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[Guide] Learn To Theme Part 1: Everything you need to get started
So you want to theme android.
Don't know where to start.
This should help.
***This is written going in step with editing a theme for the Samsung Epic 4g, but the principle can be applied to any android phone, granted there will be differences in phones***
First off you are going to need the basic tools:
7zip - http://www.7zip.com
Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
Second off you need a general understanding of what you are about to do.
The majority of files you are going to edit will be found within framework-res.apk. This is a file located inside of the folders system/framework inside of a rom. A rom of course is a collection of files which combines into your operating system.
To get to the framework-res.apk file you will need 7zip, it's like winzip but is real quick for themeing.
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
7zip will see any file named *.apk as a file named *.zip. With WinRar, Winzip, and others you have to rename the apk file .zip edit it, and rename it back to .apk. With 7zip this is not necessary. All you have to do is right click a file and choose 7zip-Open archive.
So you have your rom downloaded onto your desktop or in a folder you set up as the root of your themeing.
On my PC I have a folder inside of User/Documents/ called Themes
I also theme for the Samsung Moment so I have all my themes labeled inside of there:
(My folder looks as follows)
Epic Green Mayan Theme
DE03 Stock Theme Template
DI18 Stock Theme Template
Epic Files
Pink Life Moment
Pink Life Epic
Mayan Green Moment
Epic Black Hole
First and foremost, you really need a Stock *** Theme Template. *** being whatever version your phone is running.
The stock theme template serves a number of purposes. First, it is deodexed. This means that all of the files in system/ and system/framework that have the .odex extention are deleted and the stock apps that are included on your phone by default are replaced with files that have been full deodexed files.
This is essential for themeing because if they weren't deodexed, either your apps would ForceClose when you reboot after themeing or they will dissappear from your laucher tray and desktop, meaning essential they are deleted by the phone.
Another good thing about a stock theme template is that it deodexes your phone from an update zip so you can theme the stock rom your running instead of having to install another rom simply to apply a theme.
Download your stock theme template for the Epic 4G here for EC05
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1042386
So lets begin here.
Open your folder on your PC that holds your theme. For me it will be Users/Documents/Themes/NewTheme
Inside of that folder (COPY) your stock theme template to this folder. You will want an original theme template to remain inside of it's own folder cause obviously you are going to edit the one inside of New Theme folder.
Stock_DI18_Theme_Template.zip
Now rename stock_DI18_Theme_Template.zip to the name of your new theme.
NewTheme.zip
Now right click the .zip file and choose 7zip-Open Archive.
Double Click on the folder labeled "system" to Open it.
Double Click on the folder labeled "framework" to Open it
Here you will notice several files including one called framework-res.apk.
Inside your theme folder /Themes/New Theme/ create another folder called framework.
Drag and drop the file framework-res.apk into the framework folder.
Right click on framework-res.apk and choose 7zip-Open Archive.
Double click on the folder labeled "res"
Now you will notice several folders. On the Epic 4g the main one you want is called Drawable-Hdpi
Drag and drop this folder into the same folder you created called framework.
Open this folder and browse around. There are many images in here that your phone pulls in various locations. The first thing I like to do doing this on a new phone is to play with my phone and at the same time look in this folder and try to locate the same files I'm looking on the phone itself. You'll begin to see similarities inside of the drawable-hdpi folder for instance files that begin with the label sys_stat_*_* usually show up in your status bar. The rest you will learn over time.
You will also come across two main file types. The first is .png and the second is .9.png. This write up will not cover those, coming in the future.
A popular start for most people is wanting to alter the status bar. This is an easy one or so it seems.
navigate into the drawable-hdpi inside of the framework folder located /Themes/NewThemes/framework
scroll down until you find a file named status_bar_background.9.png
Since it's a .9.png you already know we can't edit it yet. The reason is the .9.png files are pictures that might hold more then one place on the phone and most probably will be portrait and landscape. The status bar is one size on portrait mode, but when you flip your phone into landscape, it has to stretch to fit the screens. In order to stretch a picture and retain it's looks, a tool called draw9patch in the android sdk is used to show you your image in 3 different stretch modes. Your goal is to set the guidlines on what must be retained at each zoom. After you add these guidlines on the picture, they show up in the picture. You have to program the guidelines inside of the picture and remove them from being displayed. That is done by a program called Eclipse. (Use version 3.5) But all this will come into play later don't rush out and get confused because familiarizing yourself the basic pictures and colors found in framework-res.apk is your current goal. Just because you have no idea what you are doing with the .9.png files doesn't mean you can't change the color of the status bar though. The next best thing is to "borrow" one from a theme that exists so you can get a feel for modding some files. The only one you can't use from another theme is the clear status bar. That has to be done in xml files as well and for now were sticking to the basics. Here's what you do. Find the theme that holds the status bar you like. To make sure you preserve all the files the way they need to be it's best to make a whole new folder in the theme folder called whatever theme you plan to use as a donor /Themes/Donor Theme/. Open the theme zip with 7zip open archive. Navigate to res (double click) and framework. Make another folder inside /donor theme/ called framework. Drag and drop the framework-res.apk. Open this file in 7zip and drag and drop drawable-hdpi into the framework folder. Now open it and scroll down to the status_bar_background you intend to borrow. (Right about now it's not wize to have your windows of "my computer" open full screen you can do this a lot easier with two open explorers side by side swapping files). Side by side, open the drawable-hdpi folders in both theme folders, /New Theme/ and /Donor Theme/. Drag the status bar from the donor theme into the folder for the new theme. Microsoft will give you **** about it choose copy and replace and your done. Now to get this change back in the theme is pretty easy. Your drawable-hdpi folder inside /Themes/New Theme/framework is where you will alter the pictures, framework-res.apk is where your going to put it. In your framework folder is the original framework-res.apk If you closed the instance of 7zip where you had framework-res.apk for new theme open, you need to right click and re-open it. Double click on /res and open it. Drag and drop the drawable-hdpi into the open archive NewTheme.zip where all the other drawable folders are. Make sure not to copy it IN one of those other drawable folders. It will overwrite the one thats already there automatically. Now, you have to stick that framework-res.apk back into NewTheme.zip before your ready to flash it from recovery. First close the 7zip instance of framework-res.apk. Right click and open NewTheme.zip double click on system/framework/. Now drag and drop the framework-res.apk from /New Theme/framework into NewTheme.zip. Your done, now flash the NewTheme.zip in recovery and see how it worked.
Any other file you choose to edit, the steps will be the same. Edit the image in drawable-hdpi, drag it into framework-res.apk, drag framework-res.apk into the theme /res/framework/ folder. You will be doing this a lot.
That's it for part 1. This will give you enough to play with and familiarize you with the images used by most any android phone. If this were a samsung moment you would be doing all of this editing inside the same file structure except in framework-res.apk /res folder you would be editing a folder called drawable-mpdi.
