Database Develop

change menus from White on Black to Black on White?

Many of the default Android menus are white text on a black background. Not only do I find these visually unappealing, they are actually counter productive given how poorly dark themes read in sunlight.
Can these be changed to black text on a white background (or light background) instead? Does anyone have a theme they can share to accomplish this? Thank you.

OK, I guess this is not possible. It's a shame because I find Android's list based menus awfully plain and unaesthetic. White text on a black background with little visual art...it really looks like a plain vanilla terminal of yesteryear. While I love Android's openness, customization, and tweaker-friendly platform, it really needs a major overhaul in terms of looks and user friendliness. In short, the GUI needs some polish and consistency.

It would appear that Android has built-in "themes" for apps to use. If none is specified, then the dark or black theme is used. I wonder if there is a way to force apps to use the "light" theme even if specified otherwise. Perhaps a custom ROM could be created to always use the light theme.
http://www.anddev.org/tutorial_ui_themes-t4367.html

i know this thread is old enogh, but i'm searching for a answer to this question too.

Same here, I´m looking for a solution to this problem
For me is near impossible to read white letters on black background, and i have a new ZTE Blade that can´t use because this
If someone have a solution, please !!!
Thanks!

Recently this has been bugging me as well. I wish there was a very simple way to perhaps tweak the framework and systemui so that black on white can become a reality...

This is totally feasible. You would have to do a bunch of XML edits in your framework-res.apk and declare everything correctly.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Changing the theme style in styles.xml should work I guess... if I have little to do I can take a look
Sent from my Hero using XDA App

Okay, I've done it, just gotta see if I've caused any bugs and write a how to
Edit: Bah, it's hard, the whole system and lots of apps are based on how it is now, changing it causes lots of trouble. Don't know if I'll make it :/

Btw, I did it in my cm7 theme. You can see it in my signature
Sent from my Hero using XDA

AWESOME. There are some issues though, such as black text on dark backgrounds in the music app, which I'm guessing would take more than some xml editing to fix. But other than that it's GREAT!

EnMod said:
AWESOME. There are some issues though, such as black text on dark backgrounds in the music app, which I'm guessing would take more than some xml editing to fix. But other than that it's GREAT!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I have fixed most of these issues I think, but one of the issues was kind of tricky, cause when I fix them, I create others :/ and I don't have the stock music app installed atm, I will install it and see the issue myeself

Habarug said:
Thanks I have fixed most of these issues I think, but one of the issues was kind of tricky, cause when I fix them, I create others :/ and I don't have the stock music app installed atm, I will install it and see the issue myeself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't see that theme anymore in your signature. Would it be possible for you to share it? I'm still in search of a way to get Android to be a bit lighter (outside of going with MIUI), which I find far more visually appealing.

[Question] How come there aren't any PowerAMP widget skins yet?

Considering how popular PowerAMP is and how long people have went without customization for that program, I find it really strange that a version that supports custom widgets (and anything else that uses the PowerAMP API) has been out for weeks, but I have not seen any custom widgets.
Did I miss anything?

Good question. I've been wondering the same thing and I've searched every other day, no such luck.
Seems like a very popular app, surely some capable people greatly dislike the blue glow or gradients as much as I do... yet cannot deny the efficacy of the app itself!

Valsung said:
Good question. I've been wondering the same thing and I've searched every other day, no such luck.
Seems like a very popular app, surely some capable people greatly dislike the blue glow or gradients as much as I do... yet cannot deny the efficacy of the app itself!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing because it just came out and maybe he hasn't released anything to any developers to help with making skins. You can already download the skins widget for it to get transparent.

Bumping this for more replies.

I tried to edit the apk for personal skinning a while back and for some reason could never get the recompiled apk to install. Every time I tried I would get something like "Package not properly signed". Use several different compiling and signing tools always with the same result. So I abandoned that idea and like you, waited for someone to do it for me.

Well, I was able to quickly modify the PowerAmp Widget Skin pack a little bit. I'm not experienced "theming" much of anything so I wasn't sure how to modify the font color.
I modified the background image of the widgets (4x1 and 4x2) to a half transparent black. I also changed the colors of the buttons to white.
If anyone can give me any tips as to which xml files I should edit for the font color, that would be most helpful! I can't try anything right now since I'm at work.
I used ZipSigner 2 to sign the apk, so it should hopefully be installable like normal from a file manager. I'm on a Droid X if it helps for reference.

I'd love a transparent widget and white characters to match the green wallpaper,...
I'll try to see how u did to change the app background...

