Im currently running Unnamed v1.3.2 (UKK6, 2.3.4)
And im trying to port the SHOStock ICS theme(2.3.6) to it.
Im wondering if its as simple as opening the proper apks(framework, systemui, settings, etc.) from the ICS THEME zip and copy out all the image files into my roms same apk files and then copy them over onto the phone.
I noticed a few things worked just from copying the apk, like copying the phone.apk from the ics theme to my rom,no errors, etc. But some things didnt work out. For example for the framework apk i copied all the contents inside over(images and xml files) and most of it themed out, but alot of stuff was off, like on popup dialogs, the buttons were have cut off in the window box. So im wondering if i JUST copy the image files, would that work? Or is it more complicated?
emerica243 said:
Im currently running Unnamed v1.3.2 (UKK6, 2.3.4)
And im trying to port the SHOStock ICS theme(2.3.6) to it.
Im wondering if its as simple as opening the proper apks(framework, systemui, settings, etc.) from the ICS THEME zip and copy out all the image files into my roms same apk files and then copy them over onto the phone.
I noticed a few things worked just from copying the apk, like copying the phone.apk from the ics theme to my rom,no errors, etc. But some things didnt work out. For example for the framework apk i copied all the contents inside over(images and xml files) and most of it themed out, but alot of stuff was off, like on popup dialogs, the buttons were have cut off in the window box. So im wondering if i JUST copy the image files, would that work? Or is it more complicated?
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It's not that simple. They're different files, so you can't just copy all of the images over. What you can do though, is replace the images in your apks that exist (so you get an overwrite/replace prompt). This typically works best for major things (like signal bars, network indicators, sound profile icons), and may not work so well for things that need accompanying code edits (like replacing the "clear" notifications button with the "X" from ICS. I'm not really verse in all things theming, so maybe someone with additional info will chime in). Some apks will work on 2.3.4, unmodified. When I was on 2.3.4 UnNamed, the settings apk worked fine without changing it. This will be true with some of the "non-system" apks (phone, contacts, settings, etc.). Technically, those are system apks, but for my purposes I make a distinction between the two.
Essential system apks (framework-res, SystemUI, and any other files that won't work across roms)
Non-essential system apks (phone, contacts, calculator, etc.)
- These are files that may work across roms if both bases are Samsung
*Review Jivy's thread on theming (in Themes & Apps).
Related
Ok, I'm going around in circles trying to find out if I can theme a rom. I've done themes, icons, UI (just the images, not the xml's or codes) I would love to create my own theme for a rom, but how does it work?
I wanted to create a rom but its difficult when you're not a code person. but I am good with photoshop. Can somebody tell me how to start a theme. There are so many good ones for other phones and I would love to create a nice one for the Eris.
what i would do is grab one of the themes that are available and take it apart and see how it was done, but best of luck man,
I personally have not made any themes but i do like to tweak things where i can, and that would be a step i take to figure something out.
snyluc13 said:
what i would do is grab one of the themes that are available and take it apart and see how it was done, but best of luck man,
I personally have not made any themes but i do like to tweak things where i can, and that would be a step i take to figure something out.
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thanks. I wanted to theme like the phone dialer, calculator, and maybe the drop down screen. Is that possible?
You can theme phone, kb, notification panel, etc...anything really
To theme the "system" stuff you need to modify framework-res.apk (can be found in /system/framework)
To theme anything else you just need to modify the .apk files, i.e. to theme the phone dialer you need to modify phone.apk and contacts.apk
To theme anything you will need to change the file extension to .zip (.apk changed to .zip) and then extract the file so that you can explore what is inside. Most image and xml files are stored in /res/drawable-mdpi
Once you have modified .png and xml files you will need to zip the file and then sign it so that it can be used on android. There are a number of tools for signing .apk files, just google it.
Hope this helps a little...
I've seen it asked quite a few times now, so I thought I would share how I've been creating my own themes for the Nook. This is a quick and dirty guide as I've almost got it down to a science for quick, keyboard shortcut, theming.
