So, I have absolutely no knowledge of any type of Android coding, but I'm hoping to learn through trial and error. I've always hated the native Music app -- especially its appearance, but also certain features here and there. My question is, how can I go about editing this?
I'm in the process of re-skinning the APK, basically replacing the old images with better ones. But how would I go about more substantive edits? Suppose I wanted to change the background color to white and the text to black, or the time-jumper at the bottom of the screen from orange, how would I go about that? There's some XML files in the APK, but whenever I open them, I get a bunch of odd characters that I can't really make sense of.
Am I correct in assuming that the source code is not available for Music.apk? If it is, how do I get it and where do I go from there?
Like I said, I'm an absolutely beginner at app creation/modding, but I'm usually a pretty quick learner. I went from zero web design experience to replacing my University's housing website with a brand new one in less than a week, so if I get a push in the right direction, I should be good to go. I did a site search for tutorials on modding a system app, but couldn't find anything.
Any help?
PS: Once I get some edits started (if I ever get that far), I'll definitely be sharing it with XDA. So, any advice you could provide could be mutually beneficial!
jay652 said:
So, I have absolutely no knowledge of any type of Android coding, but I'm hoping to learn through trial and error. I've always hated the native Music app -- especially its appearance, but also certain features here and there. My question is, how can I go about editing this?
I'm in the process of re-skinning the APK, basically replacing the old images with better ones. But how would I go about more substantive edits? Suppose I wanted to change the background color to white and the text to black, or the time-jumper at the bottom of the screen from orange, how would I go about that? There's some XML files in the APK, but whenever I open them, I get a bunch of odd characters that I can't really make sense of.
Am I correct in assuming that the source code is not available for Music.apk? If it is, how do I get it and where do I go from there?
Like I said, I'm an absolutely beginner at app creation/modding, but I'm usually a pretty quick learner. I went from zero web design experience to replacing my University's housing website with a brand new one in less than a week, so if I get a push in the right direction, I should be good to go. I did a site search for tutorials on modding a system app, but couldn't find anything.
Any help?
PS: Once I get some edits started (if I ever get that far), I'll definitely be sharing it with XDA. So, any advice you could provide could be mutually beneficial!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
android_source_root/packages/apps/Music
Not exactly a secret.
Why wouldn't it be available?
Ipod touch music player
not even kidding and all apple hatred aside, i've always wanted a ipod touch style music player on android! the touch music player is nice looking and very easy to navigate through. if you could make something like that, it would be PERFECT!
pbonello said:
not even kidding and all apple hatred aside, i've always wanted a ipod touch style music player on android! the touch music player is nice looking and very easy to navigate through. if you could make something like that, it would be PERFECT!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Something like that would be pretty simple cause its just list views that expand other list views.
As for starting to edit you can change most of the colors is the strings.xml and the layout xmls. For images make sure you dont replace .9.png with normal images. If you have the sdk setup use draw9patch in the tools folder.
lbcoder said:
android_source_root/packages/apps/Music
Not exactly a secret.
Why wouldn't it be available?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that helps. I'll get started by taking a look at that.
I'm not sure why I thought it was unavailable. I mean, some of Google's other apps are close-sourced, thought I suppose those are all part of the Google Experience.
I guess I thought that if the source code was available, someone would have improved the Music app substantially by now. In my opinion, it's terrible and could use a lot of work.
What does the peoples live tiles do besides drain battery? I notice it only shows certain profile pictures
ariel123 said:
What does the peoples live tiles do besides drain battery? I notice it only shows certain profile pictures
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, if ur a kid or a face book addict, you set up your face book account and get updates on your friends, you know spy and stalk them
For the rest of us, nothing, messaging tile, phone tile, email tile, all do the same thing as every phone out there does of telling you on home page that you have a message or missed call or email, so in my eyes not much advancement here.
