Database Develop

Change taskbar color

Hi Guys,
is it possible to change android (magic) taskbar color/theme for the device without root access?
I don't like the boring white, I want black taskbar with white font.
any suggestion will be appreciated .
thanks

I would like the same my device is rooted though

Draxter said:
I would like the same my device is rooted though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dont think it is possible if you aren't rooted. If you are rooted open up the update.zip file you are using as your rom using 7-zip, go to where framework drawable folder is. Open status bar and change its colour, drop it back in and resign app. There are instructions how to do this in themes section of Dream.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=473580
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=471586 I use post number 6 the way i do it.

I'm using the Vodafone rom... I don't think I can get my update.zip from that? I rooted my device with haykuro's stuff in this tutorial.
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Magic_Rooting
I want to keep my Dutch XT9 so I can't flash anything else but smartphone france or my stock vodafone...

all the drawables should be in the root-me rom. open it and have a look for them.

But if they aren't I will brick my device by flashing a wrong framework...

no you wont. All you do is open it and drop in the .pngs you want, then resign it. they will be there in the rom- if not look at one of the other roms- Rogers, or daldroid will have them.
If it does go in to boot loop reboot into recovery and flash the last working rom you have until you figure out what went wrong. The only thing you are changing is the pngs. you shouldnt go intoa bootloop doing this- i have done a heap of theming for myself for the G1 and each time i got a boot loop it was cos i was playing around with services.jar and xml files. each time i just rebooted into recovery and reflashed previous working rom.

The thing is, I don't know which ROM I have... I have rooted my magic by using the android-dls tutorial with haykuro's stuff. There are still some vodafone relics left. I still have the vodafone shortcut, and i still have support for Dutch XT9.
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Magic_Rooting
I haven't made a Nandroid backup and I don't know how to make a backup either so... There is only one alternative, flashing Smartphone France firmware, it has Dutch support. I wouldn't mind trying out that one but that'll be the first time that I flash firmware onto my Magic so I'd like some guidance on MSN with that

Drawer
Im looking for the application drawer button in the res folder that is inside framework... found the status/notification bar and all icons but can't seem to find the app drawer button... i want to change it to a darker grey and make the notification bar black...

the app drawers are in launcher.apk

Easiest/safest way of changing the graphics I have found was to:
1. Connect your phone via USB and make sure you have the drivers installed
2. do adb remount
3. Do a adb pull on /system/framework/framework-res.apk for example
4. Open the apk with something like winrar etc
5. Locate the png files you want to change and extract them
6. make modifications to the files
7. pop back to the apk
8. do an adb push of the file back to the device
I've done this with fairly few apk's such as the launcher.apk and framework-res.apk and never had to resign the file =o)
The advantage is that you are using the file from your phone that you know works =o)) certain apk's don't even need a restart such as the Launcher.apk, I did alot of modding with the app drawer without ever needing to restart the phone.
This is good for changing the images but things like changing the clock color is ALOT harder, it requires you to edit the services.jar file with a hex editor =o(
Hope this helps.

Draxter said:
the app drawers are in launcher.apk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, i did find the file in the launcher.apk, i edited it and all the other files and now need to resign in linux... was looking for the SignApk.jar in the SDK and didn't find it... also tried JF's testsign.jar and didnt work... can anyone point me in the right direction so i can resign the file using test keys in linux.
Thanks,

If you just changed the png's you shouldn't have to resign it

fxn said:
If you just changed the png's you shouldn't have to resign it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about the hour and date font in the status bar... if i change the notification area to black it wont automatically switch to white text... do you know where i can find the parameters to change it?

Some of the text like notification texts etc are held in framework-res.apk xml files in the drawable folder if I remember correctly.
The clock is the difficult one as it is inside services.jar file, its a serious pain in the back side, the dream forum has more info about it but it involves opening up files in hex editor and changing the hex code directly there
I'll be having a look at this and see if I can make step by step guide of this but it is seriously a pain!

Any idea which XML's in framework-re.apk (or other location) hold the various notification font colour(s)?? I can't seem to find it.

