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Hello all, I would like to ask a question on dialer streakdroid 1.9. are
managed to make my Contacts.apk transparent by simply adding
theme.wallpaper styles.xml in the background of my dialer but continues to be increasingly
gray. how can I do to make it transparent?. thanks
custom dialer background
Ive been searching everywhere building and testing contacts.apk, Can someone with some more code knowledge have a peek at this please?
Ive dug through all the .xml's, the Manifest .xml, the .smali (even though I dont understand very much at all), there are only a few .png's the rest are .9.png, so Im sure the grey comes from code. in colors .xml there are a couple which match this dark gray perfectly, I changed those to black as well as styles Theme to Theme.Black, and Theme.Wallpaper(which will change the other 3 backgrounds but not dialer), ive tried changing background only in styles, no luck.
I saw on Dell website where it says Streak has Customized Dialer, which obviously we know, but I think ours is a unique situation
chrisrotolo said:
Ive been searching everywhere building and testing contacts.apk, Can someone with some more code knowledge have a peek at this please?
Ive dug through all the .xml's, the Manifest .xml, the .smali (even though I dont understand very much at all), there are only a few .png's the rest are .9.png, so Im sure the grey comes from code. in colors .xml there are a couple which match this dark gray perfectly, I changed those to black as well as styles Theme to Theme.Black, and Theme.Wallpaper(which will change the other 3 backgrounds but not dialer), ive tried changing background only in styles, no luck.
I saw on Dell website where it says Streak has Customized Dialer, which obviously we know, but I think ours is a unique situation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Customized" is not a word I'd choose to use when describing the horrible dialer. Hope someday we can improve it. I really think the dialer is the worst part of the UI.
if I find it I will gladly make a guide to theme it.
I may even send Dell developer an Email... oh yeah too late not supported..
chrisrotolo said:
if I find it I will gladly make a guide to theme it.
I may even send Dell developer an Email... oh yeah too late not supported..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
I think the EOL is only USA. But I don't think the dell dev team cares too much about us
Brainstorming: Reference for anyone else trying to find this..
the dialer background is not a .png, most images are .9's I pretty sure the background is not a .9.png. There is only one .png close to the color and Ive already tried changing that one.
It could be a color in color.xml, they could have coded it as android:color, but if they did that it would likely be a solid color such as black or transparent, and would have to rely on framework-res. More than likely they would have made their own color in colors.xml, since there is only a dozen or so, at least 2 of which are almost identical greys, I have tried changing these colors to black with no luck.
Ive tried changing almost every .xml refernce I could find to a drawable window/background, etc. to android:color"black" , Theme.Black or 000000,
It could be in .smali, Is where I will dig next, I have tried checking a few of the codes I found in there, they seem to be based on a deep purple?
this is just reference use to help others who may search, wish me luck!!
spelling error found DialtactsActivity.smali line 205 says: const-string v3, "Dailtacts" ,yeah wonder if this why dialtacts theme doesnt theme completly.
some progress!
I fixed the spelling mistake in DialtactsActivity.smali, though i dont /think/ this is what we see. I did change call_background.xml and secondary_call background.xml all parameters to android:color/black, I will keep experimenting, funny how in vertical only the right side of keypad is black,
Once we find the right string , we should then be able to create a custom style instead of just a solid color and use a custom background.png
edit: FOUND IT!, cant post screenie, out right now, should release something later and info. Sit tight everyone.
found it
right where its "should" be, contacts\res\layout-long-finger and res\layout-long-land-finger. the first is portrait, second is landscape. the file for both is twelve_key_dialer.xml. The first line:
LinearLayout androidrientation="vertical" android:id="@id/top" android:background="#ff000000"
just change the android:background="ffRRGGBB" to whatever 6 digit RGB/hex value you desire.
working on this now to call out a custom.png will likely get scaled like cr4p, but will give it a go.
If you dont have any .9.png errors decompiling, then you can recompile and flash it straight away.
If you use my phone&contacts theme, it wont compile because some of my .9.pngs must not be patched. So use stock to change, then after compiling extract the new .apk. If youre using my theme or whatever, then change my contacts.apk to contacts.zip, open my contacts.zip as an archive with 7zip, copy the 2 twelve_key_dialer.xml's, and close. Then in your stock framework where you changed the .xml's go to resources.arsc and right click use 7zip to add to archive... browse and select your contacts.zip with new .xml's. Its important that archive method is .zip and compression must be set to store. make sure update mode is: add and replace files. Then rename back to contacts.apk and place in your update.zip and flash!
