Database Develop

Changing fonts on a rooted phone

Hi,
I need help updating the fonts on my rooted Incredible. The way I understand it, all that needs to be done is to replace the font(s) in /system/fonts with something else. Easier said than done...
I opened an SU shell via "adb shell", and then tried to remount the /system in "rw" mode, I also updated the permissions for the font files so that I can override them. So good so far...
But when I try to copy or replace the files, I run into all kinds of problems:
* First of all, the rooted phone doesn't have "cp" so I can't do the usual copy operations like a regular *nix machine (did I miss something during the root process).
* Then I saw examples of using the "cat" command to replace the old files, but that resulted in "write: No space left on device" error, which I think has to do with how the memory image is loaded/packed??
* Then I saw examples of using the "dd" command, to copy the new files over the old files. This went further, since I can see the new timestamp when using "ls -l /system/fonts". However, when I reboot the phone, the old fonts show back again.
* I also saw an example in another thread titled "Hebrew support" in this forum (sorry, don't know how to cross-post URLs), but I didn't know how to follow the instructions there.
I would really appreciate it if someone can help me out.
- how can I update the system image? (do I really need a signed ZIP file?)
- is it too late for me to add "cp" to my rooted phone?
- the 10 minutes rooting video had us copy the "busybox" file to the sdcard, but it didn't say what to do with it. can I use it as a replacement for "cp"? (do I have to go back to "adb recovery"?)

You can only modify /system while in clockwork recovery after you're rooted and have run the unrevoked recovery flash tool

Yea, you have to push them to the phone in clockwork recovery.
you can put them in your tools folder where adb is located or put them on your SDcard and push them from there.
I attached the fonts I used. I used these on my Moto Droid I used to have and now they are on my dInc. This font is not as bold as the stock font and a little smaller. This font i believe is the "Droid" font. It looks pretty nice, see my screenshot and look under icons and at the clock and then compare to your phone.
Here is the commands you would do at command prompt, not from ADB shell.
For these commands to work, you have to place the fonts in your tools folder where ADB is.
Code:
adb push Clockopia.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSans.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSans-Bold.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSansFallback.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSansMono.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSerif-Bold.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSerif-BoldItalic.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSerif-Italic.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSerif-Regular.ttf /system/fonts/
you might be able to try this command
adb push *.ttf /system/fonts/
Im not sure if that would work or not, maybe someone else could confirm.

Thank a lot for the reply...
So is this the correct thread that I should follow now: "Unrevoked team: Recovery reflash tool (updated!)" to install the "clockwork recovery"? I am assuming this will allow the phone to start recovery with adbd running, so that I can connect to it from my PC while in recovery. Correct?
It took me forever to get the adbd running in recovery as part of rooting my phone, and I am not sure that I can replicate these steps again (at least not easily). I was this close to copying the font files while in "adb recovery" mode, but then I chickened out, because I didn't want to risk the rooting process by doing something that doesn't match the root instructions.

yes, as long as you have actually gained root and have the superuser/busybox properly installed. just follow that thread and you'll have new fonts in no time, and I can assure you that it will work because I changed mine too.

If using clockword recovery, dont forget to mount system.

Put them all in a folder named fonts. Put the folder in tools. Boot into recovery, mount system. Then: adb push fonts /system/fonts. Unmount system then reboot.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

TNS201 said:
Yea, you have to push them to the phone in clockwork recovery.
you can put them in your tools folder where adb is located or put them on your SDcard and push them from there.
I attached the fonts I used. I used these on my Moto Droid I used to have and now they are on my dInc. This font is not as bold as the stock font and a little smaller. This font i believe is the "Droid" font. It looks pretty nice, see my screenshot and look under icons and at the clock and then compare to your phone.
Here is the commands you would do at command prompt, not from ADB shell.
For these commands to work, you have to place the fonts in your tools folder where ADB is.
Code:
adb push Clockopia.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSans.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSans-Bold.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSansFallback.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSansMono.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSerif-Bold.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSerif-BoldItalic.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSerif-Italic.ttf /system/fonts/
adb push DroidSerif-Regular.ttf /system/fonts/
you might be able to try this command
adb push *.ttf /system/fonts/
Im not sure if that would work or not, maybe someone else could confirm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where can I get/download these font files?
EDIT im a retard and didnt see the .zip sorry

so where can i go to download other font types?