[REQ] Captivate Stock AT&T Theme

I would like to flash a new ROM but i like the stock captivate theme the best.
is there any update.zip packages of the default theme floating around? i want to wait until i know i can do it before i flash. Also, is there any way to "rip" the theme from my ROM? because then i can just do that

I posted a request for this a few weeks back and got really no help.... What I did was unzip the framework.apk's from the theme I wanted and from the JH7_OTA that's floating around here somewhere and compared the images in the drawbale-hdpi folder. I think there are some files in tw-framework.apk that need to be changed if you want to change the pull down menu.
Hope this helps

The themes are mostly inside framework-res.apk, which is very ROM-specific. You can't just install them randomly inside one another.
If you'd like to port a theme, you can either replace the image files using 7-zip, WinRAR, etc. or decompile the .apk using APK Manager for more extensive changes (things like battery mods, etc.).

MikeyMike01 said:
The themes are mostly inside framework-res.apk, which is very ROM-specific. You can't just install them randomly inside one another.
If you'd like to port a theme, you can either replace the image files using 7-zip, WinRAR, etc. or decompile the .apk using APK Manager for more extensive changes (things like battery mods, etc.).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what he said ^^^^
but as a beginner's guide, you will need to pull your FRAMEWORK-RES.APK and TWFRAMEWORK-RES.APK from /system/framework folder
For this, you will need to use either ADB or an app like ASTRO or ROOTEXPLORER
when you copy these two apk's to your computer, you will need to open it up (NOT extract it) and simply replace the images inside with those from a stock FRAMEWORK-RES.APK & TWFRAMEWORK-RES.APK
The images you want to change are going to be in res/drawable-hdpi folder
Don't just replace everything, you will need to see which one's are different.. if there is something you want to change and don't know what .png file it is, just post it back up here and I will help you out

[Q] Assonance theme in other ROMs?

Is it possible? I love the theme. Particularly in the notification pull-down thing with the wifi icons and such.

They are just png images in the framework. Depending on what other rom you are wanting to use it on you may be able to just swap out the framework-res.apk and twframework-res.apk in /system/app. Otherwise you can just move the images into the new rom framework files (the ones used are in /res/drawable-hdpi usually). You might be interested in learning to create metamorph zip files as well.

Thank you. However, I extracted the framework-res.apk and I have found some image files, but I see none that are pull-down icons like the GPS, Wifi, Auto-rotate icons. Any help?
Not sure what you mean by metamorph.

Because they're not there.
They're in twframework-res.apk. And you have to edit the status_bar_expanded.xml to get rid of the text.

It is essentially "Gingerbread" with some minor tweaks.
The only issue you might have is when you copy all of the images out of the framework-res.apk -> drawable-hdpl folder that your menu buttons might be a little off. Unless you start out with a Dark theme that has already adjusted the menu to have a black background and white text...
I think there is a Gingerbread theme in the Theme/App forum that would be close to what your looking for.
I was trying to do a MetaMorph for this type of theme but I could never get the *.xml edits needed to overwrite using MetaMorph correctly. (Check the Q&A Sticky for MetaMorph)
... It can be done but it'd be a little more complicated

Okay, I am still trying to understand. I extracted the twframework-res.apk and took out the files from the Assonance theme. I extracted the twframework-res.apk from another theme that I liked, and replaced the Assonance parts I like into it. Now, can I just zip it back up and rename it to .apk? I'm not really sure what to do now.
Thanks for your help so far!
max

editing and replacing Phone.apk

I am trying to edit the icon for the phone.apk to match a theme i'm working with. When I go in and change the icon file in the .apk and try to overwrite it on my phone it either causes a constant FC or the phone app disappears and I cant use it at all. I have tried using a file explorer to do the swap and I have tried editing the phone.apk and putting it into the theme before I flash it. If I put it into the theme before flashing there are no FC's but the icon stays stock. Can someone point me in the right direction?
P.S. I have done this with many other apps such as email.apk and mms.apk and they work fine.

DialerTabActivity.apk not Phone.apk
Sent from my phone

Just tried that and it didn't change anything. Performed a reboot after switching the files.