Things you'll need
Photoshop or The Gimp for editing files
Android SDK so you can push and pull files to/from the Nook.
draw9patch app in the Android SDK /tools folder for creating 9.png files
APK Manager (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6703735&postcount=1)
Notepad++ or some other text editor for editing XML files. After using Notepad++ on this, I'd highly recommend it though
An attention span
Some restraint
This is a rather good guide that helped me get started. My only complaint is that it is almost to complicated and includes more information than what is needed for a basic theme.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=916814
Getting Started:
Download the Android SDK and get it installed.
Download APK Manager
ADB pull /system/framework/framework-res.apk
Make a copy of the framework-res.apk files as a back-up in case you need to revert
Copy the framework-res.apk file to the /place-apk-here-for-modding folder under the APK Manager folder
Launch the APK Manager Script.bat file
Type in 22 to select the default project
Type in the number next to framework-res.apk in the list to select it as your project
Select 1 to extract the files
Select 9 to decompile (this is what makes the XML files readable)
Go to the /projects/framework-res/res folder under the APK Manager folder to view all the files from the theme
Images are located in the /drawable-mdpi folder. XML files are located throughout, but the files specific to layout are under the /layout folder. To change global settings, such as color codes and strings, edit the XML files under the /values folder.
Creating custom PNG files: If you are using Photoshop, use the Save For Web feature when saving. Save the image as PNG-24. Select None under the Matte option. Select None under Metadata.
A word on 9.png files: 9.png files are files that can be stretched by the OS. There is a 1 pixel border all the way around the image. In that 1 pixel border, you'll notice solid black lines here and there. The black pixels indicate which portions of the image are to be stretched. You can add this border and the black pixels in Gimp or Photoshop, or you can open the file the draw9patch app under the Android SDK /tools folder. The draw9patch app will actually display how the image will look when stretched as you add the black pixels around the border, so it can come in handy and it's what I prefer to use. You can open and edit .9.png files in draw9patch and edit the border even after you save the file.
Once you have all your files edited, recompile the APK package with APK Manager
Option 11
y
y
It will tell you to delete the files under the /keep folder that you have edited. Delete any images and XML files, from the /keep folder, you edited under the /projects folder. If you edited XML files, delete the /keep/res/resources.arsc file as well
Press any key to continue and let the script finish
In a separate command line window, mount your Nook's /system folder (adb shell mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 /system)
back in APK Manager, select 8
/system/framework/framework-res.apk
Reboot your Nook
Boot Loop: If you messed something up and are stuck in a boot loop, most of the time you can still mount your Nook, push the original framework-res.apk to it and reboot. Or, you can use an unedited version of the CWM flashable zip file from the link below.
NOTE: it is not smart to push your framework-res.apk file to the Nook. I've learned the hard way that you can only do this about 10 times before you run out of memory and can no longer boot your Nook until you reflash Froyo again.
I'd recommend only a few flashes on a bare bones copy of Froyo until you feel comfortable with working on the framework theme. After that, I'm attaching a base, flashable zip for you to use in CWM so you can flash the theme instead of pushing. This will prevent you from getting stuck in a boot loop (unless you do something wrong yourself).
To add your framework-res.apk file to the zip, just open the zip and replace the /system/framework/framework-res.apk file (I'd recommend 7zip).
A Few Goodies
I'm including all of the PSD files I use to edit and create themes. If you want to create your own, custom theme, these will get you started. The only downside to these PSD files is that they are at the MDPI scale. If you want to create an HDPI theme, you'll need to increase the sizes.
Link to PSD files for creating your own theme, plus the flashable CWM zip file:
http://jjis.me/android-theme-templates
Hey man, I know you theme the froyo roms, but Im attempting a theme for the Phiremod CM7 and I cant seem to get anything but splash hangs and bootloops. I theme CM7 for the hero so I know my way around that, but Im wondering if theres something about the Nook that I have to do differently. For instance what is the mount.sh file you have in the tools folder on your themes? Is that only for froyo? Any help you could give me would be appreciated.
