>ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic 
    graphical point-and-click adventure games,provided you already have their 
    data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables 
    shipped with the games, allowing you to play them on systems for which they 
    were never designed! Some of the adventures ScummVM supports include Adventure 
    Soft's Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2; Revolution's Beneath A Steel Sky, 
    Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2; Flight of the Amazon Queen; Wyrmkeep's Inherit 
    the Earth; Coktel Vision's Gobliiins; Westwood Studios' The Legend of Kyrandia 
    and games based on LucasArts' SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) 
    system such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max and more.
    </long_description>
  </app>

Optional meta.xml XML nodes

The following nodes must be children of the <app> node.

Additionally supported by The Homebrew Channel (starting with v1.0.7):

node name	meaning	example
arguments	list of arguments passed to the loaded application as argc and argv	<arguments> <arg>--loaded-by-hbc</arg> <arg>insane argument with spaces</arg> </arguments>
ahb_access	Requests full hardware access (AHBPROT)	<ahb_access/>

FAQ

Q: Is this required to get full hardware access?

A: No, but this is the easiest way. Without this, DVDX, cIOS, or an IOS exploit is needed.

Adding an Icon

See also: Homebrew Channel icons

In order to make icons for the Homebrew Channel show up, they must be in .png format with dimensions of 128x48 pixels. The full alpha channel can be used. Copy it into the folder of the application under the name "icon.png" (e.g. apps/scummvm/icon.png).

Complete Setup Format

You should have a compatible SD or SDHC card. See here for a list of SD and SDHC cards known to be compatible or incompatible. Note: it is by no means a complete list.

An SD card should be formatted in FAT16 or FAT32. After you have installed the apps on your SD card, its folder structure should look something like this:

Removable Disk (eg: (E:) on Windows and where it is mounted to on Linux or Mac OS X eg: /media/disk/ )
- apps
  - ScummVM
    - boot.dol
    - meta.xml(Optional)
    - icon.png(Optional)
  - WiiShopInstaller
    - boot.dol
    - meta.xml(Optional)
    - icon.png(Optional)

If you have any problems having your Applications showing up on the 'HBC', make sure you are following the correct format.

Loading from USB

Apps on your USB storage device are stored like on a SD card.

Controls

You can use to navigate though the app list.

	or	Action
/		Up/Down
	/	Page left
	/	Page right
		Select
		Menu
+	or	Scroll text
		Back
		Settings
		Swap view
		Shutdown
	+	Screenshots

Uninstall

Removing the channel can be done by simply deleting it with the channel management in the System Menu, or with the uninstall button in the HackMii Installer.

Compatibility

The Homebrew Channel requires that your system has at least one unpatched IOS in order to guarantee reliable performance; fail0verflow has received too many bug reports that were later traced to misbehaving versions of IOS. The HackMii Installer will automatically choose an appropriate (unpatched) IOS to use when installing the Homebrew Channel; if you attempt to defeat this safety measure by replacing its IOS with a corrupted version, you may experience an "impaired HBC experience" (an upside-down screen or a warning message at every startup). Please just don't do it.

Themes

As of 1.0.7, The Homebrew Channel is capable of theming. The images and fonts are stored in a theme.zip, which can be executed like a boot.dol from the Homebrew Channel. To uninstall the theme, just go to system menu -> Data Management -> Save Data -> Wii. The homebrew channel should have its own save data, just delete it and that will remove the theme.

For a theme database and a "How to install" guide, check this page. It is very easy to install themes with the Open Shop Channel: https://oscwii.org/, get the desktop tool. Once it is installed, change repository to Homebrew Channel Themes.

Further details on this can be found at Hackmii.

Fonts

As for 1.1.0, you can use your own TrueType or OpenType fonts with The Homebrew Channel. You can assign a font, size, and color to individual GUI elements:

element ID	meaning
label	Labels (background info, group headings, "Author" and "Version")
button	Buttons (and "radio" buttons)
button_desel	Radio buttons (not currently selected)
dlgtitle	Message box title
memo	Text box (description or message)
appname	Application name in main browser
appdesc	Application description in main browser

Each font can be specified using a element inside the theme.xml file. You can specify the file, size, and color like this:

        <font target="memo,dlgtitle">
                <file>foo.ttf</file>
                <size>16</size>
                <color><red>0</red><green>0</green><blue>0</blue><alpha>255</alpha></color>
        </font>

As you can see, each element can be assigned to one or multiple targets, separated by commas. There can also be a single element with no target attribute that overrides the defaults for the entire theme. The rule is that for each font, each parameter (size, color, font name) gets individually looked up first in a element with the specific target; if it doesn't exist or doesn't have that parameter, it gets looked up in the base element, and if that doesn't exist or doesn't have that parameter, the default is used. You should no longer use the old <font_color> element (though it is still supported for backwards compatibility).

