[FMT21][SKIN] Football Manager 2021 TOUCH Base Skins

[michaeltmurrayuk]

Football Manager 2021 Touch Base Skins

NOTE: If you are using Football Manager 2021 then please see this thread.

As with most recent Football Managers for you to make certain changes in Football Manager 2021 Touch you need to create a new skin. Thankfully over the last few years some more stuff has been moved out of the skins folder so you only really need the Base skin if you are wanting to edit the skin graphics, fonts or colours. If you want to edit the match graphics or the most of the panel xml files you no longer really need the base skins.

So to make things easier for people I've put up some base skins that are identical to the default skins that come with the game, so you can add new files/graphics to these without messing up the original skins, and anything that isn't located in these new skin folders will be taken from the default locations within the game.

For Football Manager 2021 Touch you have three skins to choose from the Default (Purple) Skin, and two Dark Skins one based on the FM21 colouring (Purple accents) and one based on the FM20 colouring (Cyan and Yellow accents).

Also note that these are released pretty much as is, I don't use Touch mode so my ability to advise on modifying Touch related screens is limited, and support will likely be limited to fixing any glaring issues rather than helping people tweak Touch mode.

Finally these skins will only work with the PC version of Touch (Steam/Epic version, though not sure about the PC version from the Microsoft Store as it has the Xbox version branding) and not the tablet/mobile/console versions. (Though you are free to try to get them working on those platforms I just cannot offer any assistance as don't have access to those versions).

Base21 Touch Skin

This skin is based on the Default Football Manager Touch 2021 Skin, and is identical in appearance to that skin. (Screenshots are just for comparison).

Base21 Touch Dark Skin

1

This skin is based on the Dark Theme from the Main Version. The skin layout is identical to the Default FM21 Touch Skin, however the main Purple colour has been replaced with Black, whilst keeping the Purple Accents. I have also switched the Inbox over to a dark version.

Base21 Touch Dark Alt Skin

This skin is based on the Dark Skin from Football Manager 2020. The skin layout is identical to the Default FM21 skin, and the colour is largely the same as the Base21 Dark Skin however I have switched the Accent colours over the the Yellow and Cyan used in FM20. This version also has a dark Inbox.

Install Instructions:

When you extract the file you have downloaded you should have one folder (with a name starting base21_touch...) and a readme text file.

Now copy the folder into your skins folder within your User Data Location, by default this is:

For Windows:
C:\Users\[Your Windows Username]\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021 Touch\

For Mac:
Users\[Your Mac Username]\Library\Application Support\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021 Touch\

If done right your skins folder should look something like this:
 

And inside for example the base21_touch folder you should have the following folders:
 

To select the skin in game you will need to load the game, and go into the Preferences Menu, then in the middle you should have a section called Interface and in that is an option called Skin with a drop-down menu under it.

If you select the drop-down menu it should list all of the skins you have installed, if the skin you want is listed then just select it and press the Confirm button to load it.

If the skin you want isn't showing.

Then you can either select the Advanced option on the left and on the top right drop down select Interface, then scroll down the Skin section and untick Use caching to decrease loading times and tick Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences.

Or in the search bar at the top type in Skin and in the listed results untick Use caching to decrease loading times and tick Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences.



Then click Confirm at the bottom, this should then take you out of the Preferences menu but if you re-enter, it should have refreshed the list of skins and your skin should now be in the list.

Once the skin is loaded you can turn the skin cache back on and untick the Always Reload button.

Advanced Instructions

• How To Stop The Blurring Effect When Processing.
• How To Enable Background Changes.
• How To Edit The Fonts/Text/Colours.
• How To Enable The Touchscreen Version.

 

Base Skins for Football Manager 2021 Touch Download Page
 

Change Log v1.2

- Updated files to match Patch 21.2
    - client object browser xml file updated.
    - couple of colour changes.