[THEME] Lacuna42 for Throttle Launcher - DEVELOPMENT ENDED

After a lot of work and testing Lacuna 3.0 by myself and Trekfan is reborn as Lacuna 42.
You can view a video review of the theme by actionboy here
This theme is released as is, there will be no significant updates to it following this release.
I will however offer a service whereby if you are willing to make a donation I will help tailor the theme to suit you, changing layout, adding additional weather detail, adding additional pages etc.
I have given up a lot of time to produce this theme following its original concept by trekfan who has gone the way of the little green robot so if you like my work and cannot donate at least please say thankyou so I know my work is appreciated and I will continue to come up with new ideas for as long as there is a need.
This Throttle Launcher theme requires version 1.2.1 to be installed and supports full screen 480x800 wallpaper in jpg format.
The homepage from top to bottom features :
a hideable interactive taskbar.
to activate/hide press on the battery icon.
you can toggle the bluetooth wifi and sound profile from the taskbar by just pressing them.
two sizes of clock accessible from the throttle config window.
next appointment accessible by pressing on the clock itself.
the blue icon to the right of the clock is programable
you can assign any quick launch app to through throttle config
notifications for new texts missed calls and emails
current weather condition icon complete with temp and location
app launcher page activated by pressing the icon in the bottom right when on the homepage
The friends page starts with your favourite contacts followed by and add and remove option followed by a full list of all remaining contacts.
The text page shows the last 20 messages recieved with the newest at the top.
The messages page shows similar for a specified email account.
CHANGELOG :
03 June 2011 :
Due to Google screwing with their weather api I have had to modify the theme to use the current condition text instead of the originally numbered icons from the registry. There are several new conditions for which I do not have icons so I have for now recycled existing ones. When a fuller set is made available I will update again.
Please download and enjoy.

The below screenshots will show you in detail what can be changed in the theme via throttle config.
Screen 08 & 09 show the default programs catagorised under Objects.
The majority of settings don't really need any explanation
the clock size is either normal or large
If you change the default sms app from tmail please untick sms default
do not change sms param as this is required by ther program
only one mail account is used in the theme so ensure only one is selected
Screen 10 Weather
Here you can specify the location
units in centigrade or fahrenheit
autoupdate if required should be ticked
if autoupdate is required please provide a period in minutes for the update to be performed
Screen 11 Background / Text
The select path option is used to specify wallpaper.
There is an initial choice of two dark and one light background in the default folder where the theme is installed.
The Background colour is used to specify either lgiht or dark by selecting
0 for dark or
255 for light
The font colour should then be set to the opposite.
under no circunstances should you change anything in the section Here Be Monsters as it will cause the theme to break.

This post is reserved for additional tips tricks patches and updates.

Did u watch on my wallpaper i posted you? I think this is TL problem, but in other devices it is not problem, si idk. I just have to use the one color wallpaper.
Anyway, i love Lacuna

I thought I had replied to you on the development thread, it is the same for me and I cannot understand why when other more complex wallpapers I have used since all work fine. It is something odd with the blending between the black and blue?
And thankyou for your kind comments

I tried blend between the red -black, but there are stripes too, anyway, i found nice wallpaper and it made lacuna more awesome for me So stripes aren't problems for me anymore . (I finally see the top bar transparent )
But, if I wanna let this theme on mobile, it should be more "settings friendly". What I mean? I mean, if I want connect to net via wifi, and in my location isn't only one wifi signal, i have to go to menu, scroll down to windows/samsung setings and there i can connect wifi where I want. So, what about do it like this: If u touch wifi on/off in top bar, it will be on/off wifi, but if u hold that icon for a while, it will launch wifi settings . Do I want a much? I know, it have to be usable on every phone, but owners can redirect it to their own locations (i mean the scripts)
I know I am annoying

Your not, your request is valid but there is no long press in TL see here.
I could change things so it will either toggle or open an action but that would require a major rewrite

Hello,
Have anyway to put an youtube video about this theme?
Thanks.

I dont have a way of recording it myself no but if there is anyone that can please PM me and I will send you my email address so you can send me the video to upload.

nice theme
love the theme, so sick.. but when you go to send a text and have to deploy the keyboard, TL always has to reset! major flaw cause some of the TL themes are so cool, just NO stability

Sorry to hear that, I wouldnt be using TL if it did that myself.
Are you using the latest version 1.2.1 from within the TL forums?
Also are you using the theme as a today plugin?
If you are try disabling it and running as standalone.
Of course, it could just be an issue with the rom you have been using if all the above is correct.

yes 1.2.1... and if i use it as a today plugin, it has to restart, and if i use it as a standalone, the "unnexpected error please try running again" pops up

hmmm? hardware acceleration disabled?

no, it just doesnt want to go in landscape mode, i have a TP2...

