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The icon is extremely ugly. Is there a way to replace the icon?
go on a treasure hunt through the apk's to find which one its in, then adb pull it to your computer. Extract it (keeping the original) and find the image. Pray that it isn't a .9.png or you will have to learn to edit those. Once you have the image changed, then just drop it back into the original archive, replacing the old image. Then you will have to adb rm the apk, then install the apk (or push)
lol... Have fun
(this is assuming it is in one of HTC's apk's, considering I really have no clue what widget you are speaking of, its late...)
I want to do the same thing for the Profiles Settings widget icon. But I'm not going to because it sounds crazy.
Hey guys, just getting into theming and got a few questions. I've been around the block more than a few times with skining, designing and all. Use to own and run a rather large sized graphics forum and skined god knows how many skins for ipb and vb boards. So I thought to myself that theming my phone should not be any different, just minus the html and css.
Now for my questions
filename.9.png, I take it that these images are ones that are tiled, correct? And is the ".9.png" is something that the system sees and says, "ok this needs to tile this way" or is it an actual file extension? If so how does one handle them in photoshop?
Thanks in advance
Posted by some phone named the Epic.
They're not tiled, they're stretched. As for using them with photoshop, there are two routes. You can add a one pixel transparent border around your image, then add pure black in the needed areas (described momentarily) or you can download the android sdk, go into tools and use the draw9patch program to make your .png into a .9.png. Now, the way it works for stretching is that the bottom and right sides of the image determine how the image stretches (play around wit draw9patch to see this best), while the left and top determine where the center of the image is and where text will be placed, if I'm not mistaken. Modifying any .9.png file will immediately ruin it and the borders will need to be re-added. However, you can simply steal them from other themes (I reccomend IDIOT, check the samsung mesmerize forums).
If you modify it, if must be recompiled not simply placed back in the apk with 7zip.. because the borders aren't seen after they are compiled... so either decompile with apkmanager and edit and recompile... or pull the 9patch with 7zip edit compile it alone with xultimate9 and put it back in with 7 zip
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Thanks for all the info you two. I'll have to look into all that when I get home from work.
Posted by some phone named the Epic.
While I was researching how to go about creating my own theme I noticed quite a few different approaches to dealing with the infamous .9.png image files. I was curious about why they were so difficult before I attempted to edit them so I did a lot of reading on these boards but when it came to actually doing the editing I found it quite simple. With all my reading and after talking to a few other themers this method isn't mentioned anywhere that I know of so I figured I'd post a tutorial on how I edit them.
First off, this tutorial assumes that you have a working knowledge of how to use image editing software (I use GIMP) and apk multi-tool/manager (or apktool).
Things you need:
1. Gimp or another image editing software (this tutorial is based on Gimp)
2. APK Multi-Tool/Manager or apktool (tut. is based on APK Multi-Tool)
3. The apk that contains the images you wish to edit
4. TIME and PATIENCE!
Ok, first off you need to be able to see the ever important 1px border in the .9.png you want to edit so this requires you to decompile the apk that contains the images to be edited. Therefore go ahead and decompile the apk. Once you have that done you can go ahead and minimize the script window so you can work on them.
Now, go into the folder named "projects" and in there you'll find your decompiled apk. Right click on the folder that contains the images you want to edit and click on "Copy". Now move to your desktop (or wherever you want to save the folder) and "Paste" the folder there.
Double click on the folder and navigate to the .9.png you are wanting to edit. Right click on that image and select "edit with Gimp".
Once the image is open in Gimp "zoom" in to 800% so you can actually see the 1px border and use the rectangle marquee tool to select everything inside that border. Then you can make any edits you'd like to the image.
Once done editing the image, and if it's not still selected, go back to the marquee tool and, once again, select everything inside that 1px border. Right click over the image and select EDIT>CUT.
Close the image by clicking on the "X" in the top, right corner but when the window pops up asking if you want to save your changes click "DON'T SAVE". This is the important step!!
Go back to your folder where the original image is located that you are wanting to edit, you'll notice it went back to it's un-edited state. This is what you want. Open the same image file again in Gimp and again, zoom in to 800% so you can see the border.
Select everything inside that border using the rectangle marquee tool and then hit the delete key on your keyboard. That should clear out the image.