I plan on making a guide and probably a stock framework with a custom.png for everyone to use.
Taking notes over PDF slides with the scribe pen has really saved me a lot of hassle. I love this function of the flyer. There's really only one way it could be better: Fullscreen support, or at least "more screen" support.
Not only does the HC bar take up space, but the menu/title bar on top is even bigger. The pdf viewer has the screen real estate of a 5inch phone.
PDF editing seems like only a moderately used feature, so I don't see this getting done on it's own. I'm offering a very modest reward for a fix.
I would be willing to donate for the removal of the huge uppermost Title/menu bar in PDF viewer, so that a double-tapped fitted pdf page will fill the new space. See the attached image. You can leave the small menu button in the corner if possible, or just get rid of it if it's too difficult.
I'm hoping this is as simple as modifying a few variables in the apk. I could be very wrong.
I can live with just the HC bar at the bottom.
Note: I have tried apps like repligo and ezpdf which do offer fullscreen support. However, annotating and changing annotation options takes many more steps than the HTC pdf viewer.
Secondary goal:
Apps like honeybar and honey hide widget cause all pen written annotations to be shifted up.
I believe the solution to the first problem would also allow an easy fix of the shifting pen annotations. I would like the PDF viewer to accept pen strokes properly with a hidden HC bar.
No one's willing to give it a shot? Ah well.
This will be my only bump.
I've attached the (unmodified, I think) HTCPDFViewer.apk from /system/app from LeeDroid's 4.1.0 rom.
I was the guy who removed the obnoxiously large language bar from Sony Ericsson's keyboard back when I was still using my u20i phone... unless HTC is particularly irritating about how it structures its resources, you're right that it is a matter of decompiling the APK, adjusting numbers, and recompiling it. Merely hiding is not difficult (making the Menu button semi-transparent is probably too difficult, though, but you can pick a ROM with the hardware buttons enabled).
Unfortunately it is also incredibly tedious to decompile and recompile everything right, from my experience of the keyboard hack. I'm not really up to it at the moment. Hope you can do it.
I've poked around in the archive. I wonder if I could just delete the ti.tle bar png or layout file. There doesn't seem to be a definitive title bar png
I'm also experimenting with apk multitool.
Since it's a stock rom app, is this venture going to be a lot more complicated than editing an xml line and then recompiling?
Here's where I'm at. Everything I know about android programming I've learned tonight, so this may be confusing and stupid sounding:
The decompiled apk has several things which could refer to the title bar.
dimens.xml has lines like
<dimen name="global_title_height">35.0dip</dimen>
<dimen name="editing_panel_header_height">56.0px</dimen>
<dimen name="editing_panel_header_margin">47.0px</dimen>
<dimen name="editing_panel_no_footer_header_margin">35.0px</dimen>
However there are also thousands of header and title lines from other xmls.
Can I just use a theme line in the manifest?
It uses the ActPDFReaderTheme whose parent is the HtcActionBar.FullScreen from the com.htc.resources.apk
These link to the common_mainnav xmls and pngs in the resources.
Do I need to find an HTC theme from the com.htc.resources.apk that doesn't have a title bar? Could I edit the com.htc.resources.apk and edit the pngs or delete the referencing lines in the styles.xml?
Thanks. I'll keep digging.
And btw, the bounty's still out if anyone can do it faster. I don't have much free time.
I think I've got this. I'm real close
I figured out how to decompile, edit xmls, recompile, copy original meta-infs and androidmanifest, and adb push.
The dimens.xml in the viewer apk has no effect on the bar. It's a standard template htcactionbar.fullscreen
I could direct the apk to a new theme, but I've decided just to try deleting or shrinking the bar from the com resources apk.
Good luck! Remember the apk you push back must be a signed one, probably via hacking the modified xml files back into the original signed apk.
Now I've run into a snag.
No matter how many margin and layout dimension variables in the com resource I set to 1.0px, I still have a black bar above the pdf.
Then I tried changing the theme reference in the pdfviewer.apk. It loads the file picker without an action bar, but as soon as I click a file it crashes. It seems (I think) that the program has too many calls for the action bar. I'm not a programmer. Do you know how I can get the program to simply ignore any lines referencing the "actionbar"?