Perhaps this is an obvious questions to some... Can I use any TTF font? I have a font I created that is my own handwriting. This would be pretty cool to have available in my Phone... It is a standard TTF font.
Possible? I tried to search but didn't see anything specifically mentioned if a font has to be a specific type or if I can use anything.
Thanks!

compnird said:
Perhaps this is an obvious questions to some... Can I use any TTF font? I have a font I created that is my own handwriting. This would be pretty cool to have available in my Phone... It is a standard TTF font.
Possible? I tried to search but didn't see anything specifically mentioned if a font has to be a specific type or if I can use anything.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it should work fine, you just need to rename the file to DroidSans.ttf and DroidSans-Bold.ttf and replace the ones that are in /system/fonts

Thanks for the help seanhassars and TNS201: I am using the ClockworksMod recovery, and I was able to update the fonts (using the "update from ZIP" option).
I can see Arabic letters, but unfortunately, they don't look correct (they are disjoined, when they actually should be connected together). Now I am looking around for patched libwebcore.so to fix this issue, and thanks to nandroid backup, I can experiment with changing the libraries as much as I can.

shamidude can you please let me know which fonts you used? I am desperately needing to install arabic on my phone and could use the help. If possible could you upload the proper ones? Also which libwebcore.so did you use?
I tried to install Arabic fonts from another website but my phone froze on the splash screen and wouldn't boot. Please let me know what works for you, especially if you get the reshaper working.
edit- also if you could post general instructions of what you did to push the fonts onto the phone, how you mounted/dismounted, etc would be good

I don't think that was supposed to be an update.zip he just zipped the fonts he's using for easier access, you still have to push them manually.

ADB help...

OK, I know how to use ADB to reboot and get into download mode on my phone, but I have a kind of emergency. I was attempting to replace a framework-res.apk file on my phone to change the battery icon, and now I am stuck FCing all over the place. So much that I can't put my backed up framework-res.apk file back in /system/framework via Root Explorer like I normally do.
I am connected to my phone, can list directories, but cannot seem to push the framework-res.apk file.
Can someone give me a step by step on how to do this and soon please...
EDIT: I think I got it. I needed to be in Recovery Mode, and then it seemed to copy fine.
While I do have someone's attention (hopefully), how do you change directories if the directory you want to change to is two names, IE 'Battery Mod'?

Demented71 said:
OK, I know how to use ADB to reboot and get into download mode on my phone, but I have a kind of emergency. I was attempting to replace a framework-res.apk file on my phone to change the battery icon, and now I am stuck FCing all over the place. So much that I can't put my backed up framework-res.apk file back in /system/framework via Root Explorer like I normally do.
I am connected to my phone, can list directories, but cannot seem to push the framework-res.apk file.
Can someone give me a step by step on how to do this and soon please...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is your backed up framework on your sdcard? You could try adb shell.
from pc,
adb shell
su
cp XXXX/framework-res.apk system/framework <<<may need to use busybox cp
exit
exit
adb reboot

bobbylx said:
Is your backed up framework on your sdcard? You could try adb shell.
from pc,
adb shell
su
cp XXXX/framework-res.apk system/framework <<<may need to use busybox cp
exit
exit
adb reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My backed up framework file was on my PC. The first one I was trying to get to was on my phone, in a folder called Battery Mod, which I could not get into because ADB kept saying wrong substitution or something?
Either way, I was able to get it done, so I learned something new again.

EDIT: I think I got it. I needed to be in Recovery Mode, and then it seemed to copy fine.
While I do have someone's attention (hopefully), how do you change directories if the directory you want to change to is two names, IE 'Battery Mod'?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That makes sense, it may not let you Push to the file system while it's in use.
As for 2 names, do you mean from a windows command box or in the android command line. Windows you just type it as is. Linux is a little more picky, I usually try to remove spaces from directory names so I don't run into any problems with that. In linux a backslash works, ie, cd /sdcard/Battery\ Mod
Not sure if it will work on our phones.

How to push files via adb?

Can someone please point me to a place that explains how to push files via adb? I have Android SDK installed and I know how to do a screen shot using Dalvik Debug Monitor using the ddms.bat file. But other than that, I don't know what I am doing. lol Also, I am not rooted.
I know it can't be that difficult, any help is appreciated! Thanks!