Right click on the image again and select EDIT>PASTE. You're edited image should show up where you cut out the old one.
Make sure that the one pixel border is NOT inside the dotted selection line and your pasted image isn't over the 1px border all the way around.
Anchor your image by clicking anywhere outside of it in the same window. (you'll see the little anchor show up by your cursor when you can click to anchor your pasted image) Now the hard part is done!! All you have to do is close the image you edited by clicking on the "X" again and this time you want to hit SAVE.
Voila.. your .9.png is edited and your 1px border is left untouched. Repeat the above steps on all the .9.png files you want to edit and when you're finished your editing move the folder from wherever you saved it back into the projects folder of apk multi-tool and compile your apk.
This is how I've done all my .9.png files and I have never had any errors!
Good luck and Happy Theming!
ttfn
CDL.
Thank you CDL for sharing what you have learned... this is what xda is all about...
Yea it's a lot easier if you just decompile the apk files then edit them and recompile, just make sure not to touch those borders unless it's what you want.
If your only trying to change one file and don't want to go through the whole process I recommend decompiling the apk and just sticking the one image you wanted to edit into XUltimate and converting the image by itself so you can easily place it back into your apk without the compiling, especially if you get errors.
Great tutorial, thanks for posting this.
So what's the trick with the mms bubbles .9s? Something goes wrong when I try to edit those, I had actually created all new custom bubbles with PSCS4 for sent, pressed, etc etc. The result was miss aligned text with bubbles...the text was outside instead of inside, and never could make it work....aaaahhhhhh! All that work! Lol
XML edits and all other edits worked fine, but not those damn bubbles!
Oh, I used draw9patch to re-add the .9 to the PNG.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
Duce HD2 said:
Great tutorial, thanks for posting this.
So what's the trick with the mms bubbles .9s? Something goes wrong when I try to edit those, I had actually created all new custom bubbles with PSCS4 for sent, pressed, etc etc. The result was miss aligned text with bubbles...the text was outside instead of inside, and never could make it work....aaaahhhhhh! All that work! Lol
XML edits and all other edits worked fine, but not those damn bubbles!
Oh, I used draw9patch to re-add the .9 to the PNG.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly, I'm not sure although it sounds like your 9patch isn't working correctly... and since I have never tried to mess with them I can't tell you how to fix it.. sorry.
What I'd do if I were you is use the original bubble image as a basis for your new images. I'm sure as long as you keep your custom bubble inside of those borders it should show up properly. If you wanted to you could create a separate image all together and then just cut and paste inside the original 1px border? Dunno if that'd work but that's something I'd try. Just remember, it won't work at all if the original image isn't decompiled first.
Duce HD2 said:
Great tutorial, thanks for posting this.
So what's the trick with the mms bubbles .9s? Something goes wrong when I try to edit those, I had actually created all new custom bubbles with PSCS4 for sent, pressed, etc etc. The result was miss aligned text with bubbles...the text was outside instead of inside, and never could make it work....aaaahhhhhh! All that work! Lol
XML edits and all other edits worked fine, but not those damn bubbles!
Oh, I used draw9patch to re-add the .9 to the PNG.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Duce send me ur bubbles and Ill fix em. Sounds like you moved the patches.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
ssconceptz said:
Duce send me ur bubbles and Ill fix em. Sounds like you moved the patches.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be great, thanks for the help! I'll get back on them this weekend and send them over.
Crazy, thanks for the advice! They work fine if I change the hue of the originals etc, but I didn't like the shape, so I made them squaresh, kinda of like the ones included in the ICS theme, but with transparent center. So pretty much a thin border etc..I thought it looked cool.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
i must be stupid or something
i dont understand
can someone post a video
When I first started porting themes and editing colors, I manually readded all lines. There's A LOT of .9s in framework-res alone, so it was torture. This method is the one I use now and I thank you for letting others know so they don't have to spend so much time like I did.
This method def works thanks for making it so easy! Although the apkmultitool Windows Version 1.0.2 doesn't want to compile for it's life. Downgraded to 1.0.1 works great now...wish i tried that first after like 30 mins of playing with stuff SMH
Glad this actually helped someone out! I didn't see any reference to this method anywhere on here when I was first searching.. but I do have to admit it wasn't a thorough search
ttfn
CDL.