Part two will be out soon enough. I'll go more in dept inside the framework-res.apk/twframework-res.apk
[Guide] Learning to Theme: Required Tools
How To Theme
Required Tools
First off this is the very 1st guide in my line of theme guides. This one is just to reference you to the required tools, and instructions on how to set them up since it can be a little tricky. The link at the bottom is for guide 1, what to do with these tools now that you have them. At the bottom of that guide is link to a two part Putting the tools to use covering editing images in framework and .9.png files.
Grab you some tools:
Gimp:
www.gimp.org
7zip:
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
Java6:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
scroll down and select (under Java Platform, Standard Edition, JDK 6 Update 22) Download JDK
Download and install with the on screen instructions.
Android SDK:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html
Notice the instructions on Step 2. Downloading the SDK Starter Package.
It says "On Windows, right-click on My Computer, and select Properties. Under the Advanced tab, hit the Environment Variables button, and in the dialog that comes up, double-click on Path (under System Variables). Add the full path to the tools/ directory to the path."
This means if you extracted the folder called android-sdk-windows inside the zip you downloaded @ C:\android-sdk-windows, then when you go to add the path (there will already be other values in your path, type a ";" behind the last one and type in c:\android-sdk-windows\tools
this means you can call any of those scripts inside of android-sdk-windows\tools by typing them at the c:\ in command prompt.
For example, if you did not do this, and you wanted to use adb, you have to open the command prompt and type the following
C:\>
C:\>cd android-sdk-windows\tools
C:\android-sdk-windows\tools>
C:\android-sdk-windows\tools>adb ***
After adding the tools folder to path you can do the following
C:\>
C:\>adb ***
APK Manager 4.9 (Latest Version):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=695701
There is a video on the page as well to give you an overview of how to work it.
I downloaded the zip, created a folder at the c:\ drive called apk manager. Opened the archive (apkmanager4.9.zip) highlighted all the folders and the bat file, drag and dropped them into the folder located at C:\apk manager\.
Eclipse 3.5:
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/release/galileo/r
This is called Eclipse galileo download the one called Eclipse Classic
Once again you extract this file into a folder on your computer like you did with APK Manager. I created the folder @ C:\eclipse\
Now navigate to this website to learn how to add the adroid sdk into eclipse to have it ready when we are going to need it.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html
Note the android SDK download at the top, you should already have this. Read right below where it instructs you to add that into eclipse.
Start out like this. Open Eclipse now that it is installed. It's the icon in the eclipse folder that looks like a purple planet. With Eclipse open on your screen click on Window in the tool bar at the top. Click on Help-Install new software. The box that appears, it says "type or select a site" ignore this text input box and go straight to click "Add" button. When it comes up name it Eclipse Plugins and in the field where you put the web address, type the following: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ . Click on the box next to developers tools and click next at the bottom. This will install what is called Android SDK and AVD Manager. Eclipse will probably need to restart to add the plugin to the menu list. Alternatively, if you get errors doing this there is a problem with you computer connecting to the secure server (in the web address you typed https: note the S at the end. If, for any reason you do get errors, simply go back to Help-Install New Software, and this time put in the web address field http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ When eclipse opens back up, click on Window and select "Android SDK and AVD Manager". Now your screen should look like the pictures in the link.
Now Eclipse Should be upgraded.
After following this all the software should be installed to work on themes.
Next Guide Below
Click My thanks button below
Meta Morph tutorial
by Dreamsforgotten
This is a primer in using MetaMorph on the Samsung Epic, at the time of writing I'm using a froyo leak with the Bonsai 2.0.1 rom so MetaMorph being a little buggy for us now will probably clear up when official is out. The bottom of the guide addresses what I'm talking about.
Create a folder on your desktop. Call it froyo (or whatever).
Inside that folder make one called framework-res (don't put the .apk)
Inside that folder put the folders you need to edit example
If I want to change the images in drawable-hdpi, make the folders like this
froyo/framework-res/res/drawable-hdpi
so inside the froyo folder create "framework-res". Inside framework-res create "res". Inside res create "drawable-hdpi". It follows the same structure as apk manager when you decompile. If you want to edit the styles.xml, that gets recompiled into resources.arsc. If you are in apk manager and you goto projects, you'll see unsignededitedframework-res, open it and right inside you'll see resources.arsc, androidmanifest.xml, res, meta inf, etc. So to MetaMorph the resources.arsc, your NEW resources.arsc goes into
froyo/framework-res/
Do this for any .jar or .apk file, create your folder structure and put only the new files into the folder, you don't have to flash an entire drawable-hdpi folder only the files you are changing.
Next thing you need to do is make a xml file that tells metamorph what files your editing and links the folders you created to that file. Do that like this:
Inside the froyo folder, create a text file. Either open Notepad and save the file into this folder or right click choose new file, text file. Set your .xml file up like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<themename>Crystalline Froyo</themename> <--You can call this whatever
<themeversion>2.1</themeversion> <--Number that whatever number you want
<screenshot></screenshot> <--include a screenshot if you like. put the screen in /froyo and type the file name here
<author>Dreamsforgotten</author> <--your name
<authorweblink>http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=2551535</authorweblink>
<phone>Samsung Epic</phone>
<rom>Bonsai 2.0.1</rom>
<themedescription>UI Improvements for Crystalline Froyo</themedescription>
<item>framework-res.apk</item>
<path>/system/framework/</path>
<description>**** a Reboot Required</description>
Now the line right above this <item, path, description> You have to follow this for any folder your updating. Notice in the <item> space, you put the actual apk name being edited. So here I have <item>framework-res.apk</item> This tells metamorph to put your edits from the folder you named framework-res into framework-res.apk in the same structure as you set up, ie /res/drawable-hdpi or /res/anim whatever it is you might be editing. It's that simple. Now say you wanted to theme the market. You can use metamorph to theme system apps, but NOT market apps!!!!!! You would do this
<item>vending.apk</item> <--name of APK
<path>/system/app/</path <--path to the APK
<description>Market Update</item> <--whatever you like for descripton
You would put somewhere inside the xml as well. You can put the instructions for MetaMorph to flash in any order you like, You can theme apks first, framework-res first, however you like, BUT its good practice to put the framework-res last because it causes a reboot and anything behind it won't flash. Samsung devices pay attention, TWframework-res and framework-res both require a reboot, so you have to have two separate metamorph zips.
Now, moving along. You have your xml file with all the fields written properly, you have your folder structure set up you just need to do two more things. Inside your original froyo folder on your PC, create a blank text file. Name it .nomedia that (dot).nomedia don't forget the period. This tells media scanner not to add all your images from this zip into your gallery. It's very important. Now the final step, zipping it all up to flash. Whatever you chose to name that xml file for example I used this on the last one I created. crystalline2.1.xml This was the name of my theme control file (the .xml file inside of froyo) so your zip file HAS to be named the same exact thing. If your xml is theme.xml, then your zip has to be theme.zip. If your xml file is theme1.2.xml then your zip file has to be theme.1.2.zip. It will error if the zip and xml file don't match. That's it copy it to your SD card under AndroidThemes, open MetaMorph and apply!
