Just wanted to create a Post so people can bounce ideas off each other as to what would be necessary to change themes on the fly. How does a normal phone change themes?
i just have a folder on my SD card called themes and i update it everyday with everytheme and the latest version of each, the themes folder has all my themes separated into adp1 adp1.1 rc30 and rc33 and i use linda file manager to move them to the root and rename them. i can flash any theme anytime i want. and if a new one comes out while i'm not near a computer i download with steel and try it out.this is the best way as far as i can see, at least with the tools i have access too
anyone seen the iphone emulator? it actually works where it will open a program associated with the icon, could that possibly help get a way to theme similar to how summerboard works?
jdwme said:
anyone seen the iphone emulator? it actually works where it will open a program associated with the icon, could that possibly help get a way to theme similar to how summerboard works?
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That's not even close to being a theme though.
A proper theme is more than just smoe icons.
IE. iKid has a much nicer looking media player.
i use the exact same method w the themes on sdcard... i take it one step further... i use andftp to upload to my qctx.org server and upload directly tested themes... so i can access and organize however i need
- great for backing up sdcards
This is how I edit my themes on the fly
Walkthrough for creating your own Android theme
First you need to get signing setup properly. This topic is covered in many places and my recommendation is to use the Stericson walkthrough or the Stericson auto-signing setup tool. Once you can click on any zip or apk file and get the option to Resign it you are ready to proceed with making your own theme.
1. Download an archive manager that allows you to open archives inside of archives without creating new windows. My recommendation for this is the application 7-zip. It is tiny, free, easy to use, and on all my computers it has replaced winzip and winrar.
2. Now take a blank theme from Stericson to use as your starting point, this will be the minimum needed to change your theme and will contain all the original artwork.
3. Open the update.zip and inside are typically 3 files, framework, system or app, and META-INF. Leave META-INF alone, you wont be touching that. Inside framework and system/app is where the files are that you can change. In this case we will open update.zip, then double click framework and then double click framework-res.apk (this is where the next archive will open inside the same window, your life just got a little easier).
4. Now you are looking at assets, META-INF, res, and a couple other random files, the resources.arsc can be edited but I will show you that in another tutorial. Now open up the folder res and you will see the treasure we are searching for, folders with the name drawable. All of the folders that start with the name drawable are where we can edit the themes, this includes drawable, drawable-land, drawable-port, and drawable-finger.
5. Now drag and drop the folders drawable and drawable-land onto the desktop. Once they are on the desktop you can edit the .png files in those folders until you are ready to put your theme together.
6. Now in your still open window at \framework\framework-res.apk\res\ you will open the drawable folders one at a time and drag and drop your edited files into the archive, only dragging and dropping the files you edited and not just everything inside the folder.
7. Once you have your new images copied into the archive in the correct place you can just hit the close button or browse up a couple directories and find other files to edit. Any time you edit an apk and browse out of it or close it you will be prompted to update it in the archive by 7-zip (this is my secret shortcut), always press ok.
8. Now you have a freshly created theme ready to install, all you have to do is right click, chose to Resign the file, and once its done you can copy it to your SDcard, make sure its named update.zip, and flash your new theme.
Its literally that easy! And you use this same technique in the system/app folder to edit the apk files for the individual apps on the phone. Explore around in the update.zip and see what you can find, I only told you about the major items but there is plenty more to find and change. You can always copy a folder out of the archive and if you cant edit anything just toss it but if you can find something to edit, do so and throw it back in the archive. You guys now have all the info I had when I started plus all my tricks to making that process 10x easier.
jdwme said:
anyone seen the iphone emulator? it actually works where it will open a program associated with the icon, could that possibly help get a way to theme similar to how summerboard works?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing with the iPhone is that the applications are just folders with a .app extension at the end. This allows one to easily replace resources inside of them using just simple scripts.
In Android, the applications are zip files with an extension of .apk and must be signed. This makes it harder to replace resources on the fly.