This is a portrait only theme and if hardware acceleration is enabled, try disabling. It isnt needed for this theme anyway

no i know its a portrait only theme, just when i go to slide my phone keyboard out to text, it puts my text program into landscape cause it has to, then i send and close the keyboard then exit out of the text program to find its restarting.. i even tried messing with the regedit to make my phone never go into landscape mode, but its a pain and no fun and eventually fails

I used to have a wizard and a kaiser and this didnt happen on either device when the keyboard was deployed. This is either a rom or phone specific issue. Afraid I can't help with that sorry.

yeah no its all good... there needs to be a way where there really isnt a landscape mode it just projects on the landscape screen the same way it would on the portrait way, it would look CRAPPY but still be able for you to do it...
and like this theme and the wp7 v2 fireslave, its cool cause of the seperate messaging hubs, i like that ALOT! and CHT doesnt really have that, and im trying to get someone to make that.. i cant code anything or do all that jazz

That is actually a good idea, creating the default landscape pages using the same code as it would stop it from crapping up when people use autorotate.
looks like there may well be a v2 coming soon

alecoddlyiv said:
That is actually a good idea, creating the default landscape pages using the same code as it would stop it from crapping up when people use autorotate.
looks like there may well be a v2
coming soon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi, can you explain how to install this theme, becouse I have installed the program but i don't know where i have to put the files thanks

Welcome To Your Very Bright Future! B.T.T.F. Colors.Cab Release!

The colors of the rainbow
Stretched as far as the eye can see
Now you’ve got em on your phone
Thanks to folks like you & me.
We’ve given you the rainbow
So let its brilliance now display
With all the colors of the world
Now just a touch away!
.:::Install:::.
COLORS.cab
33.43 KB
File description: Lucky Charms are magically delicious!
Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TALCRI1J
Signed
.:::Remove:::.
JACK_COLOR_REMOVE.cab
2.3 KB
File description: Tricks are for kids!
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L1L55FVV​

Awesome thanks man

I don't know if this is how it is on the phone but in your picture the 'black' has a green square next to it. Also, does this overwrite the current accent colors? What I mean is, if I already have xboxmods SP1 installed will I now have like 3 different 'green' accents listed? If yes to the multiple 'green' accents, could this be fixed? If no, fantastic!
EDIT: One other thing. Would it be possible to have the names listed with spaces? For example at the top you have 'darker blue' (good) but lower down you have things like 'mediumblue' and 'oldlace' (bad grammar) and so on. It would just look better/more professional.

voluptuary said:
I don't know if this is how it is on the phone but in your picture the 'black' has a green square next to it. Also, does this overwrite the current accent colors? What I mean is, if I already have xboxmods SP1 installed will I now have like 3 different 'green' accents listed? If yes to the multiple 'green' accents, could this be fixed? If no, fantastic!
EDIT: One other thing. Would it be possible to have the names listed with spaces? For example at the top you have 'darker blue' (good) but lower down you have things like 'mediumblue' and 'oldlace' (bad grammar) and so on. It would just look better/more professional.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMFGGTFOLMFAO!
Use your registry editor to do whatever you like!
This is the same List Box Selection listed in Microsoft Programming manual for Windows Phone 7 for making a Silverlight application with exception of adding
nokia blue, darker blue, darkest blue & navy seal blue.
I added those in myself.
They are simply 6 digit html color codes along with an added alpha channel
Every color needed 3 lines of code in the registry properly named and numbered
We did it buy the book so this is as professional as possible! If you want to rewrite the book or the registry or make a nice video tutorial for someone to learn something buy all means be my gest.
If you want to take your phone to lows or home depot & mach up color names please to so!
Everything has now been hardcoded in to the registry. The colors where actually already there but the registry values had not been written yet! Microsoft gave us 10 colors & allowed careers to add 3 of their likening for business purposes the problem is with both Windows mobile 6.5 & Windows phone 7 is that Microsoft gave us the bare minimum of what we actually needed without customization options.
Which is the #1 reason why wp7 is not more popular than android.
They just wanted to make something that worked well & be light in size.
When Microsoft make something thay don’t make it to look good. They make it to work good. Because if it works good then it will look good! ;~) So now it works & looks good! You have 154 new colors in your system that take up almost no space. I whooping 33.34kb is next to nothing! & on top of that you can now customize your phone in the blink of an eye!
Keep in mind that some of the colors don’t mix well with the dark & light background!
For instance if your using darkest blue on a black background you have trouble reading the darkest blue text! & other visual problems will occur with the mix of serein colors.
As you can see a lot of medium & light colors have been implemented because most use a dark background however we could possibly make more darker & darkest colors!
The darker your tiles the less battery drainage!
I note there are 2 blues 2 to greens but they different shades.
In time more colors will eventually be added!
The 10 default colors are not named correctly but more or less just simple easy to see colors.
You can simply remove or rename any accent color you like.
I had to do a lot to get you guys here and I had also a lot of help to bring you this
However I don’t exactly feel like typing up 50 names of thanks so I will just say thanks to everyone! I just cranked out lines & lines of code on top of a lot of other work I’m doing this was just a side project please don’t say its not profesonal it’s a gift. Unwrap it!
I also converted to HTML (Hyper Text Markup Lang) But nvm enjoy!
also feal free to make 100.000.000 more! & share hear!​