Lines such as: "invoke-virtual {v3}, Lcom/htc/pdfviewer/ActPDFReader;->getActionBarHeight()I"
I also tried <item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item> after the theme and I have the same effect of no title bar but a forceclose after selecting a file
Could you post the entirety of the relevant xml layout file?
porcupineadvocate said:
Could you post the entirety of the relevant xml layout file?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately there is no simple relevant layout file. I can't go any further with this project because I don't know programming. Here's my progress if anyone would like to give it a shot:
In the decompiled HTCPDFViewer is a \res\values\styles.xml
There is the line:
<style name="ActPDFReaderTheme" parent="@com.htc:style/HtcActionBar.FullScreen">
This tells the program to use the HTCactionbar.fullscreen template style in com.htc.resources.apk
Now there are two paths to take from here:
1) Changing the style template to @android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen
or adding the requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE) line
Issue: This causes the file picker to load without a title fine, but as soon as a pdf loads, the program crashes.
How far I got: I simply deleted 2 lines referring to the actionbar in the PdfLoadingPage$LOADING_PAGE_Handler.smali and the pdf loads. However there is a now a black empty bar on the bottom, and any pen writing is being moved upwards.
I suspect this is because of the ActionBarMenuAdapter.smali that controls how the pen annotations are moved in relation to the actionbar. There are also 100 more lines referring the actionbar in the other smalis. You can find them all by searching the apk for "actionbar". A proper programmer could remove these lines, or more easily make every m_iActionBarHeight:I line refer to zero.
If someone can fix the programming, I suspect that this would also solve the hidden HC bar issue, allowing true fullscreen support!
2) Editing the com.htc.resources.apk
The styles.xml in this file has a NoTitleBar.Fullscreen theme that redirects to other xmls redirecting to different layout files and pngs.
I've looked through every dimens.xml and other xmls that may be even loosely linked to the actionbar. I even tried haphazardly changing every possibly connected dimension to 1.0px.
I then tried shrinking all of the related PNGs to 1x1 pixel.
The end result was just a funking looking grey and black bar at the top.
I have no idea where to find the dimensions controlling the size of the actionbar.
Thanks for any help! Warning: Recovery backup before pushing a new com.htc apk, if you don't do it correctly, things can get messy with the OS.
porcupineadvocate said:
Could you post the entirety of the relevant xml layout file?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok I may have lied. There are one or two files I wasn't sure about.
These are from the xmls in layout folders of com.htc apk.
Can you take a look and see if there are simple line(s) to change here? notepad++ is great.
I already attempted to edit all of the dimens.xml dimensions. I can't remember if I got all of the dimensions in these files too.
The bar seems to be about 56 pixels. I gathered that from reduced editing view dimensions but I could be wrong.
Not that it is a big deal for a minor issue like this in a low traffic forum like EVO View but "bounty threads" are strictly prohibited by xda.
I doubt the mods will hassle you since this isn't a heavily travelled thread but they might shut you down at any second. Good idea to get some PM's going with anyone who is helping you.
Good luck.
Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk
Post the decompiled HTPDFViewer, please. I particularly want to see the contents of res/layout/*.xml files.
As a tip, don't delete any elements; just resize them to zero height/width if possible. Deleting will cause crashes when the program tries to reference them.
porcupineadvocate said:
Post the decompiled HTPDFViewer, please. I particularly want to see the contents of res/layout/*.xml files.
As a tip, don't delete any elements; just resize them to zero height/width if possible. Deleting will cause crashes when the program tries to reference them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here it is.
Woops I didn't realize bounties were prohibited, especially with so many developers asking for "donations"
Delete this if you'd like. I didn't mean to break the rules.
Donations and bounties are different. Donations are thanks for work done, bounties are offer of compensation to do work. If they allowed bounty threads xda would be overrun with them.
No big deal. I doubt the mods even visit this thread. Just wanted to give you heads up to establish pm conversations in case they did
Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk
No progress since my last update on the programming front. However I have been playing with the lcd density changer.
Setting it to 170 from 160 and enabling the GB like bar on top has interesting results. The pdfviewer only edits properly when I use Honeyhide or Honeybar. So we know that disabling the notification bar and having a working pdfviewer is possible.
However, I found I have the best pdf editing real estate when I set the lcd density to very low, like 120. In fact, not only are the title and HC bars smaller, but the pen seems to be more accurate too!