I use the Discover App from the MarketPlace. I have a folder called Themes in my SD Card which I have separate folders labeled with the name of the theme. Inside the folder I have the update.zip. With discover I just move the update zips in and out of the folders to change themes.
Rich
So I am running SalvageMod, they have their own set of wallpapers.
Then there are the "system" wallpapers that come with 2.3.3
Then I also have a folder on my SD card that I dropped in there from a ZIP I found online.
How can I combine, at least, the GB wallpapers with the Salvage Mod wallpapers? Since they are both on the internal storage of the phone.
The easiest option is to use 7zip to open the apk files for the backgrounds and extract the backgrounds. You can then have them all in a folder on your SD.
I guess Im curious to know where the system wallpapers and where the Salvage wallpapers are located on the internal memory.
System/app and then some sort of wallpapers apk. Wallpapers are in an app.
I recently received my Galaxy Nexus - and love it!
My idea was to keep it as stock as possible, but I wanted to change the look and feel to be more minimal, without having to install a non-stock launcher or use a different ROM. (The inspiration for this came from Nitroz's 'Black Exodus' theme.)
Phone : Galaxy Nexus, Rooted, now with a slightly modified stock ICS 4.0.2
There were a number of posts all around the Internet that led me in the right direction. To the cast of thousands who shared their information - Thank You!! The instructions below are just a compilation of the work already out there, but hopefully as they are in one place they will speed things up if you want to do this.
I am assuming that any future OTA updates will reset this.
Instructions for a Newbie (like me)
Requires :
One Rooted Galaxy Nexus
Way of getting files on and off the phone - I am using ES File Explorer
7-Zip on a PC
The new icons
The icons are located in the APK files located in the \system\apps folder.
To change the SMS icon
On the phone
Backup the original \system\apps\mms.apk file
Copy the \system\apps\mms.apk to a PC with 7-ZIP installed
On the PC
Open with 7-Zip (DO NOT EXTRACT)
Change to the res\mipmap-xhdpi folder
Drag and drop the new PNG file (ic_launcher_smsmms.png) over top the old one.
Copy the APK file back to \system\apps on the phone
The phone does not require a reset, but you will need to add the icons back.
To change the Contacts and Phone icons
These are located in the \system\apps\contacts.apk.
Folder - res\mipmap-xhdpi
Files - ic_launcher_phone.png, and ic_launcher_contacts.png
To change the Browser icon
These are located in the \system\apps\BrowserGoogle.apk.
Folder - res\mipmap-xhdpi
File - ic_launcher_browser.png
To change the App Drawer icon
These are located in the \system\apps\launcher2.apk.
Folder - \res\drawable-xhdpi\
File - ic_allapps.png
Removing the line above the App Doc
The file from the phone to edit is \system\apps\launcher2.apk.
On the PC create a blank file called hotseat_track_holo.9.png.
Overwrite the file in the /res/drawable-xhdpi directory of laucher2.apk
Just a thought, but Nova Launcher looks exactly like the stock launcher, but you can change the icons to whatevery .png you want directly from the homescreen. They will remain even after updates to the app. It's entirely up to you, but i thought that might save you a ton of work
And save myself 2 days of pain and frustration?? ;-) It was a good learning exersize, although when the config gets nuked by an update, and I don't have the time to play, I will look at using a different launcher. Thanks for highlighting Nova as an option.
ok, so, if you're on a sense rom, and you have htc hub etc, you can download a whole load of extra scenes, wallpapers, soundsets etc...where do these download to? your internal or your sd card? and could these all be collated into on big zip file so that people could just download it all at once instead of having to click through every single wallpaper? is this even something that people would be interested in?
The skins are downloaded into ".data" folder in the sdcard(these files are hidden by default in file explorers"
Don't remember about the scenes and wallpapers
I think the wallpapers are downloaded into "/system/customize/resource"
What folder is the wallpapers in? I'm making a few and want to install them.
There is not "wallpaper folder" you can put them anywhere on your sd card. If you mean to put them in system wallpapers then you need to do a bunch of zipping and unzipping then they are somewhere in the /rez folder of the launcher.apk
Never mind... I figured it out.