Keep in mind MetaMorph has a 500 file limit and gets buggy when you push it toward the 500 mark. Break large themes into 2-3 different files if you must. You already have to have two separate flashes for our two frameworks on the Epic so you might as well split the images between the two anyway.
One last note on MetaMorph on the Epic. I'm using the latest and I noticed sometimes you open it and it closes right back, or you go to extract a new theme and it closes. Seems that the free version has issues with displaying the ads (which could be due to the host file on Bonsia I'm running, not sure, but when you open MetaMorph, give it time for the ads to load before hitting the start checks button. If the ads at the top and bottom of the app don't load soon, and it doesn't close on its own, proceed. If you give it time for the ads to load and it crashes, just open it right back up. Sometimes it takes me 2-3 times opening MM to get it to stay on the screen but after it does, the flash goes smooth every time.
[GUIDE] Learning to Theme: Putting the tools to use
APK Manager:
This is one of my favorite programs it makes the whole process smoother imo.
Navigate your harddrive to c:\apk manager\ or wherever you extracted the progam to.
Grab the framework-res.apk from a theme template/rom/etc.. and drop it in the folder called "place here for modding"
Double click on Script.bat. Leave the apk manager window with the folders (where Script.bat is) open.
Look into the second section called "Advanced tasks Such As Code Editing
Type "9" to decompile apk
Immediately type 11 to recompile apk (This step is because I have ran across framework-res.apk's before that wouldn't recompile even if no changes were made and this could save you some time down the road.
Minimize the window, Maximize the apk manager window
Open the folder called projects
Open the folder called framework-res.apk
Open the folder called res
Here is where there are plenty of files you can edit. These are the XML files that control the look and behavior of android. If you are lost at this point, lets work on a file together to get the feel for what is possible in here. Scroll down and click on the folder called "values" and open it. Inside you will find a file called colors.xml. Right click on the file and choose open with and choose notepad if you have nothing else that works as a basic text editor. Me personally, I use Notepad++. It's a free download. Either way once it is opened, you will see many values that look like this:
(This is not stock Epic colors.xml file so don't be confused)
#ffb97f7d
#ffffffff
#ff000000
#00000000
#ff000000
#ffffffff
These are text colors for your primary and secondary text on your phone, as well as background highlight colors.
Note Background_dark background_light. That is the background color so if it is the same as your text colors you won't be able to see the text. I made this mistake before so you can change every text color in this file but leave the backgrounds alone, or use a color your text will show up on.
#ffb97f7d
#ffb97f7d
#ffb97f7d
#ff64917d
#ff64917d
#ff64917d
#ff64917d
#ff808080
Here, the color name=" describes the text, the "#ffb97f7d" is actual code for the color.
So if you want to change this color, where do you get the codes from?
Easiest way for me is to use the color chooser in Gimp, when you pick a color, either background or foreground, it will show you the hex value on the screen. But remember that the color codes Gimp gives you hold 6 places ie #000000. The values in the xml files hold 8, so when you compile there will be an error. That is because the first two places describe transparency. You need to add "FF" in front of any value you get from Gimp. So if the code in Gimp is 000000 in the xml file you need to put #ff000000. Always start the code with a "#".
Now the question is what text is described by dim_foreground_dark? Two ways to find out. Change it, compile it, flash it. Or dig around the "out" folder in apk manager and look for text xmls. The next one is located in /apk manager/projects/framework-res.apk/res/color
You will see primay_text_(dark)(dark_disable_only)(dark_focused)(dark_nodisable)(light)(light_disable_only)(light_focused)(light_nodisable)
Search_url_text
secondary_text_(dark)(dark_nodisable)(light)(light_nodisable)
tab_indicator_(text)(textv4)
and a few more. You can open each of these xml files and see what's inside. We'll use primary_text_dark.xml as an example. Right click and edit with notepad++
Take a look at this line in the code:
android:color=" (this tells the xml what color to display. The @color tells where to pull the value from. So you either find color.xml like we did above and edit the field bright_foreground_dark_disabled to render the color your after, or you can simply put the hex color code right here bypassing the need to look up @color(color.xml). It would look like this if you did that. and the "#ff000000" would give this text color the value of black. Instead if you had used the color "#ffffffff" you would get the color white.
Here note android:color in the code. That's because some of the values are for text, and some are for background. In the text lines elsewhere, as seen below, we will use android:textColor instead.
Now this is all general text colors. If you want to edit status bar text, both in the status bar, and when it's expanded, you'll need to dig in a different folder. Navigate to this folder in apk manager on your c:\ drive. C:\apk manager\projects\framework-res.apk\res\layout. You are looking for the following file called status_bar.xml.
Keep in mind when your looking through these xml files, you will see this value in a lot of fields "android:id="@id/icons" or something similar. These are keys to what you are editing. The first line you might want to edit in status_bar.xml would be line #13 which looks like this:
The only thing that's important on this line is @id/tickerText which tells you a color value here would let you change the color of the ticker text. The ticker text is the text that pops up in the status bar for things like a text message being recieved, and if your phone is set that way, the content of your text message.
There is just one problem here. In most lines where you can edit color you will see this already in the line android:textColor="********" and that value is NOT in the ticker text line. But being that this is a text view line because the id is ticker text, you can add the value android:textColor in right before the words "android:id=". The edited line will look like this:
Learn To Theme Putting The Tools To Use Part 2 .9.pngs
We are going to walk through editing a .9 file and getting it back in place to do this as you read the guide.
Before you begin, check out this video from fxn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNvGgmJDqPQ
Now the guide will get you lined up with the instructions in the video.
Open "my computer" and navigate to C:\apk manager\.
In another window open C:\*\Documents\Themes\
Browse to the folder in Themes that holds your theme template
Right click and Browse your stock di18 theme template or rom.
Navigate to system/framework/
In your apk manager window, open the folder called place here for modding
Click and hold framework-res.apk in your second window which is the 7zip browing the zip file.
Drag the apk into place here for modding folder.
Now you can close the zip file window.
Back out of the place here for modding window and you should be back in the apk manager folder.
Run Script.bat and choose the option "9" and hit enter.
Click open the folder called projects
Click open the folder named framework-res.apk
Click open the folder named drawable-hdpi.
Find the file icon_highlight_rectangle.9.png Pay attention to the screen while your scrolling. Apk manager decompiled all the .9.png files exposing the lines that were used in draw9patch by default.
Right Click the file and choose edit with gimp.
Now in gimp you will see the picture, and the lines drawn in for draw9patch. This will save you time. Edit the picture as you see fit. Change the color, or completely redesign the image. Then when you goto save it, choose file save as. Keep the same file name but save it on your desktop, creating another folder naming it new theme nine files. Save the image.
Open up Eclipse.
Click on file-new-android project
When it Opens, click in the field named Project Name type "nine files"
In the field called "Built Target", choose Android 1.5, click the check box next to it.
In the field called "Application Name" type "ninefiles"
In the field called "Package Name" type "com.example.ninefiles"
No Quotes in any field.
Uncheck the box labeled "Create Activity".