Ok so what I have been trying to do and have had semi luck is making the phone look like ics. Some of the themes I have tried on here work almost to that extent. Except for the fact that like in the settings there is some ugly ics picture which matches nothing on the phone. The picture is the wallpaper behind the settings spot. I wanted to try and change the background all black. SO what I did was to copy the default theme apk and move it to sd. Change the apk to zip file and the pc then take out the files which I found, paint then black and move them all back and rename. Give them the correct permisions and bam it works..... Except now it makes my phone super laggy, even after wiping catche and dalv....
Another thing I have tried doing is making the contact screen and dialer match the theme.. Like having the phone dialer look the same... not happening.
Please help thanks
Sent from my LT15a Arc using XDA App
go to android themes section,you can get many tutorial for apk theming,a bit hard to understand but it is the right way,not just change to zip,unzip,and zip it back,it need to be decompile and recompile properly,and sign,hope this help
from my I.See.Ass for ARC
I have a theme request for the Galaxy Nexus... I've tried doing this myself, but with my novice level of expertise, I'm afraid it's hopeless...
I really detest the new "Evil Snowman" image that shows up for all contacts without a pic, caller ID, text messages and some icons. I have no idea why Google chose this image. The little robot was much nicer. Anyway, if anyone has the time, I would really appreciate a theme that keeps everything stock, but replaces all the horrible "Evil Snowman" images with something better - a little Android Robot would be great.
I'd be happy to donate to anyone that can do this.
Thanks so much...
if you look a little further back in this forum (or maybe it was in Rootzwiki, not sure which) there were a few themed apks and zips that I found I looked through them but never saw anything that interested me.
I looked too... The problem is that I really just want a stock look, and no snowman. I don't want to change everything else.
Matt_TX said:
I looked too... The problem is that I really just want a stock look, and no snowman. I don't want to change everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what img do you want there instead? i can do that for you as i get back home.
tell me what rom/version you're using too
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
etoy said:
what img do you want there instead? i can do that for you as i get back home.
tell me what rom/version you're using too
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly, I'm not that fussy... Perhaps a little Android man in a color scheme that goes with the stock look.
The problem is that the snowman is everywhere... Here's a list of places I've seen, there may be more...
- Phone App / Contacts
- Caller ID
- Conference Call
- Messaging
- People App Icon
- People App top of screen
- People App contacts
If you can do this for me, I would be delighted... I will also gladly donate if it works.
BTW, I'm running Stock 4.0.4 for the CDMA/LTE Galaxy Nexus (Rooted and De-odexed)
EDIT: I like the contact image shown here, but perhaps in colors that better fit the stock look:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1467139
I agree with you Matt...although I never thought of the stock 'unknown' contact image as an Evil Snowman, lol.
Anyways, the files that you want to change are in framework-res.apk\res\drawable-xhdpi\ic_contact_pictureXXXX.png. Attached to this post below, you'll find a quick screengrab that I took from my theme's working project folder.
Speaking of which, I will be updating my PCB Blue theme to include the Android robot image (specifically 'ic_contact_picture_2.png') by default, as I also prefer it over the "Evil Snowman"
You should be able to just edit framework-res.apk with WinRAR since you're only replacing normal PNG files. Extract them first, rename them, then drop them back into the .APK...on the other hand, if you like my PCB Blue theme, you can always wait for the next version where that will be done.
** EDIT ** - I am attaching the 3 untouched PNGs from framework-res.apk to make things a bit easier for you. They have been renamed properly to have Android use the robot as default. You therefore shouldn't need to do anything else but pop them into your framework-res.apk (many guides exist on how to edit this file, but the quick version would be to use ADB in Recovery to make changes (pull --> edit --> push --> set permissions) to the file.
Also, it may be possible that the other apps/APKs have their own resource image for an unknown contact. If that's the case, you'll have to dive into those APKs too (I only mod framework-res.apk myself, didn't peek into any others).
Hope that helps.
scar45 said:
I agree with you Matt...although I never thought of the stock 'unknown' contact image as an Evil Snowman, lol.
Anyways, the files that you want to change are in framework-res.apk\res\drawable-xhdpi\ic_contact_pictureXXXX.png. Attached to this post below, you'll find a quick screengrab that I took from my theme's working project folder.
