Android font installation - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi I'm sorry if this kind of question has been asked before.
All I wanted to know is what's the technical reason that:
We, users, cannot install font in android without root? Any technical reason or anything at all for this?
AFAIK, you can install font in samsung galaxy phones.(apk ).
Thanks,
Bayint

The technical reason is the simple fact that to change anything in the system folders you need read/write permissions. You get these permissions with root access.

There is no technical reason that applications cannot use different fonts and many do (ereaders, GoSMS, etc.) Google has not defined a font directory on the SD card to standardise user installed fonts to where more apps let you choose your own font.
Most commercial operating systems depend on font metrics to correctly display Widgets (like buttons and text boxes) at a specific size with all the text correctly visible. This is why you cannot change the system font.
Window managers on Linux do not have set metrics that text must fit inside. The text dictates the widget size. This is more flexible but even to the point of unwanted results, like window titles and buttons so large the content of a window is obscured.
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lowandbehold said:
Did you read the question at all? You can change the system font. The question was why do you need root access to change the system font. So you basically give this senseless long drawn out answer why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which part was senseless?
What was senseless was your response.
Q"Why can't I change fonts without root access?"
A"Well you can change fonts but you need root access."
I told him why root was required. You just rephrased his question as an answer.
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Okay Guys, keep it nice and friendly.

Related

[Q] Font change?

Hey guys, is it possible to change the tbolt font? With the OG Droid i was able to install a font.zip through rom manager without any issues but I am unsuccessful with the tbolt....
Thanks!
I use an app called Font Changer from the market. Its free, although there is a donate version. Just download the font you want (search "fonts" in the xda search bar and you shouldn't have any problems finding any), unzip it, and move it to the ".fontchanger" folder on your sd card. Then, open the Font Changer app and it should pull up all the fonts that you loaded. I didnt change the names if the fonts were already named, or changed the name for differentiation purposes, but this was merely for personal preference, as when you go into the app the fonts will show up as how they actually look. I moved all 3 files inside each font, but dont know for sure if you need all three. Hope this helps.
BTW, it will ask you to reboot, but always hit reboot later because it locks up when you have the app reboot it.
I use absolute system its like 99cents but does fonts bootanimations and ad blocker. Think it has a few other features but I don't use em.
Sent from my ThunderBolt
I appreciate it!!! Thanks a lot guys!!!

Larger font??

Has anyone figured out how to use a bigger system font on this phone? I tried the older font zip from the OG but the install fails.
The higher resolution in the 3d is nice, but the tiny system font is a problem for me.
Copy the fonts in using root explorer and change permissions to match the others.
You could raise the dpi, I don't know what it would look like though. I tried changing the font using that same method myself and the phone crashes on boot up. I didn't change the permissions, I didn't think I had to.
Flash the single font file
Those of us that just recently started needed reading glasses can sympathize.
Download Font Changer from the Market. It's pretty idiot proof as it always allows a reinstall of the default system font if you screw things up. Has a great "preview" feature that lets you see just how big the fonts are to install. It doesn't specifically say the 3D is supported but I can confirm it works with a rooted ViperROM. I didn't need to do any of the renaming things either.
Good collection of free fonts from here. Just download them and unzip the .ttf files to the .fontchanger directory on the SD card.:
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/
Experimented with a few different fonts, a couple of the "bigger" fonts would be cut off on the bottom or top depending on what application I was in. I ended up settling with the Luxi-Sans font and am pretty happy with it. Don't need my glasses scrolling through my call directory anymore!
Here's the direct link to the Luxi-Sans font I'm using:
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/download/Luxi-Sans
Rydah805 said:
Copy the fonts in using root explorer and change permissions to match the others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the information guys!
I will try these ideas.
Rydah805, would you describe in more detail how to do the above?
Thanks again.