Now your Workspace should be open in eclipse, and on the left pane there should be a folder labeled ninefiles. Double click on it and it will expand a folder tree. Look for res. Then click it if it's not expanded as well. Look for drawable. There will be a file in there called icon.png. Leave that file alone. Now on your desktop, open the folder called new theme nines. Click, drag and drop the edited icon_highlight_rectangle.9 file right into that drawable folder in eclipse. You are skipping using draw9patch because the lines were there from the start.
Now go back to the parent folder in Eclipse, the one labaled ninefiles where all the other folders come from. Right click on it and choose android tools all the way near the bottom. Then slide over and choose export unsigned application. This will bring up the save prompt on your screen, choose the desktop once again, and export it. It will show a message about the export and telling you to zip align it and sign it with a device key. Ignore all this, your just using Eclipse to target that .9.png. Keep in mind every time you open Eclipse now, it will show you the workspace with ninefiles. Expand the folders, delete the last image you used Eclipse to work on and add new ones in, bypassing the need to create a new android project each time.
Lets say your new .9.png image is nothing like the original and it won't display correctly using the lines on it after decompiling in apk manager. You need to feed the image through draw9patch.bat located in c:\android-sdk-windows\tools\
Double click it and a shell will open, then another one will open on top of it that has a square with a down arrow in it. Save your image from gimp into the folder on the desktop called new theme nines, like you did above. Then Drag and drop the saved image on top of the windows inside the square, and on top the arrow lol.
The picture will be transformed in draw9patch concentrate on the outer edges along the entire image. Bring your mouse over to the left of image around dead center. Click once and draw a pixel. Next go dead center on the top just like you did on the left and draw the 1 pixel. Now expand that line up and down on the left side looking at your 3 preview pictures on your right hand side. If there is no gradient or fade effect to your image the center pixel will be about good enough but if your image fades, expand that line up and down and your 3 previews will give you an idea if you capture it or not. Once you have the left side of the image looking good, begin the same process on the top. Use as little line as possible to have the image looking right. Never have a gap in the line that you draw.
Now focus on the right side and the bottom. The two lines drawn there should be about the size of the entire image minus a few pixels at the very end. You can get the idea from the one you pulled from apk manager and adjust the lines to work on your changes. When your done with draw9patch, click file save 9 patch. It will save in the folder on your desktop. Now drag and drop this image into the drawable folder of Eclipse/ninefiles as described above.
This should be a shortcut to getting you busy with 9 files. Any questions or anything noticed missing, please let me know.
One last bit of advice. Sometimes when you open a file in draw9patch, the image is zoomed in too big and you can't get to the outer edges to draw the top and bottom lines. There is a bar at the bottom of the program that will allow you to zoom in and out of the main image and zoom in more to the 3 preview images. Use these to adjust the image to where you can work with them.
All these introduction guides should get you started, your own drive should take you the rest of the way. I'm not the first to write a theme guide I'm just sharing with the Epic community because the amount of new users who are requesting how to do these things. All my information came from asking questions to those that were theming before me like Khanning, Crake, Chibucks, the list is never ending. Also this list of videos here have helped a lot:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=593932
.9.pgn write up posted.
Just AMAZING thank you so very much...
No problem I hope I wrote it so anyone starting fresh could understand
rjmjr69 said:
Just AMAZING thank you so very much...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do as thou wilt be the whole of the law
I'm really digging these guides as I really want to get into theming and eventually (with any luck!) cooking ROMs. i'm a self made techie and pick things up pretty quick, so I thought theming was a good place to start off.
any chance you'd consider a writeup on extracting a theme from a themed ROM, pitfuls and things to know/watch out for etc... i think that would be a helpful supplement to see how themes are implemented in ROMs and know what certain files affect. maybe even a list of what parts of a theme/ROM are in what files (such as lockscreen i think is android.policy.jar etc...)
thanks again for your time and effort into putting this out there
No doubt, there is definitely more write ups to be done my goal was to get some guides out that just touch on the basics so people who never tried before can begin to get their get wet.
Do as thou wilt be the whole of the law
hey so i wanted to come back and thank you again for these. i've read but havent dived into editing .9.pngs just yet, but i've really been playing with the rest of the stuff to mostly modify existing themes that i like most of, tweaking a bit. its really cool and i cant wait to actually start putting some of my own stuff together. i know the threads havent gotten a lot of love but its appreciated!
Hey, this is amazing, thx so much for it.
I'm running into a prob and wondered if you could assist.
I've already modded (only replaced/changed some png colors on photoshop), and have flashed it successfully to my phone with no problems. However, when I pull the framework res back out, decompile (with no problems), then try to recompile immediately (as instructed), that part seems to fail. It errors, then asks if it is a system apk (yes?)...then creates a temp folder and asks me to delete the resource.asc if I've modded an xml. Even though it errors, I made a change to the strings xml, compiled, with same error, then signed and flashed- it seems to work fine, but the change I made to the xml didn't hold.
any ideas or suggestions?
Thx again so much.
sent from my RAZR
decalex said:
Hey, this is amazing, thx so much for it.
I'm running into a prob and wondered if you could assist.
I've already modded (only replaced/changed some png colors on photoshop), and have flashed it successfully to my phone with no problems. However, when I pull the framework res back out, decompile (with no problems), then try to recompile immediately (as instructed), that part seems to fail. It errors, then asks if it is a system apk (yes?)...then creates a temp folder and asks me to delete the resource.asc if I've modded an xml. Even though it errors, I made a change to the strings xml, compiled, with same error, then signed and flashed- it seems to work fine, but the change I made to the xml didn't hold.
any ideas or suggestions?
Thx again so much.
sent from my RAZR
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i "think" thats because you are recompiling edited images. i think thats what he mentions elsewhere in these threads, always compile with stock images, then drag and drop your edited images. so you probably want to start with a stock framework, not one that already has edited images in it. i'm learning too though so dont quote me.
EDIT: hey dreamsforgotten, getting an error exporting: Failed to export NineFiles: C:\eclipse_workspace\Nine Files\bin\NineFiles.apk doesn't exist!
EDIT2: looks like somehow my ADB got wiped out from the tools folder so Eclipse couldnt find it, reinstalled, pointed to it in Eclipse preferences, works like a charm.