Speaking of which, I will be updating my PCB Blue theme to include the Android robot image (specifically 'ic_contact_picture_2.png') by default, as I also prefer it over the "Evil Snowman"
You should be able to just edit framework-res.apk with WinRAR since you're only replacing normal PNG files. Extract them first, rename them, then drop them back into the .APK...on the other hand, if you like my PCB Blue theme, you can always wait for the next version where that will be done.
** EDIT ** - I am attaching the 3 untouched PNGs from framework-res.apk to make things a bit easier for you. They have been renamed properly to have Android use the robot as default. You therefore shouldn't need to do anything else but pop them into your framework-res.apk (many guides exist on how to edit this file, but the quick version would be to use ADB in Recovery to make changes (pull --> edit --> push --> set permissions) to the file.
Also, it may be possible that the other apps/APKs have their own resource image for an unknown contact. If that's the case, you'll have to dive into those APKs too (I only mod framework-res.apk myself, didn't peek into any others).
Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Scar,
The snowman is definitely evil. I feel like he is mocking me with that sideways smile. I don't like it... Hahaha... Just kidding
From what I can tell, the contacts.apk, phone.apk and mms.apk all have their own "snowman" images so I think they would all have to be edited. I know that I can do this using 7-zip, but it's really a bit beyond my comfort level right now. I'm still learning
If I edit the framwork-res.apk, does it override the files in the individual apps? It sounds like it doesnt. BTW, your image with the droid at 45 degrees is fantastic. It is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. Do you have a larger version for to replace the one that shows up with caller ID?
Thanks,
Matt.
Matt_TX said:
Scar,
The snowman is definitely evil. I feel like he is mocking me with that sideways smile. I don't like it... Hahaha... Just kidding
From what I can tell, the contacts.apk, phone.apk and mms.apk all have their own "snowman" images so I think they would all have to be edited. I know that I can do this using 7-zip, but it's really a bit beyond my comfort level right now. I'm still learning
If I edit the framwork-res.apk, does it override the files in the individual apps? It sounds like it doesnt. BTW, your image with the droid at 45 degrees is fantastic. It is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. Do you have a larger version for to replace the one that shows up with caller ID?
Thanks,
Matt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO! You know, the more I look @ him, the more I dislike him too...especially with that sideways smirk...
If you did check those other APKs and see snowman images, then yep, it's quite certain that those APKs will need to be modded. I use WinRAR and it couldn't be easier...one thing you must remember is to choose ZERO or STORE compression when working with 'framework-res.apk' and possibly others. They are not compressed in the ROMs (at least AOKP, which I run).
So, if you edit only framework-res.apk, then it probably will NOT change the caller ID, contacts photos, etc.. In terms of the image, I took that directly from 'framework-res.apk', so I unfortunately don't have a better/larger image. You might try Photoshop/GIMP, using an image resize method that is "better for enlargement".
Cheers Matt!
I'm still no further forward in my quest to kill the snowman. I like the robot image posted above, but the issue is that it's 108x108 pixels. I basically need 4 different images. One light grey as shown which is 128x128, this will work for the People App, MMS and the Framework. Then I need a darker one which is also 128x128 for the contacts list in the phone app. Next I need a dark image which is 360x360 (for caller ID screen) and another light image which is 360x360 for the People app (viewing a contact).
In summary:
128x128 light grey
128x128 dark grey
360x360 light grey
360x360 dark grey
I have tried to resize the image, but it looks like crap. Can someone please help me? I think I can get this done with the right png files.
Thanks,
Matt.
Matt_TX said:
I'm still no further forward in my quest to kill the snowman. I like the robot image posted above, but the issue is that it's 108x108 pixels. I basically need 4 different images. One light grey as shown which is 128x128, this will work for the People App, MMS and the Framework. Then I need a darker one which is also 128x128 for the contacts list in the phone app. Next I need a dark image which is 360x360 (for caller ID screen) and another light image which is 360x360 for the People app (viewing a contact).
In summary:
128x128 light grey
128x128 dark grey
360x360 light grey
360x360 dark grey
I have tried to resize the image, but it looks like crap. Can someone please help me? I think I can get this done with the right png files.
Thanks,
Matt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looking for the same here. Any luck?