[Q][ST15i/ICS]Status Bar: Battery/Transparency - Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini, Mini Pro, Xperia Pro, A

Hi Guys,
Before I begin, I'd like to shoutout to all the great devs here in XDA who regularly updates us with their mods while living their own busy lives.
I'm using a ST15i on stock ICS and managed to customize it by reading around. I've rooted my phone from GB to ICS and flashed custom zips to add or modify certain functions and changed how it looks to give it a different feel and to better suit my taste. I've reached a point where I can't modify it anymore due to lack of knowledge and training. And now I'm here.
Can anyone point me on how to change the transparency of the status bar, change the battery icon of my choice on my ST15i running on stock ICS? Also, can you help me in reverting to the stock icon fron "No available network"? All the info I found didn't help me. Tried the kitched but that didn't work for me either. I'd rather learn how rather than be spoonfed.
This is my first time posting here, so go easy on me.
Thanks!

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I don't think a transparent statusbar is possible in ICS. In earlier versions, it was just a case of making the statusbar background itself transparent.
But Google have made it harder to do with later versions.
To change the battery icon, you just need to change the png files in one of the drawable folders in either framework-res.apk or SystemUI.apk. With the Mini on ICS, it's most likely drawable-mdpi in SystemUI.apk.
If you want to change how the icon works, going from changing every 10% to every 1% for example, then you need to decompile the app and edit some xml.
It's a little long-winded, but it's simple enough and I'm always happy to help. The battery icon mod was the first one I found out how to do and I spent months trying to figure it out. Literally.
It's worth checking out Tickle My Android from the link in my signature. It can do the battery mod for you, if you want it to, and can handle all the decompiling and recompiling as well actually taking apps off your phone to begin with.
Not sure what you meant about reverting icons..is it possible you can provide a screenshot of what you want to change?

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Ticklefish said:
I don't think a transparent statusbar is possible in ICS. In earlier versions, it was just a case of making the statusbar background itself transparent.
But Google have made it harder to do with later versions.
To change the battery icon, you just need to change the png files in one of the drawable folders in either framework-res.apk or SystemUI.apk. With the Mini on ICS, it's most likely drawable-mdpi in SystemUI.apk.
If you want to change how the icon works, going from changing every 10% to every 1% for example, then you need to decompile the app and edit some xml.
It's a little long-winded, but it's simple enough and I'm always happy to help. The battery icon mod was the first one I found out how to do and I spent months trying to figure it out. Literally.
It's worth checking out Tickle My Android from the link in my signature. It can do the battery mod for you, if you want it to, and can handle all the decompiling and recompiling as well actually taking apps off your phone to begin with.
Not sure what you meant about reverting icons..is it possible you can provide a screenshot of what you want to change?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey there, Ticklefish! Thank you for taking the time to reply. You're one of my favorite devs here in xda.
Could you take a quick peek at this? There's an update on his notification toggle for a transparent status bar so I got me thinking whether this was possible or not. As for the battery, I'll still have to search for the battery icon I'm fancying about or I might have to create it from scratch. Sorry, I forgot to mention this but I tried to use your tool. I just didn't know how the battery icons would look like that's why I chickened out at the last moment. Instead I used it to create a zip to flash a stock SystemUI.apk to remove the Notification Toggles which I had extracted from an earlier CWM backup (Can't find an uninstaller. I figured all I needed was stock to remove it). Great tool, by the way.
I can't post any screenshots at the moment since I haven't been able to add that feature to my Mini yet. So I'll try my best to explain what I meant about reverting the network icon. If you would notice whenever you lose the network signal an icon appears on the notification bar? Well mine used to be color grey and had a yellow exclamation point beside it. Now it's all red. This might not be an issue for some but it's pretty hard on the eyes. I'd like to have the old one back.
Just to give you an idea, I'd like to improve my Mini's functionality and aesthetics while keeping it as close to stock as possible. So far I've managed to:
-Insert Reboot/Reboot to Recovery
-Use Wavelock
-Use Xperia S apps (Alarm, Callscreen, Clock, Conversation, Contacts, Font, Home, Keyboard, Phonebook & Walkman)
-Supercharge
-Notification Toggles (which I removed)
Changing the status bar and reverting to stock icon for no network signal is next on my list.