PMDColeslaw said:
Hey man, I know you theme the froyo roms, but Im attempting a theme for the Phiremod CM7 and I cant seem to get anything but splash hangs and bootloops. I theme CM7 for the hero so I know my way around that, but Im wondering if theres something about the Nook that I have to do differently. For instance what is the mount.sh file you have in the tools folder on your themes? Is that only for froyo? Any help you could give me would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM7 is a little different than the stock builds of Froyo and others. They use the theme manager for it. If you are looking to theme for CM7, I'd suggest learning what it is needed to package it for the theme manager. I spent about an hour one day trying to find documentation, but couldn't. If can, or have it, please let me know where to find it so I can link to it and use it myself.
With that said, it appears that CWM does not flash, or at least mount, the same on the Nook. I'm assuming it's because it's on the external SD card and not internal. The mount.sh file was borrowed from samuelhaff's flashable ROMs. It actually tells CWM to mount the internal memory and flash to it.
If you are flashing without the mount.sh, it could be why you're getting the boot loops.
CWM uses edify language instead of amend. Again, it took me forever to find little to no documentation on it.
If you are using the mount.sh file and you are still getting stuck in a boot loop, I did discover a little issue with it yesterday. I was trying to use it to flash my new theme without the Vending.apk mod and I kept getting stuck in a black screen during start up. I forgot my edify code deletes the Vending.apk file so that was causing my problem. If you know how to edit the file, go for it. If not, I'm planning on updating it to correct this. If you need to, for now, just copy the Vending.apk to your flashable zip file.
It deletes the services.jar file as well. This was a requirement on Froyo since the status bar text is black by default. The services.jar file has to be edited to change the status bar text to white. Since CM7 does not need that change, try pushing just the framework-res.apk file, reboot and see if you boot successfully. If so, that is more than likely your problem.
wretchedlocket said:
CM7 is a little different than the stock builds of Froyo and others. They use the theme manager for it. If you are looking to theme for CM7, I'd suggest learning what it is needed to package it for the theme manager. I spent about an hour one day trying to find documentation, but couldn't. If can, or have it, please let me know where to find it so I can link to it and use it myself.
With that said, it appears that CWM does not flash, or at least mount, the same on the Nook. I'm assuming it's because it's on the external SD card and not internal. The mount.sh file was borrowed from samuelhaff's flashable ROMs. It actually tells CWM to mount the internal memory and flash to it.
If you are flashing without the mount.sh, it could be why you're getting the boot loops.
CWM uses edify language instead of amend. Again, it took me forever to find little to no documentation on it.
If you are using the mount.sh file and you are still getting stuck in a boot loop, I did discover a little issue with it yesterday. I was trying to use it to flash my new theme without the Vending.apk mod and I kept getting stuck in a black screen during start up. I forgot my edify code deletes the Vending.apk file so that was causing my problem. If you know how to edit the file, go for it. If not, I'm planning on updating it to correct this. If you need to, for now, just copy the Vending.apk to your flashable zip file.
It deletes the services.jar file as well. This was a requirement on Froyo since the status bar text is black by default. The services.jar file has to be edited to change the status bar text to white. Since CM7 does not need that change, try pushing just the framework-res.apk file, reboot and see if you boot successfully. If so, that is more than likely your problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply! I actually took yours apart and was able to correct my script and I noticed that the delete services.jar line was causing issues as well. If you can I'd like you to take a look at the updater script after I edited it and see if you see any errors. It's attached below. I have gotten the framework and other themed apps to flash fine, but for some reason the themed market will not install. After flash it is in the /system/app folder as vending.apk. but it doesn't actually replace the stock market anywhere else. I actually spent several hours today trying to get the market back because I got frustrated and went all delete happy in root explorer, lol.