Holy crap, apparently I pushed a new bootanimation via adb and really had no idea what I was doing. lol
So I guess my question is different now.
First, I put the bootanimation.zip file in the platform-tools folder.
Then I launched a CMD prompt and then I went into my Android/Android-SDK\platform-tools\
then I typed in "adb push bootanimation.zip /data/local" and I wasn't even sure it did anything.
So my question now is what made it push the bootanimation file to my xoom? Did it have something to do with the file being in the platform-tools folder, along with the adb.exe file?

I don't really get the question... It pushed the file to the Xoom because you told it to. A better question might be why it did not push the file during your previous attempts, but I cannot answer that without knowing what you tried. Anyways, I just wanted to chime in that since you are already familiar with DDMS, right under the screenshot option is a file explorer that you can use to push files.
edit: actually, I think it may not be possible to push to subfolders in /data using ddms since it cannot see them

sangreal06 said:
I don't really get the question... It pushed the file to the Xoom because you told it to. A better question might be why it did not push the file during your previous attempts, but I cannot answer that without knowing what you tried. Anyways, I just wanted to chime in that since you are already familiar with DDMS, right under the screenshot option is a file explorer that you can use to push files.
edit: actually, I think it may not be possible to push to subfolders in /data using ddms since it cannot see them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, I didn't do it in ddms because I did not see the local folder. I did it through the CMD prompt. But my question is how does it know where to push the files by just typing "adb push bootanimation.zip /data/local"? No where in that does it say push it to the xoom. When using adb, does it automatically try to push the file to whatever Android is plugged up? How does it know where and what to push it on? That was my question.

Best place I've found to start is http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html which gives an overview along with some good details on some of the subcommands. Beyond that, use your favorite search engine.
To answer your question more directly, though, if only one Android device is connected, ADB can figure out how to talk with it. With two or more you'll need to specify the device (which you can get from "adb devices").
HTH

short/y said:
Best place I've found to start is http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html which gives an overview along with some good details on some of the subcommands. Beyond that, use your favorite search engine.
To answer your question more directly, though, if only one Android device is connected, ADB can figure out how to talk with it. With two or more you'll need to specify the device (which you can get from "adb devices").
HTH
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh.. cool. I did google it to see what came up and learned a little but nothing ever explained how adb knew what or where to push the file.
But just knowing that it does know, then the rest is pretty easy to figure out. I can follow and type commands well... even though I might not know what they do (which is scary, huh?). lol
Edit: Thanks for the link also.

I got this from XDA somewhere so credit to them:
A:android-sdk-windows installed
B: (on your phone) go to menu>settings>applications>developement and make sure usb debugging is checked.
C: the file you are pushing must be placed in the tools folder of adb so if you are pushing file "build.prop.txt" this needs to be downloaded/copy and pasted in C:\android-sdk-windows\tools
1: go to run and type cmd (or just open your command prompt)
2: cd C:\android-sdk-windows\tools
3: adb remount
4: adb devices *if everything is set up right this should output a serial number*
5: adb push FFFFFFF.FFF /#####/###### *i hope my notes help here you need to put the file name in for the F(s) and in the pound signs you put the destination on the devices example adb push build.prop.txt /system/bin
6. repeat step 3 for multiple files
7. adb reboot this is how you finish