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messagemode said:
Hey there, Ticklefish! Thank you for taking the time to reply. You're one of my favorite devs here in xda.
Could you take a quick peek at this? There's an update on his notification toggle for a transparent status bar so I got me thinking whether this was possible or not. As for the battery, I'll still have to search for the battery icon I'm fancying about or I might have to create it from scratch. Sorry, I forgot to mention this but I tried to use your tool. I just didn't know how the battery icons would look like that's why I chickened out at the last moment. Instead I used it to create a zip to flash a stock SystemUI.apk to remove the Notification Toggles which I had extracted from an earlier CWM backup (can't find an uninstaller. I figured all I needed was stock to remove). Great tool, by the way.
I can't post any screenshots at the moment since I haven't been able to add that feature to my Mini yet. So I'll try my best to explain what I meant about reverting the network icon. If you would notice whenever you lose the network signal a icon appears on the notification bar, well mine used to be color grey and had a yellow exclamation point beside it. Now it's all red. This might not be an issue for some but it's pretty hard on the eyes. I'd like to have the old one back.
Just to give you an idea, I'd like to improve my Mini's functionality and aesthetics while keeping it as close to stock as possible. So far I've managed to:
-Insert Reboot/Reboot to Recovery
-Use Wavelock
-Use Xperia S apps (Alarm, Callscreen, Clock, Conversation, Contacts, Font, Home, Keyboard, Phonebook & Walkman)
-Supercharge
-Notification Toggles (which I removed)
Changing the status bar and reverting to stock icon for no network signal is next on my list.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Screenshot should already implimented just not in the power menu. All you have to do is hold power and vol down button.

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evilbarcode said:
Screenshot should already implimented just not in the power menu. All you have to do is hold power and vol down button.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow! Didn't know that. Just tried it just now and it worked. Thanks! Will be posting/updating once I've recreated the situation.

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messagemode said:
Hey there, Ticklefish! Thank you for taking the time to reply. You're one of my favorite devs here in xda.
Could you take a quick peek at this? There's an update on his notification toggle for a transparent status bar so I got me thinking whether this was possible or not. As for the battery, I'll still have to search for the battery icon I'm fancying about or I might have to create it from scratch. Sorry, I forgot to mention this but I tried to use your tool. I just didn't know how the battery icons would look like that's why I chickened out at the last moment. Instead I used it to create a zip to flash a stock SystemUI.apk to remove the Notification Toggles which I had extracted from an earlier CWM backup (Can't find an uninstaller. I figured all I needed was stock to remove it). Great tool, by the way.
I can't post any screenshots at the moment since I haven't been able to add that feature to my Mini yet. So I'll try my best to explain what I meant about reverting the network icon. If you would notice whenever you lose the network signal an icon appears on the notification bar? Well mine used to be color grey and had a yellow exclamation point beside it. Now it's all red. This might not be an issue for some but it's pretty hard on the eyes. I'd like to have the old one back.
Just to give you an idea, I'd like to improve my Mini's functionality and aesthetics while keeping it as close to stock as possible. So far I've managed to:
-Insert Reboot/Reboot to Recovery
-Use Wavelock
-Use Xperia S apps (Alarm, Callscreen, Clock, Conversation, Contacts, Font, Home, Keyboard, Phonebook & Walkman)
-Supercharge
-Notification Toggles (which I removed)
Changing the status bar and reverting to stock icon for no network signal is next on my list.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it might be possible. There's a lot that can be done if you just know how. I'll have a look at a transparent status bar soon. It was incredibly simple to do on early GB so hopefully it can be done on ICS as well.
There are a lot of battery icons out there. If you find the ones you want, TMA can put them into your app for you, or I can tell you how to do it manually.
As for the icons that come with TMA, you can see what they look like on the thread. Some look better on HDPI, and our phones are MDPI, but the tool can backup your original app so you can just try whichever one you want without being in danger of losing anything.
Changing that icon should be pretty simple. All you need to do is find out which image file it is and change it. Either by downloading one of the GB roms here and taking the new image file out of that, or by using a graphics program and just recolouring it yourself. If you're doing that, and if you're in a creative mood, you could even redesign the icon completely..
Thanks for the kind words, btw. If there's anything I can do to help, just let me know!