/res/drawable-hdpi/ic_launcher_phone.png doesn't work?
Just an idea, this might be caused by the ROM or the launcher you're using.

Yep, that's the one I changed. I tried your suggestion and changed launchers also and it did not effect the icon.

I'm downloading Obssession right now. I'll look in the apk and see if there is anything special necessary.

Well, that file is definitely the icon. If you decompile the apk and look at the AndroidManifest.xml you can see that ic_launcher_phone is the app's icon.
I swapped out the icon for an orange stock-like icon on the attached apk. I can't test it as I'm on CM, but you can see if it'll work for you. (This is the stock Obssession blues rc2 dialertabactivity.apk w/ just the modified icon)

How can I open the .xml files? When I try to open them IE gives me an error and when I allow the script to run it doesn't change anything.

You need to decompile the apk in order to view the xml files. Using APK Manager is the easiest way I know of to decompile apks.

Can I see a screenshot of what you are talking about, icon wise? If it's the launcher then the problem is the icon in the launcher, not the app.
Oh and protip, use Notepad++, not IE: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

[REQUEST] SystemUI mods...

Hey guys, I recently just got into the rooting and modding stuff here so excuse me, but im just a beginner and don't know much of what I'm doing. I've searched and searched and searched for the mods that i want, but with no luck, so I'm wondering if anyone had any free time to make some mods for me? I have a Sony xperia TL (Lt30at) and its rooted. I have CWM to flash zips so if i could get a zip made up to be able to do this, i would greatly appreciate it! okay, so this is what i was looking for. I wanted to change the statusbar background to a different image, which is the first attatchment i have. I would also like to make the chat bubbles that same image in the sms app. I also wanted to change the clock, battery, notification icons, all of that stuff on the statusbar to red instead of the stock colors, but keep all of the stock icons. Now, only two more things. If somebody could make, or point me in the direction where to find red soft keys for my phone, that would be awesome. I found some on here but none seemed to work on my phone, it just made systemui crash. Last, i wanted to change the sms background from white to the picture i have in my second attatchment. I have JB v4.1.2 with stock rom and whatnot. If anybody could do any of these things for me or point me in the direction of an already made one, i would greatly appreciate it!! Thank you very much.

I don't think you can change the nav bars background to a picture, just the color. You can however, change the softkeys. Check this thread for new ones. Or download one, make your own images, and just replace them in the zip with yours using winrar, 7zip, or even unzip and re-zip on your phone with root explorer.
As for the background image on sms... Use winrar, 7zip, or whatever and unpack the apk. Navigate to the "res" (meaning resources) folder, then into the "drawable-xhdpi" (other drawables are for other phone resolutions, we use xhdpi always). In that folder, see if you can find a background image. If not, then its probably not an image but a color code thats inside an xml file. Other than that, use another sms app such as GoSMS. Which allows custom themes/backgrounds.
Info about zips from the link above...
The SoftKey threads zips are ones that modify apk's without actually replacing them. It does it that way in case you have mods on an apk that you don't want to lose just because you want to change an image.
When you unzip one you'll normally see a few folders but the one you'll need to focus on is the "vrtheme" folder. Inside vrtheme there is a "system" folder with two folders "app" and "framework". Inside "app" is a folder "SystemUI.apk", which is the file to be modified. Inside that folder will be the layout of the original apk, excluding folders that your not modifying. If u don't understand that, try unpacking your original SystemUI.apk and you will see a ton of folder and files. But since we only need to replace specific images, only those folders are reconstructed in the SystemUI.apk folder as... "SystemUI.apk/res/drawable-xhdpi/"
If this confused you then you might have to wait until someone decides to drop what they're doing for everyone else, and help you. Which is as about as possible as you unlocking our bootloader. So ill try to help, but I'm still learning here as well. Luckily I've been a PC software programmer for over 15 years so the transition isn't as bad for me.
- Xperia TL, XperimenT v2.6 ~ via XDA App

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1433053

This might help also... http://rootzwiki.com/topic/17417-updated-solution-in-op-navigation-bar-background-image/
Ill attempt it in a minute and let you know my results. If it works, ill upload you a flashable zip.
- Xperia TL, XperimenT v2.6 ~ via XDA App