Tiles are bigger, take up more space and the color options were given again confirm that they are designed for teens. Nothing better then a nice pink tile right right
Once you go over to the side to view you apps, call me a moron, but hasn't the advancement of multi columns to see more on one page developed in the past 100 years when displaying data not known at MS? I dont get why they just line them up in one column? They advertise it as simple phone, yet by the time u tag all you need to home page, because the the size of these tiles, ( non adjustable size) i have to scroll down just as long to find what I need as I did tapping with other phones.
Just my two cents
Couldn't say it any better
rysky007 said:
Well, if ur a kid or a face book addict, you set up your face book account and get updates on your friends, you know spy and stalk them
For the rest of us, nothing, messaging tile, phone tile, email tile, all do the same thing as every phone out there does of telling you on home page that you have a message or missed call or email, so in my eyes not much advancement here.
Tiles are bigger, take up more space and the color options were given again confirm that they are designed for teens. Nothing better then a nice pink tile right right
Once you go over to the side to view you apps, call me a moron, but hasn't the advancement of multi columns to see more on one page developed in the past 100 years when displaying data not known at MS? I dont get why they just line them up in one column? They advertise it as simple phone, yet by the time u tag all you need to home page, because the the size of these tiles, ( non adjustable size) i have to scroll down just as long to find what I need as I did tapping with other phones.
Just my two cents
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought the Live Tiles were one of the selling points of the OS.
The grid layout will scream it is an iPhone clone, and the home screen customization will scream an Android clone, and you know MS is trying to be different.
The last thing that went through my head when I first saw the tile interface was this being an iPhone copy.. my first thought was iPhone finally got pwnd.
Steve Jobs MS has no style, they do have now
lqaddict said:
I thought the Live Tiles were one of the selling points of the OS.
The grid layout will scream it is an iPhone clone, and the home screen customization will scream an Android clone, and you know MS is trying to be different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In theory yes, but its the same concept that I will wear a bucket on my head to look different, but it doesnt make it efficient or practical.
No matter what they do they will all look similar, just like windows and mac and linux, they all have the same style, look diff but same format to follow, and that is because that format works.
Like cars, they all have an engine, and wheels and seats, they just dress them up differently to stand out.
What WM did here is take away what is needed and gave us a shell of a car, and said hold on, we might get u teh wheels and doors later.
yly3 said:
The last thing that went through my head when I first saw the tile interface was this being an iPhone copy.. my first thought was iPhone finally got pwnd.
Steve Jobs MS has no style, they do have now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HD 2 was different then anthy thing out there, and I liked the home screen, it showed me all i need on once screen with no scrolling needed. Then droid adapted it from HTC so now WM wants to look diff and I think they went the wrong way personally. It not efficient at all, have to do more scrolling now then before.
rysky007 said:
In theory yes, but its the same concept that I will wear a bucket on my head to look different, but it doesnt make it efficient or practical.
No matter what they do they will all look similar, just like windows and mac and linux, they all have the same style, look diff but same format to follow, and that is because that format works.
Like cars, they all have an engine, and wheels and seats, they just dress them up differently to stand out.
What WM did here is take away what is needed and gave us a shell of a car, and said hold on, we might get u teh wheels and doors later.
HD 2 was different then anthy thing out there, and I liked the home screen, it showed me all i need on once screen with no scrolling needed. Then droid adapted it from HTC so now WM wants to look diff and I think they went the wrong way personally. It not efficient at all, have to do more scrolling now then before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually find the live tiles helpful and with one flick of the finger I get the info I want. The problem with the HTC Sense UI (although they have pioneered the ideology of glancable information on the mobile phone), is that it also required add-ons to make it workable (Cookie home tab or maxsense) because navigating wasn't always that straightforward.
The Live Tiles are supposed to be big to display info (look at how Weather Channel App is using the live tile) and to be glancable. Another problem I found with the HD2 was that everyone was trying to shove way to much info on one screen, there are limited.
Going back to the original question, the live tile is really just the Contact Tile, it provides no real information (from what I can see) other than it is easy to spot on the phone amongst the other tiles. Since this is one of my main ways of contacting people, the visual changes (it animates more than any other tile) helps me get to people without hunting for it.
