Develop Bugs

(Help) with compiling...help?

I'm not a dev or professional themer, just a wannabe...lol
I'd like to theme (I know about the tutorials and I know how to search), I'm just can't seem to get apks to compile without getting an error. I'm using apk manager. Decompiles fine, edit xlm etc, compile, get error. I was able to make it work when I was on the vibrant, framework and everything.
Not sure how to use dependencies....(help on how to set up?... I know how to edit .9pngs along with other stuff. But for the life of me I can't f'ing compile. And that results in nothing. Maybe one of the many talented people in here could help. TIA
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

Is it just me....???

I feel really stupid on this forum. Everyone is so smart and knows what their doing most of the time. You all talk the lingo and I'm lost half the time. I'm trying to play catch up, read and learn as much as I can. How did all of you learn this stuff? I'm searching these forums and googling everything! I'm a new Android user(obviously)and I love my Nitro, minus the horrible battery life. I really like the fact that these phones can be modified a lot. So far I've rooted my phone and did the no carrier, blue icons and battery % mods.
Now that my 30 days is over, I can NOT screw up my phone. Basically I'm not going to do a thing to it till I have a clue. I guess there's a de-bricking write up, but that is CONFUSING as hell to me. I just need lots of detail, pictures, or better yet, a video to learn that kind of stuff. Reading how do the CWM doesn't look too bad, only because I googled it for the Nitro and there's already a few cites that made a clear write up. Installing a custom ROM doesn't look to hard either. However, all the modifications to these ROMS is overwhelming. Back to Google I go for all of that stuff stuff. I just figured out how to use Titanium Backup Pro, I think. What isn't clear is how to restore my phone with the apps/contacts after a custom ROM is installed. I know theirs more I'm forgetting, but that's enough for now.
I'm not ranting, just slightly frustrated don't understand it all. Not really sure what I want out of writing all this. Maybe some guidance, help, insight and or some answers to some of my questions. Thanks for reading!

It's not you, it's just like picking up on a computer, it takes time. I'm still a noob my most standards. I'm on my 3rd Android phone and know my way around my phones, but I don't know anything about development and don't really know my way around the Android file system that well. Here are some common terms that may help you out.
ADB - Android Debug Bridge, used for running commands to your device from your computer
Fastboot - It allows you to connect to your phone and run commands without booting entirely into your rom
CWM - ClockWorkMod, most common non-stock recovery tool
Bootloader - This partition loads your rom or recovery depending on what you need / select
If there's anything you're curious about just ask and I'm sure someone will help out. My ADB and Fastboot definitions are from my very limited understanding.
Check this out too, should be helpful. Found it on Google.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=619153

You'll do just fine so long as you don't try to do too much too soon.
I got started by simply rooting my AMOLED DROID Incredible, following some online guides. After that, I removed some bloatware. I kept reading about how to do more and once Cyanogenmod 7 came out for my phone, I used it. I've stuck with it ever since.
There are other things I'd like to know, too, like if I can get remove stock applications when I'm already using replacements (browser, email, messaging, etc.). But that might have to wait until I upgrade my device so that I can try it on this phone and not the new one.
Anyway, I hear ya when it comes to the steep learning curve. Baby steps, man. Baby steps. You'll get there in due time.
Sent from my AMOLED DInc using XDA App

Man, you haven't lived until you brick your brand new first android phone within a week and a half of purchasing it off contract I almost shat bricks, I thought my phone was a lost cause.

1st andoid device for me too but I love the customization that it provides and dont like the risks. The biggest mistake I have made so far is getting stressed about change. Consequently, I will lose some patience and not follow a direction properly or think through a step like I should.
I did start with TB pro aswell but still broke my phone by freezing the stock launcher then later doing a factory reset. But I would have avoided that if I had been more patient and doublechecked what I had frozen prior. The good news is that caused me to dive in to Malninion's debrick guide which forced me to learn the basics of accessing this phone through the computer and issueeing commands which are all pretty straightforward albeit uncharted territory for me.
Now that I have a basic idea of how to use the basic tool kit I will be installing the cwm but I am waiting a bit longer to let any issues reveal themselves and more importantly see how folks really o er from those issues. Then after getting a better understanding of wtf cwm is ! I will instaall/ flash one of the custom roms after giving them a bit of time to sort themselves out as well.
So basically my strategy is to go slow, don't jump right on with a new dev until those more knowledgeable about it do and give it a good going over.