As an example, the following theme.xml (combined with the appropriate TTF files) sets up the fonts exactly the same way as they are by default, but without actually falling back to the defaults:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<theme version="1">
        <description>Droid Sans font</description>
        <font>
                <file>DroidSans-Bold.ttf</file>
                <size>16</size>
        </font>
        <font target="button,dlgtitle,appname">
                <size>20</size>
        </font>
        <font target="memo">
                <file>DroidSans.ttf</file>
                <size>16</size>
        </font>
        <font target="button_desel">
                <file>DroidSans.ttf</file>
                <size>20</size>
        </font>
</theme>

Additionally, you can specify that the theme supports certain CKJ languages in its fonts, to enable those translations (though currently only Japanese is supported). Specify the language codes separated by commas as the langs attribute of the main <theme> element:

<theme version="1" langs="ja">

Keep in mind that the button and button_desel fonts should always be different in some way (weight, size, color). Otherwise, you will not be able to tell the currently selected options in the options menu.

Changelog

1.1.3

The channel is now open source with the source code hosted on github.
- Not released in binary form, although Homebrew Channel 1.1.4 was released in binary form and is based on this version
Fixes issue with aspect ratio on vWii
Title ID changed (OHBC)
Removed scam warning screen

1.1.2

PAL 50Hz (576i) video mode now works properly
Icons load again in The Homebrew Channel

1.1.1

WiiU (WiiMode) compatibility
- New title ID (LULZ)
- Now has a proper entrypoint in the main DOL; previously, entrypoint was unset, since the Broadway always boots to 80003400, but because BC-NAND reads the entrypoint, it is now necessary to set it.

1.1.0

Added support for RVL-CNT-01-TR Wii Remotes
New TrueType font renderer (FreeType) with antialiasing and theming
The new default font is Droid Sans
Added full UTF-8/Unicode support (font dependent)
Added Japanese translation
IOS is always reloaded, use ahb_access to keep AHB access enabled
Fixed HBC framebuffer tearing/lag/sync/corruption issues
Aligned HBC graphics to the pixel grid (sharper graphics)
Aligned font rendering to the pixel grid in both 4:3 and 16:9 mode
Fixed/improved text layout
Fixed support for huge meta.xml files (e.g. very long descriptions)
Renamed "Coder" to "Author" in app descriptions (<coder> is now an alias for <author>)
Fixed missing theme app entries (sometimes)
Changed many crashes into explicit errors / a panic screen
Speed and stability improvements when launching apps (cleanup after IOS)
Reload stub: support any BAT setup (or even real mode)
Reload stub: do not depend on existing exception vectors
Reload stub: do not touch HID4
Reload stub: disable IRQs ASAP
Fixed bugs in device hotplugging support
Added nicer error message triggered when HBC runs out of memory while loading an app
Removed the <unknown> coder/version labels
Fixed memory leaks while loading themes and in app entries
Reduced the minimum theme size (for xml-only themes)
Increased the maximum theme size up to 20MB (for huge fonts)
Reduced memory fragmentation when loading apps/themes (less OOM errors)
Fixed sorting by release date
Fixed crashes with incomplete meta files
Themes now affect language choice (due to font differences)
HBC now allows apps to load code at 0x3400
Fixed various buffer overflow / error conditions
Fixed/improved thread synchronization and race conditions
Theme ZIP files can now contain .txt files, which are ignored (README.txt, etc.)
HBC can now take screenshots (Nunchuk Z+C, in that order)
Updated to devkitPro r24 and latest libogc/libfat git

1.0.8

General USB improvements for all IOS versions, this fixes the regression introduced in version 1.0.7.
USB2 support through IOS58.

1.0.7

New title id (00010001-af1bf516) to circumvent its deletion by System Menu 4.3.
- The low 4 bytes are actually the first 4 bytes of the DSi common key
New look from our favorite pixel artist drmr.
Both views now show five rows of application entries.
On-NAND settings.
HBC now has the HW_AHBPROT flags set for direct hardware access, thus replacing DVDX.
Ability to not reload IOS when launching an application.
USB access is more stable, thanks to tueidj
Fixed the retry mechanism for the network initialization.
Fixed some rare hangs upon launch and exit (Hopefully all of them).
Notable speed improvement.
Now capable of custom themes granted all files are of the same dimensions.