I reallt don't see why this should be deemed a "Teen" feature?
Anyway my final point is, some will like and some won't.
rysky007 said:
In theory yes, but its the same concept that I will wear a bucket on my head to look different, but it doesnt make it efficient or practical.
No matter what they do they will all look similar, just like windows and mac and linux, they all have the same style, look diff but same format to follow, and that is because that format works.
Like cars, they all have an engine, and wheels and seats, they just dress them up differently to stand out.
What WM did here is take away what is needed and gave us a shell of a car, and said hold on, we might get u teh wheels and doors later.
HD 2 was different then anthy thing out there, and I liked the home screen, it showed me all i need on once screen with no scrolling needed. Then droid adapted it from HTC so now WM wants to look diff and I think they went the wrong way personally. It not efficient at all, have to do more scrolling now then before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the hd2 fit your needs so well, why did you jump at launch to a brand new OS that all of us knew was going to be missing a couple of features???
As for the live tiles, the point is to give you info at a glance. Yes currently, only weather apps, and contacts tiles are really taking advantage of it, but that is going to change. Beezz twitter app today will use live tiles to give you mentions and direct messages. Other programs hopefully will follow suit.
The live tile is a tool. As with all tools it can make things that are useful and useless.
The standard tiles maybe unnecessarily big but tiles like Weatherbug that display information without having to run the app are great.
They can also be fun. It's nice to see album art from the last Zune artist you played or your Xbox avatar or pictures of friends.
They also allow you to do things you can’t do on other phones. You can pin a specific FM radio station to the start screen, or a web page, or a map with directions or a favourite album. With one tap you’re exactly where you need to be. It doesn’t get more efficient than that.
Personally I'd like to see an option of grouping four tiles into one. I don't need massive tiles for things like IE, messaging, hotmail and Marketplace. That would free up space for more useful tiles.
digime said:
The live tile is a tool. As with all tools it can make things that are useful and useless.
The standard tiles maybe unnecessarily big but tiles like Weatherbug that display information without having to run the app are great.
They can also be fun. It's nice to see album art from the last Zune artist you played or your Xbox avatar or pictures of friends.
They also allow you to do things you can’t do on other phones. You can pin a specific FM radio station to the start screen, or a web page, or a map with directions or a favorite album. With one tap you’re exactly where you need to be. It doesn’t get more efficient than that.
Personally I'd like to see an option of grouping four tiles into one. I don't need massive tiles for things like IE, messaging, hotmail and Marketplace. That would free up space for more useful tiles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice point which I agree with, I have 4 emal addresses, so after the phone tile, people tile, messages tile and then 4 diff email address tiles, i have to do a lot of scrolling to see other things, so having a small icon for sms alert, and email alert and missed call alert would free up an entire page for me.
If i was developer of this OS, id give an option to either have it tile mode, or smaller active tiles as app launchers like we had on HD2 along with time and small notifiers bottom of screen, give ppl options to customize.
digime said:
They also allow you to do things you can’t do on other phones. You can pin a specific FM radio station to the start screen, or a web page, or a map with directions or a favourite album. With one tap you’re exactly where you need to be. It doesn’t get more efficient than that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how's that different from shortcuts on Android?
lqaddict said:
how's that different from shortcuts on Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
amen every one that has been praising this phone i dont get, i dont see what is so special, hardware might be nice but OS is nothing different
rysky007 said:
amen every one that has been praising this phone i dont get, i dont see what is so special, hardware might be nice but OS is nothing different
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1, last time I asked about the usability of the OS, and without getting a clear answer the thread went into a flame war.
just something else i thought about.
Many saying that MS wanted to develop something different.
How does putting the lock and unlock button up top JUST LIKE IPHONE has had for a while now, make this phone diff?
They sereously went the wrong way. . . This BS OS can not be compared to Android. The Android OS is 99% customizable. . . This. . . I can't even describe. It's like the Apple OS, just uglier. . . Good work Microsoft. . . They should have called it VistaMobile instead of WMO7. . . Now the question is, will they just give up and bail on this OS or actually make it better.