I think you are correct.. Ive just gotten so far away away from the original.. On my (own) 5th revision . That's cool though. I did try decompiling and re compiling immediately on an untouched framework, and it did in fact work.
sent from my RAZR
hey i was wondering if you have already posted your 2nd tutorial? If not is there going to be one anytime soon?
dreamsforgotten said:
Where do you go from here?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=817998
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
see above bro! each one has a link to the next, if your a little tech savvy they should be enough to get you started, i learned off of them so if you have any questions feel free to ask!
useruser25 said:
hey i was wondering if you have already posted your 2nd tutorial? If not is there going to be one anytime soon?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noob Questions- I'm new to theming but i catch on very quick. I just have a few questions tho..I'm running on the Midnight ROM (CWM3)..I like the DK28 Gingerbread Theme 1.8 but would like to change the text colors a lil..So I Decomplied and recompile with zero errors..i ended up with a smaller file and it was named unsignedframework-res.apk..So i changed the name to framework-res.apk and put it back into the DK28 Gingerbread Theme zip so that i could flash it..I tryd to flash it in CWM3 but it told me it was aborted bc it was a bad file..so my two questions are how to get a theme to be CWM3 compatible and what im a doing wrong when it comes to decompiling and recompiling? Any advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance
Noob Questions- I'm new to theming but i catch on very quick. I just have a few questions tho..I'm running on the Midnight ROM (CWM3)..I like the DK28 Gingerbread Theme 1.8 but would like to change the text colors a lil..So I Decomplied and recompile with zero errors..i ended up with a smaller file and it was named unsignedframework-res.apk..So i changed the name to framework-res.apk and put it back into the DK28 Gingerbread Theme zip so that i could flash it..I tryd to flash it in CWM3 but it told me it was aborted bc it was a bad file..so my two questions are how to get a theme to be CWM3 compatible and what im a doing wrong when it comes to decompiling and recompiling? Any advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance
I haven't made a cwm3 zip yet but for a short cut you can find a theme created for it and copy the files from your theme in leaving the meta inf folder alone. I've noticed in the past as well when I recompile the file gets smaller and smaller according to the pc but that end up flashing all the same. Hope that helps.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
chris378 said:
Noob Questions- I'm new to theming but i catch on very quick. I just have a few questions tho..I'm running on the Midnight ROM (CWM3)..I like the DK28 Gingerbread Theme 1.8 but would like to change the text colors a lil..So I Decomplied and recompile with zero errors..i ended up with a smaller file and it was named unsignedframework-res.apk..So i changed the name to framework-res.apk and put it back into the DK28 Gingerbread Theme zip so that i could flash it..I tryd to flash it in CWM3 but it told me it was aborted bc it was a bad file..so my two questions are how to get a theme to be CWM3 compatible and what im a doing wrong when it comes to decompiling and recompiling? Any advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't decompile and recompile a framework with different images. The .9s will show funny
You need a edify script for cwm 3
Sent From Da Hood.
In this guide im going to learn you how can u simply mod some images of apps, system ui and in framewrok-res.apk
What you need is:
-- 7-zip
-- paint.net or any other tool like gimp and photoshop
-- and application u want to edit
Step by step:
1.Extract application you want to edit
*example---
you extract "SystemUI.apk" to "SystemUI" (FOLDER)
2.open image you want to edit with paint.net (or...)
3.be careful in which colour you edit cause of text but there is a guide about xml editing
4.after u done editing images you pick all files and folderS in "SystemUI"folder and u right click it and in 7-zip you choose and to archive but you change extension to .apk
This way you can edit toggles in notification bar change colors of them change blue ics circle in end of status bar to line lets say.
Later im gonna post some pictures to make it easier to you.
I think APKtool better than 7z or other.
Hey people, I've just found it at O3D forums and I think I should share the information, as I don't have time for creating a good tutorial myself.
This way you can change colors for your own likes and make a lot kind of themes.
Before starting you should have your Apktool environment set up.
1. (only if you never saw APKTOOL in your life, otherwise, just jump it)
1· Download and install latest version of Java JDK
2· Download latest version of APK Multi-Tool as we'll be using it for un/packing APKs and push/pull them from/to our device.
3· Extract it anywhere you may like. If posible, in C:/ to avoid any kind of problems. Be sure to read README file before asking something about it.
4· Run Setup.bat, type 3 and press Enter. Close it.
5· Run Script.bat, type 0 and press Enter. Now let's type our framework's path.
6· /system/framework/framework-res.apk for basic framework file. This will be pulling it out from our phones.
7· Repeating Number 5, type /system/framework/lge-res.apk for LG's framework file.
8· Now move to X:\...\APK-Multi-Tool\place-apk-here-for-modding\ and copy both apks (framework-res + lge-res) and paste it at X:\...\APK-Multi-Tool\other\
9· Run Setup.bat again, type 2 and press Enter. Now both frameworks should be installed and we are ready to un/pack APKs from the version we're actually using (v30A/B/C/D...). Close it.
10· Back in Script.bat, type 0 again followed by Enter, then type the path of your desired APK. (/system/framework/xxxxxx.apk for frameworks & /system/app/xxxxxx.apk for apps). After pushing it, select it as your actual project.
11· Now type 9 followed by Enter. This will unpack our APK.
12· Now is the time for tunning anything you want to. Go to X:\...|APK-Multi-Tool\projects\xxxxxx.apk\ and you'll find there everything.
13· When it's done, let's re-pack it typing the option 11 followed by Enter. When repacking gets done, it will ask if you want to use any files from your original APK. Tell it Yes, otherwise your apk won't get signed.
14· When the extracting is done, move to X:\...|APK-Multi-Tool\keep\ and erase everything there BUT META-INF folder + AndroidManifest.xml. Now press anything at APK Multi-tool window and you'll get your APK ready to go.
15· Now type 8 to push it back to your phone and type the desired path. If it cames from /system/app/xxxxx.apk or /system/framework/xxxxx.apk.
If you get any error recompiling it, you should take a look at the log, typing 23 and fix it at the projects folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2.
potaturrias said:
When i maked this theme (my first theme) y used trial and error procedure.
The first step is replace or edit 9.png. pictures in drawable-hdpi folder located in framework-res.apk and lge-res.apk, you can do this quickly using this tools:
http://jgilfelt.github.com/android-actionbarstylegenerator (Check that the names of new pictures match with the old pictures)
http://android-holo-colors.com/
Many images have to edit them by hand
If you put more files than originally,for example switches in lge-res drawable-hdpi, you will get an error when try to compile.
The second step is replace xml files in drawable folder using xml files from zip file that you downloaded in the previous step.
If you don't get the desire result you have to edit styles.xml or drawable folder files or layout files to change backgrounds colors, text color,etc.
Remember there applications with lines in XML files that reference to framework or lge-res, for example:
android:textColor="@*android:color/transparent makes reference to transparent color defined in framework-res and
android:textColor="@com.lge.internal:color/transparent makes reference to transparent color defined in lge-res.
I hope that this mini guide help you, remember that you can make your theme based on this theme, will be easier i think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks to @potaturrias!
