[Q] Creating themes, where do I start? - EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

There are some great themes out there, but I find myself liking bits and pieces of different themes, sometime you can just push a certain clock or whatever, but somethings are more in depth. I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction of theme creation how to's. I don't want to be creating .png's or anything like that, I just want to be able to take apart certain theme's, then mash them back together into my own frankenstein theme, then flashing it to my phone. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
N1

There are some good guides in the mod sticky in Themes and Apps
Sent from my SUPERSONIC

*facepalm, thanks, I had looked at the titles through the stickies there, as well as used search, and didn't find anything. Got it now, thanks again

Your goal is obviously very achievable but I would suggest you not bite off too much right off.
Start with something simple, changing a single image or something just to learn the process.

Related

Unencrypting xml files

I was curious if anyone knows how to unencrypt(sp?) xml files. I am trying to build a theme and wanted to browse through some xml's to see if I could change the color of the digital clock on the status bar, among other things. I tried googling to no avail. Is this even possible at this time, or am I just going to have to wait until someone figures out how to unencrypt these files? Just some general advice on how this filetype behaves in android would be appreciated as well. Thanks in advance...
Stericson is currently in the process of this. He'll let us know when he's got it.
Shoulda figured Stericson had a hand in this matter. He is extremely valuable in the development of our devices, in fact, I almost sent him a PM to ask him about this matter directly, but I wanted to gather some general info/advice from everyone. Thanks for the reply Phromik, and thanks be to Stericson too, for being such an indispensable asset to these forums.
Ahhh, many thanks....Unfortunetly, this is not easy in the least. As for right now the xmls can be decrypted, vis some tool online you can find by googling, but you can also see the xmls in plain text by downloading the source and looking through them. I am trying hard to get these done but it is not easy in the least. Much more difficult then what we are doing now.
We will get it though, no worries, just may take some time.
Stericson

[Theme] xda-developers.com Group Theme Idea.. Please READ!

I know theres a theme suggestion thread sticked up on the forums, but I think this should posted here so it could get noticed more and get more feed back from everyone, because personally I dont think that thread get much attention base on the fact that I posted up my "Got Wood?" theme 2 days ago and it already has just as much views as the request thread. If not, then move it, its understood.
Ok, here is my "xda-dev" theme idea. (Nabzilla1990, this is no way of me trying to step over your theme, as seen as you already have a "community hero mix".
The whole purpose of this project/theme is to expand the selection of themes, but most importantly is to have fun with this project. Id like to see how a theme would come out looking if all theme developers joined together and created one theme from scratch. The way it would start is like this: (and this is just an example)
Let's say I started off, and I designed the application launcher tab. Once I'm done designing that, I'd post it up here on xda and someone else would call "next" and design lets say a wallpaper. Then once the wallpaper is done, the theme gets updated and posted again, and then someone else would call "next" and design the notification bar or whatever they want to do next. We'd keep doing this until we get a decent looking theme and we're all happy with it and then release itto the public.
I personally think this can turn out to be a great project/theme if everyone contributes. If anyone has any more ideas, suggestions on how we can improve the whole process of this project ,feel free to post up your reply.
i think this would actually be a great idea and a fun project, but who ever starts it should do the wallpaper so it can be easier to design everything else around it.
let me know what i can do and i will happily help out with this. if nothing else i am good for progress circles and bars colors
As long as every element works together it should be great. Especially if lets say someone could touch up pieces that someone else designed, and the community would then decide wether they like the changes.
Just some suggestions.
Im down! Count me in
Let me know if you guys need help with .xml edits.
im down to help too!
I'm not the best at making these things from scratch, but I think a great place to start with be to ask manup is he can make an XDA wallpaper similar to his xROM; and have one in white and one black (maybe even a bronze). That'll give users and devs options.
Maybe I can find some icons later on in the project or something.

Anyone know how to change the taskbar background and bottom bar???

I've been searching, and don't even really know where to begin to look for this, but I want to change the background on the taskbar and the bottom quick launch. I started making my own custom cab's for hd pics, but the taskbar (genesis energy rom) has the hex honeycomb still in it. Anyone have an idea on how to change this or point me in the right direction? Included a pic of what I'm talking about.
You might want to look around the themes.... section, lots of links to resources, and if you can't find what you are looking for one of the experts will be able to help I'm sure.
Gordon
GordonTGopher said:
You might want to look around the themes.... section, lots of links to resources, and if you can't find what you are looking for one of the experts will be able to help I'm sure.
Gordon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks...after spending about 2-3 hours of looking around, I found this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=4075682&postcount=907

creating a theme

maybe this is out of my league...
but is it pretty much as easy as extracting the images, changing there colours (maybe using photoshop??) and then re packaging and updating my hero?
if its not too much harder could someone point me towards a guide, or if im smack on, lead me to the apk i have to extract? theres no "sense" apk and i did not find any images in the rosie apk!
i would really appreciate this, thanks in advance
im jus using winrar to extract the apk's, so far i have found alot of the images but i havnt come across any that id like to change
edit #2
ok so i was looking through and have started to figure out how they sorted all there files... but i was wondering if there was like universal png's somewhere? cuz it seems like every apk has its own black bar at the top (for the pull down tray)
maybe this is in the wrong forum?
try looking in the themes thread, i am sure I saw a guide to creating themes somewhere...
take a look at the Dream/Magic/Sapphire boards there are several threads about this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=574167
should help

Theming Help - How do I know which images to change?

Hey all. I'm not sure if this question has an obvious answer, but...how on earth do you know what images to change when creating a theme? It took me a while to realize that the dialpad was in the contacts apk, and I'm constantly searching for which image goes with the corresponding image on the phone. Is there an easy way to look at, say, the messaging app, and know which images within the apk I need to edit? It can't be simple trial and error, or I'm sure many of you would've gone crazy creating the themes you've brought here. Please, if anyone can point me in the right direction I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

Categories

Resources