(Link contains links to all downloads)

---
You are free to do what you want with these Base Skins provided:

1. They are not sold or behind a paywall.
2. You don't advertise them as being exclusive to your website.
3. My username and blog address are included: http://michaeltmurrayuk.blogspot.co.uk/
4. If linking to my work then please provide a link to the download page rather than the download link as the download link may change.

Edited December 22, 2020 by michaeltmurrayuk
Updated for Patch 21.2

[michaeltmurrayuk]

How To Stop the Blurring Effect when Processing

FM2016 introduced a new feature where when the main screen isn't the focus of the screen it blurs out, however if you don't like this effect it is simple enough to disable it, to do this simply browse to the following locations within the Base Skin you are using:
NOTE: For FM21 there are now two locations, so you may need to edit them both to disable the blurring.

\graphics\boxes\dialog\background
\graphics\boxes\bordered\blurred

Inside each location will be a paper xml file open them and locate this line:

<boolean id="blurred" value="true"/>

and change it to read:

<boolean id="blurred" value="false"/>

For your changes to take affect

If you have made any changes to the base skins (colours, fonts, graphics) to get your changes to show you’ll need to go into the Preferences -> Interface Menu and untick ‘Use caching to decrease page loading times’ if it is ticked and then tick ‘Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences’ then click confirm and your changes should be applied, if you have previously ticked and unticked the required boxes a 'Reload Skin' button should appear in the bottom left corner, if this button appears you can click that if the Confirm Button is greyed out.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

How To enable Background Changes

The Default FM21 skin somewhat supports background images this year however the fade effect and the transparent titlebar cause some issues, so I have included my Background Support Mod within the Base Skins again this year.

To Adjust the Overlay Strength

If you browse to the boxes\custom\background folder inside the graphics folder for the Base skin you installed you'll notice several graphic files these are numbered by the level of opacity - 0 is fully transparent and 100 is fully solid. For the default file I have copied over the default fade graphic so not cause issues for people who don't use background images.

To adjust the overlay strength first make copies (or at least rename) the existing paper and paper@2x files so you can revert back to this if you need to.

Next make two copies of the file with the transparency you want and rename one to paper and the other to paper@2x. (The @2x file is used for zoom modes and higher resolutions and it's a good idea to set this file even if you don't need it to stop the game defaulting to a different file that may affect you level of transparency).

To get the game to read your changes make sure the skin cache is off and reload your skin and the changes should apply, it is then just a case of picking a level that suits you.

If you want to adjust the overlay strength then just follow these instructions with one of the other files until you are happy with the level of transparency.

 

For your changes to take affect

If you have made any changes to the base skins (colours, fonts, graphics) to get your changes to show you’ll need to go into the Preferences -> Interface Menu and untick ‘Use caching to decrease page loading times’ if it is ticked and then tick ‘Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences’ then click confirm and your changes should be applied, if you have previously ticked and unticked the required boxes a 'Reload Skin' button should appear in the bottom left corner, if this button appears you can click that if the Confirm Button is greyed out.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

How To Edit The Fonts

The font settings are now controlled by the various files located inside the fonts folder. For the base skins I have included all the default font files to save you having to go look for them. To edit the fonts its just a case of changing the various variables declared in the fontxml files, whilst to change the actual font you copy the font you want to use to the font folder and then update the font names in the fontxml files to match your new font.

Like with FM20 FM21 also uses the fontxml file format, however the format of the files is the same and you can open them with the same program you use to read normal xml files, you'll just need to right click on the first file and select the open with option in Windows first to associate the files with the program you wish to use. NOTE: The game will not read them if you change them back to plain xml files.


How To Edit The Font Colours

The colour settings for each skin are controlled by the <skin name> settings xml file located inside the settings folder.

For the base skins I have copied in the relevant coding for you to change the various colours used by the skin – you just need to open the <skin name> settings xml file and locate the relevant line for the colour setting you wish to change – the colour names and comments should explain what the majority of the colours control.

