Using dsicda's kitchen.
What is the minimum set of apks required in the /system/app folder.
i.e. I wish to create a minimum install in /system/app and move everything else to /data/app. Cant find what I'm looking for via google search, not really sure what keywords to use.
Anyone suggest or better still - provide a link.
Got it! Just for anyone watching this thread...
http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/install-location.html#ShouldNot
One would need to examine the manifest files in the APKs to determine if the APK can be installed into external storage (i.e. does not include the android:installLocation "internalOnly" directive).
Related
How do you change where config files and libraries are stored for a particular apk? I want to move some config files to /system but I don't know how to get the app to recognize them once I move them. I already decoded the thing and have access to all the smali files, but don't know what to do with them. If anyone could just point me in the right direction so I could learn more about this, about what file tells the install where to look, that would be fantastic. Like, why does a library work if it is in /system/lib/ OR if it is in /data/data/apkname/lib/?
EDIT: Figured it out.
Care to share?
Yeah, will be nice if you could share this information with others
aitorTheRed said:
Yeah, will be nice if you could share this information with others
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man, I hate it when people do that...
1. Search for APK Manager in XDA and install it on your PC
2. Download and Install the Android SDK kit on your PC
3. Follow the instructions for APK Manager and place the APK file in the modding folder
4. Open APK Manager and select Decompile APK (Your APK file will be placed in a separate folder for you to work on)
5. Change what you want to change in the APK
6. Recompile the APK and sign it (unless it's a system file like framework, those are not signed)
A lot more is involved in modding an APK file and you really should know something about how the files inside the APK work before you go changing things, but in a nutshell, that's the basics.
Hope that helps!
What I have learned.
I had a specific question, but here is what I can tell you.
1. Setup APK Manager, it saves a lot of command line typing.
2. Pretty much always use option 9 and 11, never 1 or 3.
3. If you are simply changing graphics and not smali or XML files, don't use this, open it in 7zip and drag the files. Decompiling changes the image darkness sometimes.
4. Unless you are working on your own apk file, always say yes to 'is it a system apk', when it asks you to keep existing files, say yes. Delete from the 'keep' folder what you edited.
5. If you edit XLM files, delete resources.arsc from the file, this is where they all get compiled to.
6. You can use this for jar files, just rename to apk then back to jar when finished.
7. If you get an error try using option 20 to increase the memory to 1024.
8. If you edit jar files, delete classes.dex in the 'keep' folder when compiling.
9. Treat all files as signed system files (as noted above) and you will be much safer. If the file has a signature on it, this will save it.
Thanks for the info
Is there anything that can install system files. They won't install with ap manager so does it have to be pushed?
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App
please help this windows guy/android noob figure this out. ok i'm thinking an apk file is equivalent to an msi file.
i download an app from the android store...
it downloads as apk file to /data/app...
ok so is that the final home for the apk file or does this extract and "install" files and folder in other locations on the internal memory or sdcard?
does the app run from this location? when uninstalled, is it removed entirely or are there orphan files that can be left behind? where is the data associated with that app saved? same folder /data/app/?
when titantium backs up an app, does it just copy the apk files from /data/app?
thanks
mark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APK_(file_format)
thanks, i already saw your link. doesn't really address my questions though. and yeah i do google questions prior to posting.
markkal123 said:
please help this windows guy/android noob figure this out. ok i'm thinking an apk file is equivalent to an msi file.
i download an app from the android store...
it downloads as apk file to /data/app...
ok so is that the final home for the apk file or does this extract and "install" files and folder in other locations on the internal memory or sdcard?
does the app run from this location? when uninstalled, is it removed entirely or are there orphan files that can be left behind? where is the data associated with that app saved? same folder /data/app/?
when titantium backs up an app, does it just copy the apk files from /data/app?
thanks
mark
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was in a hurry when I posted the link and that was the best I could do at the time.
apk is more like a java jar file (in fact you can sign your apk with jarsigner in java) or self extracting zip. Don't quote me on it, but you need both the files in /data/app and /data/data to run the application. Some gets left inside the container, and files that get modified a lot are extracted to /data/data (along with data that personalizes the app for you, such as settings and profiles).
The xml manifest file in the apk tells it what permissions to ask for and what systems it can run on and such. If you get this http://code.google.com/p/android-apktool/ you can reverse the apk so you can make sense of the files inside of it.
Titanium backup takes both the app and the data and stores them on the sdcard (unless you only tell it to backup the app, then it only takes from /data/app). The files located under /data/app are the entire application itself though and that will run if you give it to someone else as if you downloaded it from the market.
thanks for the great response.
Hello
How can i get back "AllShare Play" for my Galaxy S3? I installed another firmware and a rom and don't really know when it was deleted. I tried to find a solution but I couldn't find anything to solve the problem.
Cance
Go find a Stockish Rom that still has the bloatware........and just extract the System/app folder and put the apks that you want back into your current system/app folder.
Yeh useful tools are bloatware
Thanks for the fast answer but I don't know how to extract the folder when I have a ROM with the needed APK. Can I do this on my computer or do I have to do this on my phone?
Download the Rom to your phone or Computer.
Extract the Rom using a File explorer on your phone or a 7zip/winzip program on your PC and go through the folders...Find the
System/App folder it will be filled with every system app you can need......pick out the apks you want to add into your current set up.
save them to a folder and put them back on your phone....or if on your phone just copy them from the extracted location and navigate back to your Local System/App folder, make the Folder R/W so you can add and remove the system files.....and just paste them back in your current system folder overwriting the current ones. and set the premission to match the rest of the folder most of the time i think its rw-r-r
and reboot. sounds long.....but it only takes me 2 min to copy and replace the files and reboot.
its really simple once you do it a couple times.
hope this helps
Thank you very much, didn't know that it is this easy. I never opened the zip file of a rom ^^
What's the name of the apk? I don't see an obviously named app?
I would've posted in the development forum but I don't have enough posts. I would like to add the stock mail apk back to the rom. I thought I read how on my first read through, now I can't find it (I searched also). I downloaded the removed apk's zip and put the mail apk on my sd card. I tried to add it to the system/data folder but it didnt work. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction
You put it in /system/app and rebooted and it wasn't installed? It should have been... Do you have a pc with adb installed? If so, you can just push it to /system/app and reboot. Both methods should work... Or you could put the Mail+PRIME.apk in the ROM zip file in /system/app before you flash it by opening the zip as archive then re-flash it.
Thanks for trying my ROM out! Sorry you didn't get an answer to your question sooner. Feel free to PM me if you ever need help.
When I add it to system/app there is already a mail apk there. So I replaced it with the file from my SD card and rebooted . Now it shows in my app drawer but force closes when I try to open it.
There being a Mail+PRIME.apk already in /system/app doesn't make sense unless you already added it in at some earlier point. In any event, I would make sure you only have one of those in there. If there's somehow one in there called just 'Mail', delete it. After you put the new mail+prime apk in /system/app, set the permssions so it looks like all the other /system/app apks, reboot into recovery, wipe your cache and dalvik-cache, and then reboot. That should do it.
Thanks for the help, I'll give that a try