Maybe this information will help with our goal.
EDIT: at 120 and below, the scribe color wheel pops up on the wrong side. Still works though. Other tablet functions are much slower and there's some screen corruption too. It's not a permanent solution, but works for annotating pdfs.
Hey guys,
I was asked a week or so back to make a guide so others can theme the Stock SamsungIME.apk the way they like. I have made my thread to do this and you can put in request if this guide is not helpful(which I hope it is).
I will answer as many questions as I can, time permitting, and be as Noob friendly as I can, as well. I know this guide will not be perfect and there might be some things I am leaving out, and if so tell me, I will adjust the OP with any suggestions or changes. So here goes nothing...
Things you need:
Android SDK
Java JDK and JRE
Apktool
Notepad++
xUltimate-d9pc
Photo Editor (Gimp/Photoshop)
Before we begin, I am not going to go into how to load/decompile/recompile apks.. There are some good guides out there and here are some..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2195680
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2206938
After you have the SamsungIME.apk totally decompiled you will want to open the folder it decompiled into and start with the res/drawables-sw359dp-xhdpi folder. In this folder there is all the pngs you need to edit. For starters the keys themselves..
You want:
sip_key_bg_normal.9.png
sip_key_bg_option.9.png
sip_key_bg_pressed.9.png
As you can tell, by the name, these are not normal pngs. You will see a 1 pixel border on all sides of the image. When editing the png either erase them or resize the canvas of the image. Just subtract by 2 form the height and the width, but remember when you save it re open it and adjust the canvas size back to the way it was. As my understanding of these goes, they are named this way because Android recognizing these .9.pngs and stretches them.. When I first attempted editing these I would have nothing but problems, of course because I was doing it wrong. I never could understand where the lines go and what they actually do. Thats probably because I was trying to do it with transparent/semi-transparent images and could not see the actual image expanding. Well when you are editing these with draw9patch, I noticed two very important things to look at (for the keyboard). The window to your right is how the actual image will look when expanded, but to see that you have to go to the bottom of the screen and the second scroll bar, move it all all the way to the right.
You will notice that it stretches the image.. This is the same thing Android does.
The middle image needs attention here because it expands it horizontally. So that means when you expand it all the way thats what you spacebar will look like. .
You notice that these edges (red lines) Are not defined they are rounded.. Because they are not patched correctly.
Notice the difference? This after it was patched with the proper line alignment.
To start you want add to full lines on the bottom and the right side. Next is the top and the left side. These are the lines you need play with to make you image look right. I used to only add a 1 pixel dot in the middle and one pixel line on the left. But when I started getting more advanced with photoshop/gimp I noticed my images would not looking the same. When you add gradients or borders to you keys, seeing the image on the right expanded is important because you will draw you lines to make you image look like it did in photoshop/gimp. NOTE: Don't leave any space in the lines to the right and on the bottom. You can, however, do so on the left and top but it will distort your png.
Here are a few guides to help you if you have anymore questions:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2326393
The next image of importance is:
qwerty_keypad_bg.png
This is the background of the keyboard.. NOTE: there is also one of these located in res/drawables-sw359dp--land-xhdpi, the only difference being the above image is for Portrait and land is for Landscape. Also, they are two different resolutions so be careful when changing them. You can change this image to anything you want.. It is a normal png so therefore no patching or further steps are needed.
Next would be all the other option pngs, backspace, space bar, voice, settings, enter key, etc. You will will find these starting with the word qwerty_.
So example:
qwerty_key_icon_enter.png
This is the enter key as it sits on your keyboard.. Yes there are other ones but there are for different actions.
Another thing we might want to change is the color of the CAPS key when it is enabled.
That png is named:
qwerty_key_bg_shift_capslock.png
As you can see a lot of these are named exactly what they are..well some at least..
Next is .xml edits. You want to locate res/values-sw359hp-xhdpi/colors.xml. You will need to open this with notepad++ to edit colors of the key text, pressed key text, shadow of those text, space bar lettering, etc. You will only (or I only do) need to focus on the first 12 lines. They pretty much explain themselves by there names.