Ultimate Editing and Theming Guide
Preliminary Requirements:-
PC with Windows(Please avoid Windows Vista)
Java JRE or JDK
APK Multitool
framework-res.apk, SystemUI.apk, twframework-res.apk, com.htc.resources for installing
7-zip
Notepad++
Android Device for testing
Photoshop or equivalent image editing software
android-sdk(for 9 png editing)
Lots and lots of patience and mind
What this guide includes:-
1. Easiest Decompiling and Recompiling Guide *Must Read before continuing*
2. Explanation of 9 pngs and how to edit or make them
3. How to Batch edit pngs (Not 9 pngs) (Changing color, etc)
4. APK png resources(General Location of General pngs)
First Step:
Decompiling: [MUST READ]
We are assuming that you have installed JAVA, Android SDK and apk-multitool without any problems
1. Copy your mobile's framework-res.apk, SystemUI.apk and twframework-res.apk in others folder in directory where you have extracted apk-multiool
2. Open Setup.bat. Choose 2 :- Installing Framework-res
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Setup.bat
Choose 1 (framework-res.apk)
Choose 2 (twframework-res.apk) [similarly install OEM specific files such as com.htc.resources , etc]
Choose 4 (SystemUI.apk)
Window will close each time you choose an option
You will have to restart Setup.bat each time
3. Now place the apk you want to edit in place-apk-here-for-modding
4. Now open script.bat. (If you see any error, either you haven't installed JAVA and SDK[adb] or they aren't implented, Please install them properly before continuing). Click any key to continue
APK-Multitool Window
5. You will see the above window. Now, make sure you have installed all frameworks and Compression level is set to 9.
6. Now, we will choose our project. Click 24. A list of files present in place-apk-here-for-modding will be in front of you. Choose any file
7. Click on 9. Now decompiling will be in process.
8. After it is complete, go to projects folder, you will see a folder with the name of apk you decompiled
Decompiled apk example
If it is decompiled properly, then there will be apktool.yml file in it
9. Do your modifications. Now, you can edit .9.png files (they will be discussed later) and xml files which were uneditable first
You will notice that there will be many new folders which weren't present in compiled form of apk. These all folders are generated from a file called resources.arsc present in compiled form which is absent in decompiled form
Such an example is of values folder which contains crucial xml files like styles.xml, strings.xml, ids.xml, etc
Always open xml files with Notepad++, it will mark commands and syntax making it look aligned and making it easy to understand
Example of decompiled xml file
Also, you can edit 9 patch files also which will be changed from now on
Example:-
We will discuss 9 png in detail later on
10. After you have done your modifications and you are ready to recompile the app, choose 11 (Compile System APK) if you are editing System App or 12(Compile Non-System App) if you are editing other than System App
11. a) If System App:-
After some time it will ask that if you want to copy additional files other than signatures to ensure less amount of errors, then choose y
After extracting some files, it will ask you to delete files from keep folder
Simply go to keep folder,
If you edited any pngs and there are many and you are lazy enough to delete one by one, then delete the whole folder in which you edited pngs
If you edited any xml file, then delete that xml file AND ALSO DELETE RESOURCES.ARSC
Why? Because we told that values and several other folders are generated from resources.arsc while decompiling
Now, if we don't delete resources.arsc, the modification we did in values folder will be reverted to original state
After doing this, go to script.bat again and press any key to continue
11. b)If its not system app:
Just recompile it and sign it man through the menu in apk multitool man.
It is easy as hell. Tutorial of non-system app has been ended here
12. Now, you will get another apk name System_ apkname.apk
Open both apks as archives by 7-zip
13. Last and most important step:-
Just drop the files you edited from new apk to old apk in correct folders. By now, you may have understood that resouces.arsc INCLUDES your edited xmls
14. Now, the final apk is not System_apkname.apk but apkname.apk (the original file you started with). Push it and enjoy
9 PNG Discussion
These are special types of pngs that can be stretched to fit the need of program or different scenarios or cases. It contains 1 pixel lines on each border of different lengths for different things
As told above, we can't edit 9 png in compiled form as it will lose these lines which define its properties. So, we first need to decompile apk in order to edit 9 pngs
So, after decompiling apk, open 9 png in Photoshop and select the part inside that 1 px border and edit anything you want (Hue, Saturation, Bevel, Emboss, ANYTHING)
Now save it (save it as a normal png and then rename it as .9.png because photoshop doesn't recognise 9 png extension and image will loose its RGB format)
Explanation of 9 png:-
You can read this for more information
If you have doubt that you have gone wrong somewhere or you have made a new png from scratch and want to test if it is correct or not:
(Check all 9 png files you edit as they can cause Force Closes or bootloops)
Go to folder where you extracted android-sdk and go to tools folder and open draw9patch.bat
A window like this will open up:-
Drop you 9 png here
A new window will open with you 9 png on it
Tick on show bad patches
If you see red rectangles, you have a bad 9 patch image. You will need to delete or add those lines in png to remove all red boxes. If you want to delete, press Shift and start moving cursor over lines you want to delete. You can choose method of hit and trial to remove all rectangles and move the lower scale to see how your image size is adjusted
Or you can do what I do:
1. Remove all lines
2. Add single dot on top centre and left centre border of image (That can be taken as stretchable area)
3. Add lines on right and bottom of image where you want to fill content. Now, click on Show Content
The purple area you see in image is the content area (Text will be filled there. Eg:- Popup Menu)
4. Now, you can adjust these lines acoording to your need that what you want for stretchable area and content area until an unless there comes an red triangle
5. When it is done. Save the file. DONE
Easy, isn't it?
That's what theming is
Batch Editing pngs in Photoshop
Well the scenario is you have 200 pngs and you want to change their color, hue, add effect to them, etc. Definitely not worth the time you will spent doing this one by one. So, here, I will cover how to batch apply same edits on to your infinite pngs. Here, I am taking example of changing color of battery png from green to purple, you can apply any attribute to your image in the same way. I repeat it is not for .9.png files. Read above guide for reference
Let's start
1. First copy all your pngs you need to edit in a separate folder. I have made a folder named Battery Base and pasted my all pngs of battery there.
Now create another folder where your edited pngs will be saved. For eg:- Battery Done. (Don't create it inside Battery Base folder)
2. Open Adobe Photoshop and Choose Window>Actions or Alt+F9
3. Click on the note like file (Create new Action)
Rename it to anything you want . I have chosen Battery_color
Then click on Record. Now, you will see that red circle is enabled and now everything you do on image will be recorded and will be applied on each image.
4. Now, do this very carefully, don't miss any step.
We will do every thing that we want Photoshop to do with each file we want to edit.
a) So, first we want Photoshop to open the image. So , click on Open and choose any png from Battery Base folder (Choose a file with more color so that you know what color exactly your file will be after editing. That is why I chose 90 percent battery here).
b) Now, after opening, we want to change Color of png from green to purple. So, choose Image>Adjustment>Hue and Saturation or Ctrl+U
A dialog box with 3 sliders will appear. Move upper slider to change color. You can move other slider to change saturation and brightness if you want. Now, if you got it right, click on OK.
Every step of yours is being recorded, so don't do unnecessary stuff you don't want to do on other images. Nonetheless, if you have done it, then Drop down the Battery Base Action in action palette and you will see your every action there, If you want to delete any action , you can delete it from there. You can also add any action before pre completed action by clicking above that action and performing it.