So now I'm trying to read how to use Titanium Backup to restore your apps after a you install a new ROM.
I found this> http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/viewsonic-gtablet-technical/12513-howto-titanium-backup-restore-apps-system-data-new-rom.html I know not to restore system data though.
Now what is frustrating is this: (If you have the donate version, don't forget to save your TitaniumBackup_license that is in the root folder.)
I have the Pro version, that I am 100% sure and it all works. What I think is my root folder, there is NOTHING in there (/root). I tried a search using Root Explorer and looked in Astro. I can't find my TitaniumBackup_license.txt file. I've google searched trying to find where it is and apparently it's a big secret that everybody knows but me.

It's really easy once you do it a few time's, if you need help let me know.

[Q] Wiped it all

In an attempt to set a factory reset and have an ICS backup ROM after trying to eliminate small bugs from the JB flash (Jelly Belly w/ the fix), I erased everything by formatting data, system, and cache. The bugs were on my side of things, which is why I was trying to build from scratch.
I made the fatal error of formatting all of the above info before I had pushed Liquid's JB, and when it was time to flash the file, I had nothing.....Now, I have my buddy helping me trying to rebuild this from scratch...
I am an idiot and had no attention span today and had the same feeling that you have when you watch yourself lock your keys in your car (unless you are the dbag that doesn't feel it is "necessary to have a car in London." -Shaun of the Dead)
I joke that I was going to send my phone to Koush and give him a challenge....but he is too busy.
Any suggestions are wanted.
Right now, it appears that I have problems with the drivers. Remember, the only functional part of the phone is the bootloader and recovery mode. Cannot access USB debugging etc. b/c I can't boot the phone past the google unlock screen
Here is what I/we have done:
changed batteries
tried to load the google 4.0.2 image
load JB, ICS roms and anything stock that my friend has backed up
Reinstall the drivers
reinstall the su.zip
cheers
GN Verizon
No Rom
No Kernel
No Radios
No Nothin

Do you have adb? Have you tried to go back to stock following this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1529058

Affirmative on the ADB. Working on trying to push through drivers and everything else right now. The problem is that ADB does not see the device

You don't use ADB to flash images. Use the bootloader and fastboot on your computer.
Follow efrants guide on how to flash back to stock. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1626895
You should be back up and running.

Thanks for the clarification. Like I said, I had a safety net installed, but realized it was too late to save it before I wiped everything.
On a side not, I agree with your rant about toolkits and how they allow users who do not know what is really going on to play around with their devices, (users like me). I do not think that this is a bad thing though. I guess you have to ask the developers how they feel about the increased numbers of users and the support given through purchasing apps and their ROMS and Kernels. I am trying to learn how to manually build this stuff, but I never have rooted before, and if you had the ability to flash awesome new ROMS and Kernels that allowed for easy customization on your G1, could you honestly say that you wouldn't flash them the easy way while trying to learn the ropes? This is a function of an advancing technology. There will always be the pioneers who taught themselves from day 1 and are a little upset with those of us who come in and make it mainstream and cause a lot of problems and frustration. There is a learning curve, and the noobs/people-who-suck-at-this make it frustrating for those who have been in the game for a long time. But without a mainstream audience, there would not be the development that you are seeing today.
So I thank you for your patience and help. I am in the same spot you were in when you were teaching yourself on the G1, the only difference is that I have many more options and tools to use, so why shouldn't I use them?

hairfarmer said:
Thanks for the clarification. Like I said, I had a safety net installed, but realized it was too late to save it before I wiped everything.
On a side not, I agree with your rant about toolkits and how they allow users who do not know what is really going on to play around with their devices, (users like me). I do not think that this is a bad thing though. I guess you have to ask the developers how they feel about the increased numbers of users and the support given through purchasing apps and their ROMS and Kernels. I am trying to learn how to manually build this stuff, but I never have rooted before, and if you had the ability to flash awesome new ROMS and Kernels that allowed for easy customization on your G1, could you honestly say that you wouldn't flash them the easy way while trying to learn the ropes? This is a function of an advancing technology. There will always be the pioneers who taught themselves from day 1 and are a little upset with those of us who come in and make it mainstream and cause a lot of problems and frustration. There is a learning curve, and the noobs/people-who-suck-at-this make it frustrating for those who have been in the game for a long time. But without a mainstream audience, there would not be the development that you are seeing today.
So I thank you for your patience and help. I am in the same spot you were in when you were teaching yourself on the G1, the only difference is that I have many more options and tools to use, so why shouldn't I use them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your comment. I reiterated a few times in that thread that I don't think toolkits are necessarily bad. I was just stating the problems they may cause. They do serve a purpose.
Many people in this forum get stuck and make panic threads giving no information about how they messed up their phone. Which doesn't leave people who are here to help much to work with. The frustration with that led me to make that post.
Your thread asking for help was an informative one and I have no problem trying to help someone like your self. You did it the right way.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