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Ticklefish said:
Well, it might be possible. There's a lot that can be done if you just know how. I'll have a look at a transparent status bar soon. It was incredibly simple to do on early GB so hopefully it can be done on ICS as well.
There are a lot of battery icons out there. If you find the ones you want, TMA can put them into your app for you, or I can tell you how to do it manually.
As for the icons that come with TMA, you can see what they look like on the thread. Some look better on HDPI, and our phones are MDPI, but the tool can backup your original app so you can just try whichever one you want without being in danger of losing anything.
Changing that icon should be pretty simple. All you need to do is find out which image file it is and change it. Either by downloading one of the GB roms here and taking the new image file out of that, or by using a graphics program and just recolouring it yourself. If you're doing that, and if you're in a creative mood, you could even redesign the icon completely..
Thanks for the kind words, btw. If there's anything I can do to help, just let me know!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, I won't hold back in asking for assistance anymore.
I've attached a screenie of the icon problem I'm facing right now. If you would look at the upper lefthand corner, it's all red. I wonder if it's the same for the other ST15i Stock ICS users. It' used to be grey with a yellow exclamation point or something like that (can't recall how it exactly looked like but, yeah, something like that). Now for the battery icon, I'm fancying the Purple Android Battery Icon in TMA, only in green and shouldn't mess with the original height of the status bar. I've cooked a battery icon using the kitchen and it messed the height of the status bar. Could you also point how to manually change the battery icon? I'm trying to do it myself so I won't be asking around here anymore. I think others will benefit from it, too.
The stock SystemUI.apk that I've attached came from a stock version of my ST15i's ICS. I wondering if the network icon is found in the framework-res.apk, not in the SystemUI.apk. Since I've flashed the stock one and managed to remove the Notification Toggles but Red icon is still there.
Hopefully, you can find something with the transparency of the status bar. Thanks for all the help!

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messagemode said:
OK, I won't hold back in asking for assistance anymore.
I've attached a screenie of the icon problem I'm facing right now. If you would look at the upper lefthand corner, it's all red. I wonder if it's the same for the other ST15i Stock ICS users. It' used to be grey with a yellow exclamation point or something like that (can't recall how it exactly looked like but, yeah, something like that). Now for the battery icon, I'm fancying the Purple Android Battery Icon in TMA, only in green and shouldn't mess with the original height of the status bar. I've cooked a battery icon using the kitchen and it messed the height of the status bar. Could you also point how to manually change the battery icon? I'm trying to do it myself so I won't be asking around here anymore. I think others will benefit from it, too.
The stock SystemUI.apk that I've attached came from a stock version of my ST15i's ICS. I wondering if the network icon is found in the framework-res.apk, not in the SystemUI.apk. Since I've flashed the stock one and managed to remove the Notification Toggles but Red icon is still there.
Hopefully, you can find something with the transparency of the status bar. Thanks for all the help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That icon might be in framework-res.apk but I suspect it's SystemUI.apk. That's where most of those things are. This is a stock icon so flashing a stock system app won't do anything to change it. If you want, you can change the icon yourself by loading the png into a graphics program and messing around with it. If you want it to be grey and yellow, then you can make it grey and yellow.
Battery icons won't change the height of the statusbar. Android automatically scales images to the right size. As long as they're in the right folder. The Mini and Mini Pro both keep their images in drawable-mdpi for ICS. If images are put into drawable-ldpi, drawable-hdpi or even drawable-xhdpi (which would be insane on such a small screen), Android will scale them for a low, high, or extra high resolution screen. Which will mess the statusbar height. Your battery icons can be any height you like, they just have to go in the right place.
By the way...Tickle My Android will automatically put them in the right place. Just saying...
To change battery icons manually, you need to use apktool or a utility that uses apktool to decompile framework-res.apk and SystemUI.apk
Hey....Tickle My Android uses apktool...(subtle, ain't I?)
Then find the battery icons in whichever drawable folder they're in. They might be in more than one but that's not an issue. Replace them with ones you want.
If you're changing how often they change, you'll need to edit the xml files in the layout folder. If you got your icons from a kitchen, they should have come with the right xml files. In fact, if you've got a version of the Purple Android icons, you could use TMA to put those on first and then change them to the icons you want. That'll ensure you get the right xml files.
Then you use apktool to recompile the apps you changed. Make a copy of the original app, use 7zip to copy the res folder from the recompiled app into the copied one (this will ensure it's signed correctly), extract resources.arsc from the recompiled app, add that to the copied one at store levels of compression and..well, that's it.
The copied app is now ready to be put back onto your phone.
Eyes glazing over? Brain leaking out of the ears? I know it sounds complicated but it's quite simple once you've done it a few times. It can get a bit tedious if you're doing it a lot....which is why I wrote Tickle My Android in the first place.