Works great !!! very good job , now plenty themes to choose from !!! nice work.

I can confirm that to..works great!sooo many colors

Hey jack... there's no Black color....XD ( was a joke )
thx for rainbow... will use it soon...

Ruzzichella said:
Hey jack... there's no Black color....XD ( was a joke )
thx for rainbow... will use it soon...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes there is,
Black 000000 displays as what ever color you have set to your theme to at the time of picking it.
If you pick black it will work just fine with the exeption of you not being able to read black text on a black background.

will this work with every rom? using ctrlpda latest 6.5 and loving it

shingers5 said:
will this work with every rom? using ctrlpda latest 6.5 and loving it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Back to the future Rom's V2.0 or V2.1 only!
Thay are the only Rom's with custom updates!

jackrabbit72380 said:
Back to the future Rom V2.0 or V2.1 only!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers i figured that out from the title after i posted. can the devs incorporate this into their roms manually?

shingers5 said:
cheers i figured that out from the title after i posted. can the devs incorporate this into their roms manually?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We just did!

Nice colors! Thanks, but I have duplicates how can I remove them easily?
Is there a remove cab so I can delete all existing colors before re-applying?
Why doesn't your Colors cab just overwrite the ones already there?

I already use a program called Advanced Config. It lets you make your own colors on the phone, rename them and much more.

Mod Edit: Attachments removed per OP request. ~TRM
Well, for those of us that prefer not to have duplicate colors listed in an already very large list, I have edited the color rgu in the CAB and attached it to this post in a zip. All it needs is to be re-added to the cab and resigned, something xboxmod would have to do. I also fixed the theme names so that there are spaces in-between the words in the name. For example 'AliceBlue' is now 'Alice Blue' as this offers a much more professional and polished look for the end user.
EDIT 1: I'll ask xboxmod if he can build the cab again for us. If he does I'll post it here. I don't want to take any credit for this as it is a good idea that wasn't mine, I just want a better end result.
EDIT 2: xboxmod was nice enough to rebuild the cab but I noticed some errors I overlooked so I will be fixing those and then pestering xboxmod again.
EDIT 3: Ok, so I have edited jackrabbit's cab so that it should have no duplicates (this is assuming 7720+SP1 or higher) and have the names with proper spacing. Enjoy!

jackrabbit72380,
I would like to say THANK YOU for your gift!
Cheers,

sexcellent said:
I already use a program called Advanced Config. It lets you make your own colors on the phone, rename them and much more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thare is a bug in the Accsent colors made with Advanced config.
The program uses old version of "xxxx_ThemeResources.xaml" & "xxxx_System.Windows.xaml".
There is some applications that wont display text corectly.
Also thare are not duplicate colors In COLORS.cab If you have duplicate colors then you can simply remove them with a registry editer as I stated in my second post.
We dont want an advanced config! Insted we have advanced system menu with all tweeks cooked in. witch is what we try & do.
just navigate to...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/ControlPanel/Themes/0/Accents & HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/ControlPanel/Themes/1/Accents & HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/ControlPanel/Themes/AccentsDisplayName
Then remove the values you like.
In all 3 directorys for each accsent!
Honistly you should not even have to do this.
fbirraque said:
jackrabbit72380,
I would like to say THANK YOU for your gift!
Cheers,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your welcome M8)