Theming Android 2.1

Okay I'm sure some ppl still run Android 2.1 so I hope this isn't a complete waste of time. I did post this on VR ages ago before their site went tits up and lost everything.
"How to perform "simple" theme changes in 2.1 based roms (tested on VR12).
Firstly, if I can do this, you can.
The only tool (apart from winrar and some photo editing software) you'll really need is AndroidSDK because you need to push/pull things using ADB (android debugging bridge) ->
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
Download and follow setting up instructions.
So now we have to "pull" the files from the phone we want to change.
1) Load command prompt and change the directory to "androidsdk\tools" eg:
C:\Documents and Settings\user>
C:\Documents and Settings\user>cd c:\androidsdk\tools <hit enter>
C:\AndroidSDK\tools>
(If you cannot find command prompt, type into search "cmd" and it should come up.)
2) Ensure your phone is connected via usb and select "charge only".
You can type "adb devices" into the command prompt to check that your phone is connected tho this isn't necessary...useful to check if you're having issues tho.
3) Now to pull the files we want. In this example we are only going to look at pulling "framework-res.apk" as this is the file that contains the images for the status bar, it's icons and the background of the status bar...amongst other things.
Type the following into ADB: adb pull <location of file you want to pull (+ file name)> <location you want the file to be pulled to (+ file name)>
So in the case of pulling framework-res.apk we type:
adb pull /system/framework/framework-res.apk c:\androidapps\framework-res.apk
"/system/framework/framework-res.apk" is the location of the file on the phone and "c:\androidapps\framework-res.apk" is the location the file will be placed on your computer. c:\androidapps is the folder on my c drive where I pull .apk's to (you'll need to make your own folder like this).
4) Locate the file framework-res.apk on your computer (in c:\androidapps if you're using the same folder name as myself) and open it with winrar. Do not extract anything we just want to have a look for some .png's. (.png is a type of image compression that preserves transparency)
Now that you've opened framework-res.apk open the folder named "res" then open the folder named "drawable-mdpi". In here you can find all the .png images I've previously mentioned. Do not close winrar as you will need it.
The .png for the status bar is named "statusbar_background.png" you can drag and drop this to you computer and open it with some image editing software.
I personally recommend GIMP as it is free and very good (http://www.gimp.org/). If you are not confident with image editors you can use http://fotoflexer.com/ for basic editing (clicking on the layers tab on fotoflexer allows you to edit the transparency of the image...remember to save images as .png)
5) Now that you have edited your .png you can drag and drop it back to the res\drawable-mdpi folder hopefully still open in winrar. Close winrar now...it's time to push the edited framework-res.apk back to your phone!
6) Go back to command prompt, if you have removed the usb from your phone at any time, plug it back in and type "adb remount" into command prompt. This remounts the phone for editing.
Now type the following into ADB: adb push <location of file on computer> <location of file on phone>
In this case:
adb push c:\androidapps\framework-res.apk /system/framework/framework-res.apk
and hit enter! This is how it should appear in command promt:
C:\AndroidSDK\tools>adb push c:\androidapps\framework-res.apk /system/framework/framework-res.apk
You phone should restart sense but if it freezes/gets a bit schizy type "adb reboot" into the command prompt to manually reboot the phone.
And it's as simple as that.
You can look through the .png's in res\drawable-mdpi to find more images you might want to edit. The background of the status bar drop down is called "status_bar_background.png" and actual drag down bar is named "status_bar_close_on.9.png".
I think I'll save the explaination of how to edit the bar at the bottom of the screen with the app drawer, phone and + for another time as it requires the knowledge of how to sign .apk's which tho isn't hard is probably quite time consuming for me to explain (due to my very limited knowledge)."
Hope this attempt at 'giving something back' helps someone.
Mark

thanks alot .. Really like it

Battery icon request for KH3

Is it possible to make this battery icon http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=977983 work with KH3?! Thanks..

chasesavestheday said:
Is it possible to make this battery icon http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=977983 work with KH3?! Thanks..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can do a bunch of battery icons in the UOT kitchen
There are a couple for KH3 in this thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1248826

Yes I just created one at uot. I really liked the one on the OP though. Thanks for your efforts!

I have pulled all of the battery.png files from the package in the OP. Can someone put these into something that will work with KH3. I have it a shot and could not resign the apk. Then ran into other issues.
Shall I upload the icons?

chasesavestheday said:
I have pulled all of the battery.png files from the package in the OP. Can someone put these into something that will work with KH3. I have it a shot and could not resign the apk. Then ran into other issues.
Shall I upload the icons?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's an easier way, assuming you have the android SDK and ADB.
First, reboot into CWM recovery (it'll save you any troubles of root permissions).
Type this command into adb:
adb pull /system/framework/framework-res.apk
Then go into your SDK folder where adb is stored (usually platform-tools) and make a copy of that apk file to somewhere else. That will be your safe backup.
Then get 7zip and right-click on the apk sitting in the directory with adb, and select "open archive". Navigate to /res/drawable-hdpi and copy all the files you extracted into this directory (overwriting where necessary).
Once you've done that, close the archive. Assuming it's still in the same directory as adb, type:
adb push /system/framework/framework-res.apk framework-res.apk
(Yes, it's typed twice on purpose.)
Then just reboot. If all goes well, your battery should show up. If it messes up, just move your backup to the adb folder, reboot to recovery, and reissue the adb push command above.

chasesavestheday said:
I have pulled all of the battery.png files from the package in the OP. Can someone put these into something that will work with KH3. I have it a shot and could not resign the apk. Then ran into other issues.
Shall I upload the icons?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you dont need to sign system apks