First, about the status bar, I haven't tried yet so I can't help
Second, about the soft keys, it's quite easy, decompile systemui (remember installing framework-res.apk and SemcGenericUxpRes.apk in apktool), go to res/drawable-xhdpi, edit the nav buttons (open in PTS and change the color to red ), then recompile the SystemUI
about the background image of sms, it use the background semc_bg_bright_tile.png in res/drawable-xhdpi of SemcGenericUxpRes.apk, but if you change this image, other apps using this background will be affected like SemcPhone T___T.
About nav background, you can edit the navigationbar.xml in SystemUI , you can search for Transparent Nav bar in this section, instead of giving the hex color, you can change it to the path of the image like /drawable-xhdpi/background.png (of course you have copied the file into editing folder). You should know some about xml editing . This is just some quick ideas, I'm quite busy so I can't help you out , good luck

redincali said:
I don't think you can change the nav bars background to a picture, just the color. You can however, change the softkeys. Check this thread for new ones. Or download one, make your own images, and just replace them in the zip with yours using winrar, 7zip, or even unzip and re-zip on your phone with root explorer.
As for the background image on sms... Use winrar, 7zip, or whatever and unpack the apk. Navigate to the "res" (meaning resources) folder, then into the "drawable-xhdpi" (other drawables are for other phone resolutions, we use xhdpi always). In that folder, see if you can find a background image. If not, then its probably not an image but a color code thats inside an xml file. Other than that, use another sms app such as GoSMS. Which allows custom themes/backgrounds.
Info about zips from the link above...
The SoftKey threads zips are ones that modify apk's without actually replacing them. It does it that way in case you have mods on an apk that you don't want to lose just because you want to change an image.
When you unzip one you'll normally see a few folders but the one you'll need to focus on is the "vrtheme" folder. Inside vrtheme there is a "system" folder with two folders "app" and "framework". Inside "app" is a folder "SystemUI.apk", which is the file to be modified. Inside that folder will be the layout of the original apk, excluding folders that your not modifying. If u don't understand that, try unpacking your original SystemUI.apk and you will see a ton of folder and files. But since we only need to replace specific images, only those folders are reconstructed in the SystemUI.apk folder as... "SystemUI.apk/res/drawable-xhdpi/"
If this confused you then you might have to wait until someone decides to drop what they're doing for everyone else, and help you. Which is as about as possible as you unlocking our bootloader. So ill try to help, but I'm still learning here as well. Luckily I've been a PC software programmer for over 15 years so the transition isn't as bad for me.
- Xperia TL, XperimenT v2.6 ~ via XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much! tons of help!
dully79 said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1433053
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply!
redincali said:
This might help also... http://rootzwiki.com/topic/17417-updated-solution-in-op-navigation-bar-background-image/
Ill attempt it in a minute and let you know my results. If it works, ill upload you a flashable zip.
- Xperia TL, XperimenT v2.6 ~ via XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you work anything out for that? I've been trying to do it myself but i'm not all that familiar with what to do.
blackcat510 said:
First, about the status bar, I haven't tried yet so I can't help
Second, about the soft keys, it's quite easy, decompile systemui (remember installing framework-res.apk and SemcGenericUxpRes.apk in apktool), go to res/drawable-xhdpi, edit the nav buttons (open in PTS and change the color to red ), then recompile the SystemUI
about the background image of sms, it use the background semc_bg_bright_tile.png in res/drawable-xhdpi of SemcGenericUxpRes.apk, but if you change this image, other apps using this background will be affected like SemcPhone T___T.
About nav background, you can edit the navigationbar.xml in SystemUI , you can search for Transparent Nav bar in this section, instead of giving the hex color, you can change it to the path of the image like /drawable-xhdpi/background.png (of course you have copied the file into editing folder). You should know some about xml editing . This is just some quick ideas, I'm quite busy so I can't help you out , good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive been trying to do this, but i can't get my framework onto my computer. When i copy it to my sd card using root explorer it just doesnt show up when im looking for it on my pc..frustrating...

I forgot to add this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=40026013&postcount=20