As far as Theme Chooser goes, here is a decent tutorial, but I haven't taken the time to really try and change my whole MO to use it. I theme the aospCMod for the heroc without using the chooser app. You can also get some good tips on building themes for the chooser in the #aospbot irc channel. A few of the guys in there build themes for it.
View attachment updater-script.zip
PMDColeslaw said:
Thanks for the reply! I actually took yours apart and was able to correct my script and I noticed that the delete services.jar line was causing issues as well. If you can I'd like you to take a look at the updater script after I edited it and see if you see any errors. It's attached below. I have gotten the framework and other themed apps to flash fine, but for some reason the themed market will not install. After flash it is in the /system/app folder as vending.apk. but it doesn't actually replace the stock market anywhere else. I actually spent several hours today trying to get the market back because I got frustrated and went all delete happy in root explorer, lol.
As far as Theme Chooser goes, here is a decent tutorial, but I haven't taken the time to really try and change my whole MO to use it. I theme the aospCMod for the heroc without using the chooser app. You can also get some good tips on building themes for the chooser in the #aospbot irc channel. A few of the guys in there build themes for it.
View attachment 546902
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Stupid question, but you are copying the vending file as Vending.apk and not vending.apk, correct?
Also, if you're using my themed market, there are only two icons that are customized. The rest looks stock.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk
wretchedlocket said:
Stupid question, but you are copying the vending file as Vending.apk and not vending.apk, correct?
Also, if you're using my themed market, there are only two icons that are customized. The rest looks stock.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk
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Yeah the file is Vending.apk but its my themed market.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
PMDColeslaw said:
Yeah the file is Vending.apk but its my themed market.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Sorry for the delay in response. I had too many things to do with the family yesterday.
If you haven't got this working yet, I'd suggest trying to start with removing just the /system/app/Vendind.apk file via the updater-script. If it works, then go back in and add each additional line until you run into problems again. At that point, you'll know what your problem is.
Since everything else (framework-res.apk, services.jar, etc.) gets replaced successfully, leave those lines alone. I'd just start with the basics of replacing the Vending.apk first and then work your way back up from there.
Hi everyone,
I followed reverendkjr's tutorial to install khalpower's v4 rom onto my phone. His tutorial starts with the miuioptimizedv3 rom first, then builds on it using updates.
Afterwards, I wasn't able to Metamorph anything, so I used ZipThemer to install owq's Gingerbread theme (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=955698), which worked! However, the Dialer did not get themed and remains in a broken MIUI theme (can provide screenshots if you'd like), and I am not sure how to theme it...
I would like the Gingerbread dialer that, if I remember correctly from Metamorphing in 2.1, came after applying owq's Metamorph. Is there any way to accomplish this in the state that I am in?
Cheers!
Looking at the Morph the only things I see changed are Framework-res.apk & services.jar. (Does the dialer pull graphics from framework-res ?) If it does I would think you could push the default dialer from Dexter's ROM.
3rdstring said:
Looking at the Morph the only things I see changed are Framework-res.apk & services.jar. (Does the dialer pull graphics from framework-res ?) If it does I would think you could push the default dialer from Dexter's ROM.
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Click to collapse
Hey 3rdstring,
While I am trying to improve my android knowledge steadily, I have not tried pushing apks using adb before. Could you tell me how to go about this please?
Should have done more research
I found unyaffs, which decompresses nandroid backups, and decompressed the stock 1.3 nandroid. Then I pushed Contacts.apk and Phone.apk into /system/app, and tada it's Gingery
My memory failed me. The metamorph doesn't theme the dialer, but I remember the gingerbread dialer from using Khalpower's 'custom' apks from this post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=9784619&postcount=13
I tried pushing Phone.apk and Contacts.apk from his files to a few emulators (eclair and froyo), but they both failed (I wonder if that's the fault of the emulator, not my device.) But then I pushed them to my device, and the apps wouldn't appear in the main menu anymore (also couldn't make any calls). Any other tips?