The colours are declared in RGB values, that range from 0-255 where Red=255 Green=255 Blue=255 is white and Red=0 Green=0 Blue=0 is black.

To locate the RGB value of a colour you want to use you can either use a image editing program to obtain the RGB Value of the colour or type rgb values into google and it will bring up several websites that list the RGB Values for various colours.

Note that whilst this file contains most of the text colour settings, some items are hardcoded, others are determined by the individual xml files and some others are set by the xml files in the fonts folder.

Also if you have the Skin Cache on you can change some of the colours directly through the game from the Preferences -> Interface-> Skin Colours screen

FM20 made some changes to how the Skin Colours work and a full guide will follow, the main things are a change to how the RGB values are declared, and the order the colours appear in the file is now important, but for the purposes of the Base Skins nothing has really changed as you should just be adjusting existing values rather than adding new ones or moving existing ones.


How To Recolour The Game Colours

Like with the font colours these are now controlled via the files found in the settings folder, and are changed in the same way as the font colours.

For the base skins I have copied in the relevant coding for you to change the various colours used by the skin – you just need to open the <skin name> settings xml file and locate the relevant line for the colour setting you wish to change – the colour names and comments should explain what the majority of the colours control.

FM20 made some changes to how the Skin Colours work and a full guide will follow, the main things are a change to how the RGB values are declared, and the order the colours appear in the file is now important, but for the purposes of the Base Skins nothing has really changed as you should just be adjusting existing values rather than adding new ones or moving existing ones.

 

For your changes to take affect

If you have made any changes to the base skins (colours, fonts, graphics) to get your changes to show you’ll need to go into the Preferences -> Interface Menu and untick ‘Use caching to decrease page loading times’ if it is ticked and then tick ‘Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences’ then click confirm and your changes should be applied, if you have previously ticked and unticked the required boxes a 'Reload Skin' button should appear in the bottom left corner, if this button appears you can click that if the Confirm Button is greyed out.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

How To Enable The Tablet/Touch Versions

Football Manager 2021 Touch includes a more touch friendly version of the default skin, converting the Base Skins over to a Touchscreen friendly version is fairly simple.

First in the skin_config xml file find these two lines:

<flags id="parent" value="fmc" />
<boolean id="tablet_skin" value="false" />

And change them to read

<flags id="parent" value="fmc tablet" />
<boolean id="tablet_skin" value="true" />

Next open up the settings file for the version of the Base Touch Skin you are using and locate this line near the top:

<set_global name="ui.is_fmt_pc_skin">

And change it to read:

<set_global name="ui.is_fmt_tablet_skin">

[kingjericho]

Appreciate this a lot!

Will the match screen mods work in FMT?

Also, I took the liberty to attach a screenshot to ask three questions:

1. is there a way to automatically disable attribute highlighting? (A)
2. how to remove this scrollbar? (B)
3. is there a way to show Player Traits in this screen?

Thanks.

Edited December 3, 2020 by kingjericho

[michaeltmurrayuk]

Match Screen Mods should work in Touch as it doesn't tend to alter any of those panels though you might not get all the options due to the more limited nature of Touch mode.

For Attribute Highlighting the options are normally (in full mode at least) in the A drop-down menu, if there is nothing there have a look for something in preferences menu (or have a look in the Touch GD forum in case someone knows where the option is hidden).

For the scrollbar increasing the height of the attributes container in the player overview panel xml file which you'll need to take from the fmc\panels\player folder extracted from the skins fmf file

Find this code and increase the value should work like in full mode:

<!-- Attributes-->
<container class="main_subtle_box" height="392">

For the traits I have no idea if they are a thing in Touch or not, but if they are you should be able to take the code for the player trait widget from the full game (found in player additional attributes panel xml file located in the panels\player folder extracted from the main panels fmf file) and find somewhere to put it on that screen, or you might be able to tweak the code and add it as an option in the selector panel (player overview small selector panel xml file same location as the player overview panel) - just see how the other selector widgets are set out and copy that format with the traits code.