Code:
<color name="normalkey_shadowcolor">#ff000000</color>
<color name="functionkey_shadowcolor">#ff000000</color>
<color name="functionkey_labelcolor">#ffe2e2e2</color>
<color name="normalkey_labelcolor">#ffe2e2e2</color>
<color name="pressedkey_labelcolor">#ff122438</color>
<color name="disablekey_labelcolor">#7fe2e2e2</color>
<color name="popup_normalkey_labelcolor">#ffffffff</color>
<color name="popup_pressedkey_labelcolor">#ff2d5a8c</color>
<color name="normalkey_extra_labelcolor">#ffe2e2e2</color>
<color name="spacekey_labelcolor">#ffb6b6b6</color>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll notice that the colors are hex codes.. So the first two letters or numbers is for the transparency.. The next six define the actual color.
After we have edited our xml we can go ahead and recompile the apk. You should recompile with no errors. If you do encounter an error it's possible that you edited the color wrong and made it seven letters instead of eight or vice versa. Make sure that you transfer the old AndroidManifest.xml and META-INF folder form your original APK and transfer them to your new APK in SamsungIME/dist/.
FInally, you can copy you NEW SamsunIME.apk to your sd card, reboot into recovery. I prefer this method (Thanks to @Deckoz2302) because I would have trouble with APK's fully copying through adb. When in recovery select Mount, then click System. Select back. Then select Advanced, than File Manager. When in File Manager goto wherever you put your new APK. Copy it. Then go to System/app/ and hit Select and slide to copy. Reboot!
:good:Special THANKS to: @Deckoz2302: Best developer I have ever talk to! @Rizal Lovins, @grilleld, @Arsaw, @twanskys204, @Winterlove, @GuneetAtwal and I REALLY hope I didn't leave anyone out! If I did I'm sorry, tell me and I will update!:good:
FIRST......!!!
Thanks brother, I am going to give this a go tomorrow.
Today, young ,men on acid realize that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciences sharing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are just imaginations of ourselves And now to the weather.....
Reserved. .
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
This is quite the guide thanks so much for this.
Sent from Kendrick Lamar, King of New York
Nice Tut Great Work..!
Can all this be done on Mac osx?
Shamestick said:
Can all this be done on Mac osx?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If there is an Android SDK for OSX then i'd imagine it can be done on a Mac.
The SDK was fine, its getting the java jdk that's giving me issue
Shamestick said:
The SDK was fine, its getting the java jdk that's giving me issue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Shamestick - Do you use Polaris to run Windows? That could work possibly.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app
dudeicles said:
@Shamestick - Do you use Polaris to run Windows? That could work possibly.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not, and I haven't gotten a copy of windows to dualboot with yet either. My problems always come whe i try to go to the downloading site for java, it just will never open on chrome or safari
well done my friend ! Nice to see you here
Text color SamsungIME.apk Note3-MOD
I have a big problem.
I decompiled the SamsungIME.apk from Note3-MOD to change the color of the KEY-Text from BLACK to WHITE.
But I can't find the right XML and location where the code has to be changed.
Can someone help me in this topic?
Superwolf77 said:
I have a big problem.
I decompiled the SamsungIME.apk from Note3-MOD to change the color of the KEY-Text from BLACK to WHITE.
But I can't find the right XML and location where the code has to be changed.
Can someone help me in this topic?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They will most likely be in values/colors.xml
For testing I already changed every black code to white in this XML but it does not change.
Superwolf77 said:
For testing I already changed every black code to white in this XML but it does not change.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oops sorry its in /values-sw359dp-xhdpi/colors.xml.. Took me a long time to figure out that! lmao! Anyways have fun hope I helped!
Thank you for the help. It works fine now.
Thnks sir.. usefull :fingers-crossed:
Apks?
For those who have made custom keyboards will you please post your apks?
Good
Thanks for your tutorial. I have a question about adding a backround image for the keyboard.Not sure if thread is to old so please respond if you an answer question and ill write it . thanks
I have been theming apps on my phone to give them black backgrounds. The white backgrounds bother my eyes. I'm doing pretty well but I am having a big problem with the LGSettings.apk. I have decompiled the apk and edited the colors.xml, styles.xml and parts of the manifest that i thought might change the theme. I then recompile and run the settings app but I never see any changes. I am trying to figure out what I need to edit to achieve white text on a black background. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I don't have the apks in front of me, but you may need to theme more than that one. I think you'll need:
LGSettings (which you currently themed)
Possibly: LGSettingsAccessibility/LGSettingsProvider
These two may or may not have anything to theme in them, so you may need to decompile to take a look.