App Feedback

Hey Guys,
So I havent seen anything like this yet. But if there is someone that has seen an app like this feel free to point me in that direction. A lot if you have noticed there is a lot of power and hidden features that lie within the features.xml file for our device (and it looks like any samsung device running JB also supports this file). I am thinking of building a GUI for this file to simplify the editing of a lot of these settings/flags within this file. Before someone asks well why would you do this. I can just edit this with any text editor? Well this file is quite huge and can be quite daunting to go through. And a lot of people are afraid to perform XML edits. So wouldnt it just be nice to have a little app that lists all the hidden settings for your phone by category and turn them on/off. Similiar concept as build prop editing however it looks like samsung maybe be moving a lot more settings into the features.xml file. So if there are people interested in this. And I get enough positive feedback then I can start on it and I will also need beta testers. If things go as expected this should run on ANY samsung device running JB.

That would be sweet app. I would use it.

I'm in! I'd love to test it for you!

Sounds like a solid idea to me. I'd use it
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

ROM Building: The Basics Part I

Ever wanted to customize your own rom?
I mean really customize it the way you wanted?
I came across this question as I got my phone, well technically before I even had it my hands, I wanted my phone to be set to a certain expectation. I got it and I was impressed that the Sprint S3 I had was faster than my previous Photon 4g. But did it do what I wanted exactly?
Boot Sounds: how can I restart my phone and try a new rom with such nonsense?
Boot Animation: pathetic
Touch Sounds: Ploink sounded like a stall at a restroom
Touch unlock: An Okay button seriously get over it Android
The list can go on forever. The point is there are many things you can do. I mean have you seen the amazing developers here. I was inspired to try it myself after watching these guys just chug along and keep making their roms better and better. To be honest, we wouldnt be here if we were curious and wanted to contribute(without expecting anything). I find the general forums to have so much information and so many questions that could be answered by making a tutorial of the basics for the Sprint S3. I mention this phone specific because well as you start diving into it, some of the code we may enter on this tutorial will in fact not work for other phones or vice versa. I suppose this is a teach a man to fish situation(as opposed to giving fishes)
Lets begin and by all means if this is in the wrong forum please let me know, I will get it over to the correct area asap.
So you want a starting point, a place to start. well you can do article after article forum search and so forth but lets start fresh:
We will need a rom to begin with, grab those from this amazing guy's thread. Freeza is boss, a great contributor, he is very knowlegable and I havent even talked to the guy. But we are for information so I digress no more.
You got the link open do you? The choice now comes what do you download? Odexed, Deodexed, kernel, firmware AHHHH so much info, start slow and break down what in the world you want to do. Do you want to theme your rom and make it look Wicked like our badass team Team Wicked's rom of blue goodness? seriously its sexy. Do you want to just take out bloatware and keep it clean stock without junk and some mods guess what, this is the best place to choose those options.
Odexed rom: Think of it as android caching a program so it can load up faster, its supposed to serve as a time boost during first boot and "supposed" to be faster than DeOdex but I have found they are about the same. Odex is a little trick as the way Android makes the cache file is with, you guessed it, an additional .ODEX file. This file is like a sneak peak into the file so Android can load it "faster". This is also a problem when you want to make major modifications to your phone's color and the sort. This where we get to DeOdex
DeOdexed rom: This is the best choice for working with a rom. It removes the .ODEX file from the rom and keeps your files editable with much more ease. Seriously I tried both and OMG was it easier to use DeOdexed after a while I realized theming any of this SUCKED. I mean here I did all this artwork change and I see this ODEX file. And crash when I loaded. It becomes a simple goal if you need to perform tasks like modifying pictures and themes, any apk in the rom and even the java files.
Kernel: I am not a professor on this topic, I know this much, the kernel is basically a really smart piece of software that tells how your hardware how to act. It is critical to make sure the kernel you select goes with what you need to do. Wrong kernel can tell the hardware to something funky. I have from experience chosen the MD4(4/24/13) Kernel optimized that will be used for the sake of this tutorial but by all means master the easy stuff I am going through before you want to launch Satellites into space to save Black Mesa.