[kingjericho]

6 minutes ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

For Attribute Highlighting the options are normally (in full mode at least) in the A drop-down menu, if there is nothing there have a look for something in preferences menu (or have a look in the Touch GD forum in case someone knows where the option is hidden).

Drop down menu disables attribute highlighting but doesn't save that, so immediately after leaving the screen the attributes are highlighted again. Also nothing in the Preferences.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

Worth raising that in the bugs forum then.

[Footix]

@michaeltmurrayuk Thank you so much for doing this. Mucho appreciato! 

[gvegas66]

I have the iOS version and can only get the default skin to show up in game under the skins tab. The dark versions do not seem to have lines of text to change as suggested for the tablet versions. Would someone be so kind as to help me understand? 

[Paakerlando]

the skins still doesn't show up in the interface in FMT21 despite following the relevant instructions on how to enable it if it's still not showing. Help anyone?

[jon bennett]

is there a way to change the colours for attributes? 

 

Also is there a way to change the thresholds for attribute colours. say 15 for excellent stats instead of 16 etc

 

thanks

 

[kingjericho]

4 hours ago, jon bennett said:

is there a way to change the colours for attributes? 

 

Also is there a way to change the thresholds for attribute colours. say 15 for excellent stats instead of 16 etc

 

thanks

 

Regarding thresholds, you should be able to change it in the settings.xml file in the base skin folder.

<!-- Profile attribute colours -->
    <colour name="low attribute"                             value="fg alpha"/>
    <colour name="normal attribute"                         value="fg"/>
    <colour name="good attribute"                             value="fg range13" />
    <colour name="excellent attribute"                         value="fg range20" />
 

[Samelders]

Guys, is there a way to show estimated club value in the club information screen? It used to be there until FM 2018.

[tyro]

Thank you for this. Using the dark alt skin now and it feels more comfortable for me. 

Is there any way to adjust the key/desired attributes highlights? The green and blue looks almost identical.

 

[ticcolo]

Is there a way to turn the purple fade background behind the search bar into black/dark gray? Kind of how it looks here.

Edited December 10, 2020 by ticcolo

[michaeltmurrayuk]

Touch Base Skins have been updated for Patch 21.2, links in opening post.

@ticcolo For the Background you'll need to replace the background graphic if you want a black graphic you should just be able to copy over the backgrounds folder from the fm dark-widgets skin from the main game and drop it into the graphics folder for the base skin you are using, otherwise create a graphic of the colour you want in the graphics\background folder and call it default and it will overwrite the purple one.

@tyro Highlight colour is set in the settings file looked for preferred and required attribute values.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

On 07/12/2020 at 18:42, jon bennett said:

is there a way to change the colours for attributes? 

 

Also is there a way to change the thresholds for attribute colours. say 15 for excellent stats instead of 16 etc

 

thanks

 

Looks like the work around from here still works (though the folders may have changed since then):

 

[klaus_lukas]

@michaeltmurrayuk

can you say which file is responsible for the size of text on the team squad screen?

thanks

[Bryan Adam]

How to put face packs and logos on ios

[FranAlv]

Guys, I hope you are well.

Does anyone know how to make the player's ability appear in the selected role as previous editions?

Now they took it out. I attach a photo of the FM19, for example.

PS: sorry for my bad english

[PAFC_Dugout]

@michaeltmurrayuk

 

thanks so much for this. Is there any way of changing the turquoise colour from the Touch alt skin on the inbox and continue button to a dark green? tried to look in the XML files mentioned above but found it a bit overwhelming, not sure where to look 

[shirajzl]

Does anyone have any idea how to remove boxes around attributes on player profile screen?

[bluman]

Is it possible to change the stadium background and place the city's photo behind?

club overview details panel.xml