Ive Noticed that the DX2 Has number of atrix ports and a couple of roms.. Any how i would love some more support than CM7 for the photon. I know we only have a handful of wonderful devs for the photon and they can only concentrate on so much at once.
I am wanting really bad to contribute..Can some one show me where to brush up on my skills I am wanting to attempt to Dev. I know IT HAS BEEN ASKED i just want to go to the right places...Just seems like there is not enough interest in the photon in general.. I have all the free time in the world right now...
Id like to thank all the wonderful Devs in the photon forum and for making CM7 boot!! Some good ISH!! i cant wait!!
If you want to make a custom, stock-based ROM, it is fairly easy. A number of us on the forums just think that it is not very necessary to have so many ROMs when there is little-to-no changes between them.
Anyhow, the basic gist is like this:
Find some app/theme you want to include into a ROM. Extract the ROM (.zip), and then place those files into their respective folders. Generally, themes are in framework-res.apk files and go in /system/framework. Apps usually go into /system/app. Keep in mind if you want to port a theme, you will have to resize the images and rename them (usually), which involved extracting the .apk, modifying the necessary files, and then pushing them back into an unextracted copy of the .apk (to deal with signing issues). When you are done with your modifications to the ROM, highlight/select all of the folders and files (usually META-INF, system, boot.img), and compress them into a zip archive. Bam, new ROM made.
mrinehart93 said:
If you want to make a custom, stock-based ROM, it is fairly easy. A number of us on the forums just think that it is not very necessary to have so many ROMs when there is little-to-no changes between them.
Anyhow, the basic gist is like this:
Find some app/theme you want to include into a ROM. Extract the ROM (.zip), and then place those files into their respective folders. Generally, themes are in framework-res.apk files and go in /system/framework. Apps usually go into /system/app. Keep in mind if you want to port a theme, you will have to resize the images and rename them (usually), which involved extracting the .apk, modifying the necessary files, and then pushing them back into an unextracted copy of the .apk (to deal with signing issues). When you are done with your modifications to the ROM, highlight/select all of the folders and files (usually META-INF, system, boot.img), and compress them into a zip archive. Bam, new ROM made.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks BRO!!!! And Thank you for all your hours and dedication you have put fourth with school and all!! I would not of held on to my Photon If it weren't for you!! Honestly!!!
If you guys want I could upload my recent creation.
Its yays deodexed rom with the alien theme embedded in. I can't seem to get the blur launcher to work though and I could slim it down. Remove ringtones notifications and apps if ya'll want...its nothing special just themed no special tweaks.
Don't think you can add tweeks without unlocking the BL...
AJC9000 said:
If you guys want I could upload my recent creation.
Its yays deodexed rom with the alien theme embedded in. I can't seem to get the blur launcher to work though and I could slim it down. Remove ringtones notifications and apps if ya'll want...its nothing special just themed no special tweaks.
Don't think you can add tweeks without unlocking the BL...
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Click to collapse
That would be awesome!!!! Im working on something NOw!! I would like to use what u created!!
Its pretty much yays rom + kenneths theme and a working settings apk lol
You want it stripped down as possible? I suck at making update zips for gapps and such but I can strip it and you can command mount the things you want.
and applications? not everything is shareable I try to make a build did not work well but gets stuck on the logo of motorola
what are you adding and taking away?
I'm using Electon's Lego rom, and I have tried several other AOSP/Cyanogenmod Roms and other stock roms. I really like this one (I like all the Samsung apps), but miss themes. Are there any themes for stock roms? Mostly what I want to theme is the notification pull down.
With 7zip you can "port" the images of touchwiz themes for other Roms by merely dragging images from one apk into another. Full file path:
/system/app/systemui.apk/res/drawable-xhdpi
Open apk as archive in 7zip pull images with same names from the themed one you want to the one you want to actually use.
Making sure not to add any images that aren't in the stock apk.
If that crashes, try the same thing, but without and images with a .9.png name