The firmware: A common misconception is that the firmare/modem/baseband should be always modified to the latest one from the manufacturer. This might not necessarily be true. Remember, a new update to this might enhance your signal or ruin it. And with Sprint have spotty network in 99 percent of America (cough cough oops too harsh?) Remember the MD4 is the latest release for official sprint software, the MD4 does represent the date of the release. It is coded ingeniously of course.
So as we modify the software from now on, you must settle on the best option for your needs.
Of course, as I mentioned, I am going to use the DeOdex version of the official software. Of course DeOdexed and then some stuff was added by our awesome Developer Freeza means that it has some good stuff we will need later like rooted automatically with some busybox and Super user installed already.
So you downloaded the zip file. This zip file is just a container for this rom. Like a bucket that holds all the software for your rom.
I would say the best way to get started is to get the tools of the trade.
Notepad++: I mean seriously, who even uses windows notepad anymore( me before I started modifying roms ). This software will make it much easier to work with the various code. I am SHOCKED that it is still free. Mad props to them.
The Android SDK: This lumpy software contains many tools we will need for advanced users. I think the modifications we will need to do here can go without this but remember it is a software development kit that contains critical tools for our android phones. And its free
BakSmali and Smali: I call them the brothers. I also remember that BakSmali will decompile software while Smali will recompile software more on that later. This software is free but very complex, we will have to break it down like a fraction to fully utilize customization and true development.
APKTOOL: sure there is a bunch of "tools" we can get, you dont need that stuff or even a kitchen but you can use this and get a way with it.
7-Zip and WinRar, alright you can use either but I love both, one is free and one is "free", of course use 7-zip for its free of use terms. I got Winrar after the trial kept nagging me to call me a sellout I don't care MOM!
And surprisingly that's all you need to edit the files.
Of course, you will also need things like Photoshop, Sound Forge, Firefox because IE is just wrong,
But these are not necessary to really get the modifications of sounds and pictures and research going: You can use:
Paint.net: This tool is free to use image editing software. It can do wonders on the fly and for free but remember Photoshop is better come on it's not even a debate but for free, I am not arguing.
Audacity: Okay its not Soundforge, Cooledit 2000 for those that remember it, or even Sound recorder for windows but it will get the job done and is free.
Notice the theme here, you can make a rom customize it for free. This is truly amazing for a platform that is Android. While you get this software post some comments below to show me whether or not this is too basic for the majority of help seekers or if I should keep going. After all I learned so much from XDA and the infamous "Google" whatever that is....I am sure we can learn together and make this thread something we can have everyone refer to the basics while letting them be creative.
of course by law, this is education purposes only, dont brick your phone use it as an expensive paperweight and then blame anyone but yourself. Everyone in the threads do them to reduce liability, i guess we are all here to help, but getting sued over shenanagins is not what any of these hard working developers want especially since, like most of the software mentioned here, do it for free. Donate to all you care for and see fit, we have some modding to do team, and I think this will be fun and we can definately burden the forums with more intelligent questions by simply reading through this tutorial and part II

Very good info. Thank you for providing this.
------------------------
Sprint Galaxy S3
Need Help? PM
Hit the "Thanks" button if I helped!

Please keep going, Thank you.

Ahhh...Pt1 was too easy..LOL. Just J/K yes! Part2 please:thumbup:
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Great stuff! Let's keep it going!
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

I would love to learn how to make roms! Keep it going please!
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Thanks
Thanks Guys,
As long as this helps/inspires someone than at least I can give the same chance that this place gave me, always a great community. Except for the...the flame wars but those were so 2005.

Great post... I've often wondered where to start on a ROM and just surfing the Web for info can be conflicting and confusing. I like the straight forward how to approach. Now on to part 2, I may actually give this a shot eventually.
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

This is a great idea/post. I have been curious where to begin on creating and customizing roms. Having a definitive source will be excellent. Keep it coming!!
Sent from space.