Now, you can do anything you want to be done on your rest of pngs.
c) Now, we want Photoshop to save this png to carry on working on others. So, Go to File>Save as... and save it as a png in Battery Done folder. Photoshop will ask you to choose, so choose smallest compression and no interlace.
d) Image is saved but we also want Photoshop to close the png so that it does not open 200 tabs for editing 200 pngs. So, click on close (Small cross on title bar of png). If, it asks that do you want to save changes to png . Say no, because if you say yes, the png in Battery Base will be changes and when batch processing is done, that png in Battery Done will be of different color that all others.And also, your all green pngs in Battery Base folder will turn purple too. But we want purple images in Battery Done and green in Battery Base.
5. Now, we hae done what we want, so, we will stop recording the Action. Click on that square in Actions Palette.
6. Fun Starts. Now we will do the batch processing.
Go to File>Automate>Batch
In the dialog box, Choose the action to be Battery_Color (or obiviously any action you created)
Source folder: Battery Base
Destination Folder: Battery Done
Tick both Override Action 'Open' commands and Override Action 'Save as' commands
Click on OK. Sit back for 3 to 5 minutes(204 pngs) and TADA
You can apply any action in same way. Such as bevel, glossy, pale, etc to innumerous amount of pngs
General APK png Resources
Here I will tell you where to find some pngs to theme your Phone
Note: Here I will tell location of pngs but that may differ based on modification done to your ROM by OEMs or devs. These pngs are found after decompiling or extracting the apk files. For more reference, read this.
In this part, there is only brief information, but for a very good guide, please go here. I haven't covered it all up as d3cka himself has done a marvellous job in making that guide. All the things present in that guide should solve all your queries.
General location of apks:
SystemUI.apk - /system/app/
framework-res.apk - /system/framework/
twframework-res.apk - /system/framework
framework.jar - /system/framework/
lidroid-res.apk - /system/framework/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Variable list:
I have referred to some locations as drawable-xdpi. X here stands for
X: m, l, h, xh
Meaning pngs can be in drawable-mdpi, drawable-hdpi, drawable-ldpi, drawable-xhdpi depending on resolution of your phone
In some places, I have just added * in order to fill spaces that are not common in each png
[?] means maybe only for GB or Samsung
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery Icons -
(i)Ice Cream Sandwich/Jelly Bean: SystemUI.apk/res/drawable-xdpi/stat_sys_battery**.png
(ii)Gingerbread: framework-res.apk/res/drawable-xdpi/stat_sys_battery**.png
Status Bar icons - SystemUI.apk/res/drawable-xdpi/
Note, some, however very few status bar icons are also present in framework-res.apk
Platlogo - framework-res.apk/res/drawable-nodpi/platlogo*.jpg
(image that pops up when repeatedly clicked on Android Version)
In Gingerbrad, its a single file but in ICS and JB, they are many images.
Default Wallpaper - framework-res/res/drawable-xdpi/default_wallpaper.jpg
Default Lockscreen Wallpaper[?] - framework-res.apk/res/drawable-xdpi/zzzzzzzz_default_lockscreenw.jpg
Spinners[GB] - framework-res.apk/res/drawable-xdpi/spinner_****_**.png
(The loading circles)
Menu Icons - framework-res.apk/res/drawable-xdpi/ic_menu_**.png
These icons may also be present in twframework-res.apk for Samsung Touchwiz ROMs
Notification Toggles
(i)With lidroid 15 toggles : lidroid-res.apk/res/drawable-xdpi/
(ii)Without lidroid mod : SystemUI.apk/res/drawable-xdpi
These were some general pngs of system apps that may be used to theme the phone. You can find respective pngs to theme in their apks.
Will add more soon...
This is a work in progress.
Will add more things soon
Don't hesitate to ask any questions about anything
Credits:
@d3cka for teaching best about 9 pngs
@deathnotice01 for helping me
Miscellaneous Google and xda posts
Reserved
great
Great Guide Areeb...I THINK THIS SHOULD BE DISPLAYED AGAIN IN PORTAL
reserved
puneeth.007 said:
Great Guide Areeb...I THINK THIS SHOULD BE DISPLAYED AGAIN IN PORTAL
reserved
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not Now
It's incomplete
It'll ruin this guide then!
RE
+1 Thanks for this great guide
highly detailed guide, with of course nice pictorial representation!
:good:
This guide is awesome !
Unfortunately I don't know how to use photoshop correctly I still have not learned it , first by myself , and 2nd on school. I am just 13 2/3 YO . Anyway , i didn't have such knowledge about .9 png-s. Thanks
I had always got errors while editing compiled 9.png files. Hope this guide, help me to figure it out that...
Sent from my GT-S5830i using xda app-developers app
Added Batch editing in Photoshop
Sniper Killer said:
This guide is awesome !
Unfortunately I don't know how to use photoshop correctly I still have not learned it , first by myself , and 2nd on school. I am just 13 2/3 YO . Anyway , i didn't have such knowledge about .9 png-s. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have covered Photshop Now. Hope it helps you
And added path thickness changing guide too
iamareebjamal said:
1. Easiest Decompiling and Recompiling Guide
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not bad. :silly: Bookmarked ready to be added to mine, but could you please include tw somewhere in the thread title as it will be easier for People browsing mine looking for help for tw files.
Introduction
This is going to be a long post! A few weeks ago I started thinking about making my own themes for my LG G5. I had installed some custom roms previously and used substratum a bit but I have always ended up going back to xpirt's Fulmics rom, which doesn't allow this. I started to think how I could do this and have today got to the first stage of being able to change the colours of my phone to precisely what I want, not only for the settings but in some of the stock apps. I thought I would share this with the community and provide some step by step instructions so you can try it yourself. This should work on LG G6, V10, V20 & V30 if you use an app made for these phones but I have no way of testing this so don't hold me to it. This has taken me about 5 full days to work this out and there is still more that I need to do.
I am not in anyway a developer or coder and have very little knowledge of Java so if anything goes wrong here it is likely that I will not be able to help you. I absolutely am a noob at this and do this only for a hobby, using just my common sense and our friend Google to overcome the problems I have come across. Saying that, I will try to offer assistance if I can.
I managed to make my theme from reverse engineering a free LG theme app that was readily available. If you do this method though please consider getting approval from the app developer first. There is a template on here posted by Raafat here. While this was helpful it was only basic and I could not work out exactly what to do. Reverse engineering an app was much easier. Here is how I did it with step by step instructions:
******DISCLAIMER******
I am in not responsible for what you do to your phone. If you decide to try and theme your phone make a backup first or be prepared to do a full reset if anything goes wrong. You do this at your own risk.
1. Programmes
The programmes/software needed for theming are:
• Notepad++
• Apktool
• Android Studio (I used version 2.3 as I was getting an error on re-signing with 3.0)
2. Installing Frameworks Using Apktool:
• Firstly, delete the files in your local temp directory. To do this open ‘Search’ and type in %temp% and delete all files in this folder. You may not be able to delete some of the files. This does not matter
• Next, extract the framework files from your rom/custom rom. For Fulmics 5.5 this was:
Frameworks-res.apk
lge-res.apk
• At a guess I would say that any rom will have these files named exactly as they are above, but I am not sure if these have been altered by xpirt for his rom so you may not be able to use them across other roms.