[Q] How to change the content font size of Social Networking

The Social Networking content text looks too small in qHD screen, I know it needs mod to change the size, I used apktool to extract the files from FriendFeed.apk, modified some textSize inside FriendFeed\res\values\Styles.xml, rebuilt the apk, and signed it.
However, whenever I replaced the apk, it just didn't show up in the launcher. I'd appreciate it if someone can give me a clue to move on.
Any comments are welcome.
Easiest way, download "font changer" from the market (you need to be rooted) and change the density setting from 240 to 260.
This will increase your text size and icons as well. The only downfall is that when you change the default font, the Atrix "dialer" doesn't work which means that you will need a 3rd party dialer from the market too.
A small price to pay, but after going to 260 myself, I would never want to go back to 240...
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Thanks for providing the solution, however, it will change all the global font size, and make images looks kind of blur. Still looking for mod solution.
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[Q] About per app DPI

Paranoid android is great because it allows you to choose the UI you'd like to sue for each app.
Would it be possible to perform a similar action with an app?
For instance, I'm assuming that apps read the dpi information from the build.prop file when they launch and select the correct ui accordingly?
This might be a poor assumption but this is my limited understanding of it.
So with this assumed, would it be possible to intercept every time an app is launched and set the dpi to whatever setting that app is individually set to, allow the app to launch, then return the dpi to whatever it was?
jcspecs said:
Paranoid android is great because it allows you to choose the UI you'd like to sue for each app.
Would it be possible to perform a similar action with an app?
For instance, I'm assuming that apps read the dpi information from the build.prop file when they launch and select the correct ui accordingly?
This might be a poor assumption but this is my limited understanding of it.
So with this assumed, would it be possible to intercept every time an app is launched and set the dpi to whatever setting that app is individually set to, allow the app to launch, then return the dpi to whatever it was?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bump
jcspecs said:
Would it be possible to perform a similar action with an app?
For instance, I'm assuming that apps read the dpi information from the build.prop file when they launch and select the correct ui accordingly?
This might be a poor assumption but this is my limited understanding of it.
So with this assumed, would it be possible to intercept every time an app is launched and set the dpi to whatever setting that app is individually set to, allow the app to launch, then return the dpi to whatever it was?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apps generally do one or both of two things:
- Define multiple XML layouts and resources and let the OS code select the most appropriate for the device being used
- Programatically define pixel sizes of things drawn to screen, based on the density of the screen (which is available from the API, it's not a question of accessing build.prop as such)
PicomatStudios said:
Apps generally do one or both of two things:
- Define multiple XML layouts and resources and let the OS code select the most appropriate for the device being used
- Programatically define pixel sizes of things drawn to screen, based on the density of the screen (which is available from the API, it's not a question of accessing build.prop as such)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right. So a ROM such as paranoid android does what? Individually alters each app you change settings for to force it to conform to that UI?

[Q] Modding apk to change text size

Many new phones have very high resolution screen, and thus text size may appear tiny in some apps.
I prepare to solve the problem by modifying apks to suit my own need. Unfortunately I have little knowledge about android programming.
One apk I intend to modify is "B-Folders", which is a very useful personal information organiser and is one of my favorite apps. I emailed to the author more than a year ago without getting any improvement. I can only help myself by modding the apk.
I successfully decompiled the apk, searched everywhere for "textsize" or "setTextSize" or something similar, made changes, re-compiled and re-signed the apk. And now, the text size while viewing is now much bigger, but the text size during typing in text box, i.e. input mode, remains very small. I spent many hours struggling to find possible related lines in the decompiled codes and failed to locate it.
I wonder if any experts here may offer me some hints?
aeioo said:
Many new phones have very high resolution screen, and thus text size may appear tiny in some apps.
I prepare to solve the problem by modifying apks to suit my own need. Unfortunately I have little knowledge about android programming.
One apk I intend to modify is "B-Folders", which is a very useful personal information organiser and is one of my favorite apps. I emailed to the author more than a year ago without getting any improvement. I can only help myself by modding the apk.
I successfully decompiled the apk, searched everywhere for "textsize" or "setTextSize" or something similar, made changes, re-compiled and re-signed the apk. And now, the text size while viewing is now much bigger, but the text size during typing in text box, i.e. input mode, remains very small. I spent many hours struggling to find possible related lines in the decompiled codes and failed to locate it.
I wonder if any experts here may offer me some hints?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you looked at the dpi settings of your input method? Text size for input may be related to keypad you're using (especially third party apps) rather than the app you're currently typing in.
yeah is there any way to modify font size or dpi by editing the apk
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Stryke_the_Orc said:
Have you looked at the dpi settings of your input method? Text size for input may be related to keypad you're using (especially third party apps) rather than the app you're currently typing in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This question is difficult, I would also like to solve this problem, I hope people know I'm waiting
vNa5h said:
yeah is there any way to modify font size or dpi by editing the apk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There should be a font package, or layout in the apk your editing if it has its own fonts/dpi settings.
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