Too bad, the hardware is so nice.
samson_420 said:
They sereously went the wrong way. . . This BS OS can not be compared to Android. The Android OS is 99% customizable. . . This. . . I can't even describe. It's like the Apple OS, just uglier. . . Good work Microsoft. . . They should have called it VistaMobile instead of WMO7. . . Now the question is, will they just give up and bail on this OS or actually make it better.
Too bad, the hardware is so nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the past week everywhere I went and pulled my phone to use it everybody was like "wow such a nice phone" so I am pretty sure there will be success sooner or later. And Microsoft didn't put so much money in this to just give up after a few months because some people with much better phones and so infinitely more freedom than any WP7 who need to play Linux Brotherhood on their device 24/7 would say different.
Live tiles are similar to widgets in android, they offer information at a glance without having to go into the app. For example, weather bug shows the temperature and current weather of your location from the homescreen. ITN News displays a picture of the latest news article.
Some tiles also have animations making the home screen look better.
The difference between Widgets and Tiles is that Tiles get information using Push rather than Pull. When you receive a new message it will be pushed to the tile so that it displays a 1, when new news hits ITN the image is pushed to the tile.
This, rather than the traditional way of polling a source ever x amount of minutes ensures that connection is only made when need to thus saving battery.
Other advantages tiles have over competitors is the fact that all tiles are uniform, in the same format and style meaning nothing looks out of place on the homescreen.
rysky007 said:
just something else i thought about.
Many saying that MS wanted to develop something different.
How does putting the lock and unlock button up top JUST LIKE IPHONE has had for a while now, make this phone diff?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously, what are you on about? If you are referring to the physical unlock button on the device then this quite clearly has nothing to do with phone manufacturers and not Microsoft. Also, on/off buttons have been at the top of most devices since God knows when.
lqaddict said:
how's that different from shortcuts on Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It isn't, it's just a different approach. All OS's have copied from each other in some way or another. Whilst the same, the Microsoft way does have some advantages which I've highlighted in my post above.
My friend just ditched sprint and the evo for the hd7. I think ms did a great job with this os. Yes we are currently missing a few features but I think ms is trying to market to the noobs in the smart phone community. Making this a easy phone to use. Slowly within time they will make this os more customizable. I hear there already meeting with the guy who's been working on jailbreaking the os to make his apps official through market place. You guys have to remember that 90% of smartphone buyers don't even know the true features of a smartphone. Why do you think apples sells so much
ariel123 said:
My friend just ditched sprint and the evo for the hd7. I think ms did a great job with this os. Yes we are currently missing a few features but I think ms is trying to market to the noobs in the smart phone community. Making this a easy phone to use. Slowly within time they will make this os more customizable. I hear there already meeting with the guy who's been working on jailbreaking the os to make his apps official through market place. You guys have to remember that 90% of smartphone buyers don't even know the true features of a smartphone. Why do you think apples sells so much
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm one of them, I ditched my evo for the HD7, so far so good, the interface is a refresh and looks "new" compare to the rest.
I have use all major platforms and they all have something over the others, to be the more the merrier
Sam
If we currently had access to the notification bar, we wouldn't need softkey apps, right?
My question is: Is there something we can edit that reports a resolution/size less than fullscreen (a size that will show the bottom bar)?
-A.
+1
I'd like to second this inquiry. If somebody could work their Wizarding Awesome Sauce then I would be much obliged.
I don't have any coding experience at all but if I understand this correctly we're looking for two distinct screens within one LCD, both part of the same Android OS, both able to talk to each other, both able to control each other. Essentially something along the lines of a Windows status bar with the start button and everything else.
I'd say this is definitively doable, what is going to present a huge, maybe impossible challenge, is that software written for actual computers takes the Windows bar in account when maximizing the screen. Software that covers the whole scren, such as games, take in account two other constants, the Windows key and CTRL+ALT+DEL. Since we don't have these constant we're stuck with what we've got... and the NC isn't a massively mainstream device to prompt someone to get to work.