• Open a command prompt and navigate to the folder where the framework files are kept. This is easiest in a folder called C:/apktool so create a folder in your C:/ drive and place them there. You can of course name the folder or locate it where you want though.
• Use apktool to install the frameworks using this command in the command prompt in C:\apktool
apktool if framework-res.apk
apktool if lge-res.apk
• Once this is done you should find the following files Installed here: C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\apktool\Framework
1.apk
2.apk
• If, like me, you get an error with apktool that says it cannot write to C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\apktool\Framework and instead has placed them in the temp folder then go into the Local folder using the pathway above and create a folder called 'apktool' and then a subfolder called 'framework'. Try the commands again and it should then work.
• You should also find the following files in the C:\apktool folder (if that is the folder you are using). If they are not here you may have to copy and paste them from the apktool github download.
apktool.jar
apktool.bat
• If you have found these files then you are set to go with decoding the theme/app you have chosen as a basis to amend.
3. Decoding APKs Using Apktool
• Download the apk/app you want to use. I used Backup and Restore app from Play to get the app I wanted to use onto my PC. Once you have this on your PC place the main APK/app in the same folder as the apktool.bat and the apktool.jar (for me this this was C:\apktool)
• Point the command prompt at this place and type the following:
apktool d [app name]
• A folder with the name of the app you just decoded will appear in the directory that you use (in this case C:\apktool)
• In this folder you should find another folder called assets. There may be more sub APKs here in subfolders. This subfolder will likely be assets>overlays
• All the sub APKs in here will have to be decoded otherwise you will have different signing keys and the app, once compiled again, will not work. Decode all the sub APKs in this same folder. You will have to copy the following files to the folder you are decoding the sub APKs in. These are:
apktool.jar
apktool.bat
• Decode every sub apk using the command apktool d [sub_apkname]
• You should now have the same number of folders in the drive as the number of sub APKs, if you decoded them all.
4. Changing the Colours and other Themes from the Decoded APKs Using Notepad++
• Many theme APKs will have internal APKs, such as common, settings, phone, systemui, calendar etc, etc. This is what I have worked out so far:
Common: Changes the switches, brightness bar and the text headings in settings, changes swipe left panels in apps such as gallery, changes background, message icon & phone icon colour in contact/phone app, statusbar background, separating lines in settings (some themes do not have these), background bar of setting title (i.e. wireless network, device etc), settings text colour, secondary text (i.e. the text you see under Wifi and Bluetooth which shows you what you are connected to), the headings in apps such as clock where it shows 'Alarm' 'World Clock' 'Timer' etc
System UI: Changes the quick settings tiles & text and the non-heading text in settings
• To change the colour of these you have to amend the colors.xml located in one of the folders in the assets>overlays and then the folder of the overlay you want to change. I used Notepad++ to do this. Navigate to 'res' folder and then usually something like 'values-xxxhdpi-v4'. There is sometimes more than one color.xml file so you may need to look in more than one folder and amend all the color.xml files. The colours are at the end of the lines of text and will be standard Android colour coding, such as ffffffff (white) or 00000000 (black) or any other colours.
5. Building APKs & Signing with Android Studio
• If you are building the sub APKs from an app (these are the ones inside an APK such as common, systemui, phone etc) I found it best to use a different folder. For this I used C:\apktool builder
• Copy and paste the folder from the decoded APK (e.g. the [appname].LGE.common folder) that is in the asset>overlays folder to the apktool builder folder above
• Once you have made the colour amendments it is time to build the amended themes. To do this you will need Android Studio
• Open the splash screen of Android Studio and instead of the 'Open' command use the 'Import Project' command and navigate to the folder you want to import
• When opening Android Studio you have to configure the frameworks otherwise you will not be able to sign the app. This warning should come up automatically. THIS MUST BE DONE FOR IT TO WORK
• Navigate and find your APK in apktool builder and import it. If you do this more than once you will be prompted to overwrite the settings a few times.
• Go to ‘Build’ along the top and choose ‘Generate Signed APK’. If this is the first time it will ask for the Key Store Path. You will need to choose ‘Create New’. Select a place to store this key (I chose C:\apktool Builder) and input the passwords and the other data in the boxes. You must put a two-digit country code in the last box, for example US, UK etc). For ease I kept most of these very simple. For example, password was 'asdfgh'
• Once this has been completed and if there are no errors (warnings are ok) then it will generate a signed sub APK and save it to the location you are in (in this case C:\apktool builder). Copy and paste that sub APK over the one in the C:\apktool folder where the original sub APK was kept.
• Once you have done this then you need to sign the main app APK. Do the same as above and build in Android Studio. If there are no errors it will save it to your directory (in my case C:\apktool\[app name].
• Copy and paste this APK into your phone, apply the theme and it should work.
Everytime you amend a sub apk you will have to re-sign it through Android studio and then re-sign the main app apk. Once you get the hang of it though it is fairly straight forward.
6. Other Things
Nothing else in the app will change at this point. The name, wallpaper jpegs, screenshots and icons will all be the same. I am working on this at the moment but they don't actually need changing that much. The difficult thing for me is how to change the 9.png icon files and still get them to work. Once I have worked this out I will be able to finish it off.
7. Screenshots
Attached are some screenshots of how my phone now looks. I have made a few different apk's with different colours so I can now change this daily if I want a change (see post 2 for updated screenshots).
8. Thanks/Credits
@xpirt - Made it easy to get the framework files I needed for apktool and for a great custom rom!
@Raafat - for giving me the idea and the initial information
@iBotPeaches - for developing apktool.
.
Building Your Own LG Theme
I've been able to fine tune the themes over the past few weeks and have been able to colour the settings icons on the main settings page as well as putting a background behind it. I've also been able to theme the switches initially getting over a problem of the 'off' switch not showing. Here is some updated screenshots of a green/grey&blue theme.
I've also attached the updated blue & red theme from the initial post. I've not fully completed this yet though as I started to concentrate on the green/grey&blue theme as I preferred that.
Could someone make a stock theme just dark? I found one on play store but is not the best thing (it changes system sounds and other things that i don't like) I'd like a full stock theme but dark. Thanks in advance
Help
Can you help me? I tried changing package names in .json file and added new icons in the theme. I don't understand why it is failing on apply. It was running properly with only color change before doing this.
[email protected] said:
Can you help me? I tried changing package names in .json file and added new icons in the theme. I don't understand why it is failing on apply. It was running properly with only color change before doing this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here is the apk.
I probably won't be able to get round to this until the weekend due to work commitments but will have a look and let you know.
strikerman10 said:
I probably won't be able to get round to this until the weekend due to work commitments but will have a look and let you know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take your time, and thanks. ?
[email protected] said:
Take your time, and thanks. ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In case you haven't checked the apk I provided earlier, I have found and fixed some package name errors but the result is still same. It get stuck at 90% and then fails. I have changed icons too, is there anything needed to do in public.xml ? New apk is attached below.
strikerman10 said:
I probably won't be able to get round to this until the weekend due to work commitments but will have a look and let you know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you took a look at it?