Ok. I'm getting there. The background item and textcolor item were lurking in the lge-res.apk. I am still having trouble finding a way to change the blue action bar color (1) and the color of the white section headers (2). Anybody know what these might be called and what apk I need to look in? Thanks a lot!
skyman88882002 said:
Ok. I'm getting there. The background item and textcolor item were lurking in the lge-res.apk. I am still having trouble finding a way to change the blue action bar color (1) and the color of the white section headers (2). Anybody know what these might be called and what apk I need to look in? Thanks a lot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. I found the action bar - I used 'Widget.Material.ActionBar.Solid' to hard code the background color. Now I just need somebody to help me find those white section headers. Anybody? Thanks so much!
Well after two hours of poking around the apks I finally figured it out. Pretty easy to make all the changes in lge-res.apk. pm me if interested in doing this kind of theming
skyman88882002 said:
Well after two hours of poking around the apks I finally figured it out. Pretty easy to make all the changes in lge-res.apk. pm me if interested in doing this kind of theming
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, great work!
I remember doing something similar when I was doing this to my Galaxy S3, trying to find the various apk's where Sammy had changed things. It was a great feeling to find and change things.
skyman88882002 said:
Well after two hours of poking around the apks I finally figured it out. Pretty easy to make all the changes in lge-res.apk. pm me if interested in doing this kind of theming
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HI THERE, I WAS WONDERING IF YOU CAN SHARE THOSE APS's, COUULD YOU MAKE IT POSSIBLE?
elmanolette said:
HI THERE, I WAS WONDERING IF YOU CAN SHARE THOSE APS's, COUULD YOU MAKE IT POSSIBLE?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi. Please in the future don't use all capital letters. I know you didn't mean this in this case, but it's generally considered "shouting", and for longer strings it makes it harder to read. Thanks for understanding.
roirraW "edor" ehT said:
Hi. Please in the future don't use all capital letters. I know you didn't mean this in this case, but it's generally considered "shouting", and for longer strings it makes it harder to read. Thanks for understanding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry man, i'm understand!
I definitely intend to share my findings. However right now i am redoing the theming trying to push all the edits into LGsettings. Since I did the editing in the lge-res.apk it has a lot of unintended consequences on other parts of the system
subscribed.
i despise white backgrounds.
Brian
i cant find any color.xml in any stock apps?
skyman88882002 said:
I have been theming apps on my phone to give them black backgrounds. The white backgrounds bother my eyes. I'm doing pretty well but I am having a big problem with the LGSettings.apk. I have decompiled the apk and edited the colors.xml, styles.xml and parts of the manifest that i thought might change the theme. I then recompile and run the settings app but I never see any changes. I am trying to figure out what I need to edit to achieve white text on a black background. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do you theme? i can never find the color.xml file in any stock app?
Glitch15 said:
how do you theme? i can never find the color.xml file in any stock app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need a deodexed ROM/apk file to decompile to find those resources.
RMarkwald said:
You need a deodexed ROM/apk file to decompile to find those resources.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my Rom is deodex, can you pm me a step by step guide to get to the color.xml?
it would be nice if you can post a brief guide about theming it.. so people can have benefit.
knowledge is meant to share after all
minhas729 said:
it would be nice if you can post a brief guide about theming it.. so people can have benefit.
knowledge is meant to share after all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey there! Good to see you on this thread Minhas729. I'm really sorry for the delay, I have just been slammed on the home front and haven't had time to play around with this stuff.
I'm still not happy with the theming I'm doing but I plan on posting my work in process files in the next 5 or 6 days.
In the meantime, let me share my knowledge (it isn't much!)
I think I am going to change the thread title to Theming for Dummies (Like Me) (anybody know how to change a thread title?). so step one will be in the next post.....
OVERVIEW
(Ok - so here is a quick overview of the theming process as I do it. Again, I am just a novice and I just stumble around so if I get the terms incorrect forgive me.
1) The first step in theming an apk is to decompile the apk. Unzipping the apk is not going to work. This is because there are special files like styles.xml and colors.xml that are hidden in a 'values' folder in the res directory. As far as I know, you cannot access these special files by simply unzipping the apk.