1.0.6

Freeze fix
Some other minor hiccups

1.0.5

System Menu 4.2 support
New title ID to circumvent deletion (JODI)
Improved startup
HBC prefers boot.elf over boot.dol when launching apps
Improved fonts [enjoy :)]
Widescreen support:
- If your Wii is set to 16:9 in the system menu options, HBC won’t stretch the picture like it did in older versions
Grid view:
- 4 columns on 16:9 TVs
- 3 columns on 4:3 TVs
Device hot-swapping:
Added a menu for device options
App sorting
- Name
- Release date
  - For release date sorting to work a valid release_date tag must be present in the apps meta.xml file
Wiiload overhaul
- On-the-fly compression
- Improved USBGecko support
- libftdi support
  - Because of these improvements, older wiiload versions and 3rd party upload clients are incompatible. Use the bundled v0.5, binaries and source code are included
Basic app management :
- To add apps: Just wiiload a ZIP archive, it will then get extracted to the active device. The ZIP file must be structured in a certain way, check this description for the details
- Added option to delete apps

1.0.4

Fixed POWER button bug (BootMii IOS)
Turned HBC upside down for those who modified the contents of the HBC or installed it using a "wad manager"

1.0.3

SDHC support... again
Improved SD Card support (regression was introduced in v1.0.2)
HBC is compatable with all pre-4.2 system menu versions (stock 3.3 post Oct 23 has issues^[1])
Fixed rare hangs when exiting HBC
Added translation for "Launch BootMii" button

1.0.2

Added "Launch BootMii" button (BootMii IOS) to home menu
System Menu 4.0 support
USB support
Manual shutdown support
Installer has been removed in favor of the HackMii Installer

1.0.1

Fixed B button issues
Wii Remotes are in-sync with System Menu
Possibly fixed the USB Ethernet Issues
Fixed wiimote auto-shutdown
Possibly fixed "video after shutdown" Issues
Changes to () -> *

1.0 (Beta 10)

Meta.xml supports all ISO-8859-1 characters
Wii Remote shutdown support
Rumble support (system menu settings)
Fixed some crash bugs
Fixed meta.xml UNIX style newline regression
Support for Non-Nintendo Wii Remotes
Classic Controller support
Nunchuk support (scroll only)
Guitar Hero 3 guitar support
Left/Right button page scrolling
Hit 1 on Wii Remote for net reload (like net icon click or GC Z)
Add information to installer
Fixed network issues
Pushed in some text to avoid overscan crop
Widened video width to match System Menu ("black bars" fix)
B returns from app screen (unless scrolling)
Auto-connect support
Retry network init
Reload stub now identifies itself (magic number)
Support for broken HTTP proxies in update check
Added IOS revision in main menu

Beta 9

Installer / updater now works with the October 23 update (now uses STM Release Exploit)
SDHC support
Fixed memory card bug
Installer now picks newest sane IOS
- This removes the WiFi router issues caused by switching to IOS21
Added reload button (SD card)
Removed return to system menu warning
Fixed some graphical glitches
Compliant ELF loading code (iff you get errors use ELF to DOL Converter)
Improved XML load code
Many fixes to underlying stuff in the newer libogc

Beta 8

Removed the need to eject your memcards
Converted from IOS35 to IOS21 (HBC is usable on older system updates now)
- WiFi now performs worse as a result
Improved SD card support
- Thanks, svpe
Improved translations
Fixed IP label
Improved argv support
Fixed wiiload issue
Apps are now sorted alphabetically
Rumble support
Installer overhaul
- Added warning if your system menu is too new (future updates)
Updated libogc; Wii-specific code (e.g. Wiimotes) is now part of libogc

Beta 7

(Initial Public Release besides chainloader)

Minor bugfixes
GUI updates
Added translations
ISO distribution
First public beta

April Fools

10 minute ticket time limit

Beta 6

GUI overhaul chapter 2
Added translations
Wii Remote dragging on memo widget
Auto-disconnect Wii Remote after idle time
Other fixes I can't remember

Beta 5

GUI overhaul chapter 1
Improved IR pointer
Improved argv support
Fixed Wii Remote code bugs
Fixed update bugs
SD card is scanned for boot.dol then boot.elf

Beta 4

Added Wii Remote IR cursor

Beta 3

Fixed flicker glitch
Stable Wii Remote libs
Support for argv

FAQ

The official FAQ from the developers of the Homebrew Channel can be found here.

Easter Eggs

Pop the Bubbles!

Being able to pop the bubbles in the background of the HBC was a frequent request, and as of 1.0, it is possible.

Press + and the animated background will be the only thing visible, along with a score counter in the bottom right hand corner. Place the hand cursor over any bubble and it will pop, spawning smaller bubbles and adding to the score counter. The smaller bubbles can also be popped. When you are done, press + again to return to the list of applications. If you leave the wii on this screen for too long, it will crash.

NOTE: As of version HBC 1.0.5 the Pop the bubbles (with scoring) is removed. You can still pop the bubbles (without scoring) by pointing at the bubbles as usual, but you cannot prompt a score board. You can also remove the SD Card (and/or USB drive) to make more room on the screen.

Notes

↑ 1. IOS51 problems

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