jackrabbit72380 said:
The darker your tiles the less battery drainage!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dont think thats true, the back light is always on and is consistant across the screen, the display panel then has several layers of filters, electrodes and other molecules which light passes through, to display darker colours the display needs to block more light coming through, which in a tiny way, will use more energy. If you want to use less energy you need to block less light, ie have a white background and have a primary (light) colour
Yes, Geek alert!
i doubt its even measurable on our devices so i wouldnt worry but for hardcore energy savers, light is the way to go with colours, dark is the way to go with backlight (thats the biggest energy blackhole we have)

voluptuary said:
Well, for those of us that prefer not to have duplicate colors listed in an already very large list, I have edited the color rgu in the CAB and attached it to this post in a zip. All it needs is to be re-added to the cab and resigned, something xboxmod would have to do. I also fixed the theme names so that there are spaces in-between the words in the name. For example 'AliceBlue' is now 'Alice Blue' as this offers a much more professional and polished look for the end user.
EDIT 1: I'll ask xboxmod if he can build the cab again for us. If he does I'll post it here. I don't want to take any credit for this as it is a good idea that wasn't mine, I just want a better end result.
EDIT 2: xboxmod was nice enough to rebuild the cab but I noticed some errors I overlooked so I will be fixing those and then pestering xboxmod again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but can you also ask xbmod to give us a remove cab with it. Honestly, every cab should be removable in case users have problems.
A few issues I'd like to mention:
I set one of the new colors yesterday, and this morning I noticed my phone was very sluggish. I switched back to one of the original colours, and my phone was immediately back to normal speed. This cab was the only thing I changed on my phone yesterday, so I think there could be an issue somewhere.
Also, the new colours don't take effect inside 3rd party apps like Whatsapp. I don't mean the tile, I mean inside the program (e.g. A-Z in contacts) where the new colours always show up as the default blue.

morph80 said:
Thanks, but can you also ask xbmod to give us a remove cab with it. Honestly, every cab should be removable in case users have problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done
remove cab attached

System wide Style Sheets

This is an idea I have from my experience using themes on my Samsung Captivate. My experiences i describe apply particularly to the AOKP builds for that device and a few others. However the concepts are something which would be implemented at a system level and I think it would be applicable for any Android device, so I wanted to share it here in the general forum as well.
I like the color picker in Rom Control for ICS AOKP, but I was surprised that you pick and choose each color separately for clock, signal, etc. There is the hard-coded button to recall the ICS holo blue. I would love to see another button that stores a user selected color instead of copying and pasting the hex codes, although that works. And then the wireless signal is a graphic image that you cant change without flashing a .zip to modify system png and the like. I wondered if it could be coded to use a triangle with a fill color based on something from the color picker, and then lay over top of that grey or black bars for the part that should be 'off'. maybe layers arent possible? tho it appears that they are being used, and i have seen overlap of the data signal on top of the wireless bars. right? I know there is a LOT of stuff these amazing developers are working on which keeps them very busy already. These are just some ideas
I noticed looking through some of the code in AOKP gerrit for the theme chooser updates, that they started using variables instead of a hard coded ICS holo blue color. but it seems as if there is no user interaction for that color, its still a hard coded value set in a single location instead of being hard coded in multiple locations. So it is a huge improvement Im sure for themers who have to try to search out and modify every instance of those values. I would just like to see it progress to something where the end user can modify that variable from Rom Control.
It would be even more awesome if Android used a system wide style sheet setup. background, checkbox style, text color, font, font size, perhaps it could even include specs for headers, paragraphs, tables, titles, etc. but that would be WAY more than I am thinking. It certainly works nicely for web design tho.
This would then be something that other apps could also read and implement into their design as well. Then we wouldn't have to create hacked SMS and google play, and tapatalk, etc, etc, etc. to make them inverted or red, green, orange, blue, yellow, etc.
Of course having an option to over-ride those settings is cool too, maybe you want an all orange theme, but you want white on your keyboard keys. a keyboard app could have a selector built into its settings which allows you to follow the system setting or pick your own base color, or go with the developers default choice. There are a lot of great developers out there who make gorgeous apps that deserve to keep their defaults, ie. 1weather. So I am sure apps would ship with their own defaults turned on, so the user is guaranteed the experience they intended.
I do think these ideas seem inline with what google is trying to accomplish with their unified design standards.
I am imagining a day where I can change my wallpaper and then open settings, use a color picker (maybe even one that can pick a color from the wallpaper ... Then maybe choose black or white, or gradient or transparent background. Two steps, and just that simply and quickly my whole system is color themed to compliment. Then using Tasker this could even be automated for work, home, weekends, etc. LOL.
Ok iphone, take that!

OK so I guess 187 people looked and decided that was way toooo much to read.
LOL
Sent from my SGH-I897 using Tapatalk 2