2) To decompile you need an apk tool - I use 'Tickle My Android' (I'm going to call it TMA going forward) - it has a great developer with excellent instructions. The way decompiling works is you first have to create a mini-work area on your computer. You do this by decompiling and installing the framework-res and lge-res apks from your phone to your computer. TMA needs these files to decompile other apps because most apps reference a bunch of things in the framework-res and lge-res files Installing TMA is pretty easy and the instructions on the thread are excellent. The only issue I had was finding a good version of apktool.jar to use in conjunction with TMA - one that worked well with marshmallow apks. The apktool is the actual tool that does all the work - TMA (in my understanding) is simply a very well designed user interface to use the apktool. So you need an apktool that will recognize marshmallow files and be able to decompile them. I use "apktool_2.1.0-a64a03-SNAPSHOT"" as my apktool.jar file.
3) Once an apk is decompiled, all the apk components will be saved in a 'working' folder. You can then go in and edit colors and and styles using an xml editor.
4) Once you have made your edits you use TMA to recompile and sign the apk. Then you move the file back to your phone, place it in the proper device directory, fix permissions, reboot and cross your fingers.
Ok - that is the overview - go off and start trying it. One suggestion - dont try to push files from the phone to the pc with TMA - just use your usb cable.
more to come...
skyman88882002 said:
I think I am going to change the thread title to Theming for Dummies (Like Me) (anybody know how to change a thread title?). so step one will be in the next post.....
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Edit your first post in a web browser. Choose Advanced mode and there'll be a field to edit the title.
Below are links to download the themed lge-res.apk and lgsettings.apk. MAKE A BACKUP FIRST (I'm not responsible for anything that goes wrong if you try these files). Once downloaded you will need to use a root browser to copy the files to the appropriate system directory and to change the permissions. Keep in mind, this is a work in process, if you enter settings and click on the bluetooth or wifi sections you will notice that the background is not themed yet. I'll repost when these are fixed.
lge-res.apk download link
LGSettings.apk download link
Keep in mind that you have to install both files if you want the full black background.
Ok. I think I worked out most of the bugs. The files are now set up in a flashable zip. Test it out and let me know if you see any issues. If it is working well I will start a new thread in the Themes section and work on the systemui as well. Thanks. Download link below:
download
Hi! I'm new into creating themes, and I'm looking for a tool that could make it easier. I know how to extract .apk, how to replace images, modify .xmls, but often I don't know what an image is for. Let's say im modding SystemUI and I want to change background of my notification bar. The only thing I know is that inside drawables folder I have to look for something named notification_bar.png, something like that. I was looking for an app that could tell me how an image inside an app is called in code ( example: I'm inside calculator app, I press on background and the app says that file is called background.png and is inside drawables-xxhdpi). I tried Android Studio --> Layout Inspector, but it didn't help me at all because, well, I just don't understand it.
Of course, while modifying SystemUI I can look for explaination of certain pngs on the internet, but
-not every SystemUI is the same
- if I want to change drawables of an app that doesn't have specific explaination I have to know how to identify drawables.
It must be possible somehow, because I've run into some themes that modify external apps (like WhatsApp, SuperSU etc.)
Those ppl had to know what certain .png is for, the question is: How?
I don't believe they just had to sit there and try every possible combination.
Also, inside SystemUI there's A LOT of files that are never used, and their names can be misleading.
Is there any way to identify drawable inside running app easily? Without digging in code and guessing?
Thanks in advance for any answer
I tried to analyze Mms.apk (it's system app). I was looking for a drawable representing default contact icon, here called ic_contact_picture.png .
I actually managed to find a proper layer in Layout Inspector(ConversationListItem.xml), analyzed it and found a code referring to table "id" in resources.arsc . The object the id referred to was called "avatar". And that's it. I couldn't find id(I got it from resources.arsc/drawables) of ic_contact_picture.png anywhere in that layout. There was only id referring to "id/avatar". It doesn't make any sense.
How do I find drawables using Layout Inspector or any other tool?
It was easier when it came to text. I also found an id referring to resources.arsc/id, but that id was included in the layer I was looking at (ConversationListItem.xml).
But I still wasn't able to perform any action on that text, because there wasn't any setting like text color or anything, there was just a line android:textAppearance="@attr/0x1010041"
It is an attrib from framework-res.apk, but when I opened framework-res.apk and found that attrib there was no reference to anything like color, font, so there was nothing I could really do.
Can someone help me with those 2 problems?