hello!
i would like to change my Kaiser's dialer/commanager's background image.
anybody know how should i do that?
i searched the whole forum, but i always found questions about this...
i tryed to change some images in dialer's .CAB files, but that is not so obvious for me.
i would like to use this background, and simple black buttons.
thanks,
pulyka
I did this a while ago.
Look inside the \Windows folder on your device using any picture viewer and take note of the filenames you'll need. Transfer the images to your PC and edit them. I had to transfer them to my storagecard before being able to move them over, as my PC couldn't see the Windows folder.
After altering the images to your likings, transfer them back to your device and reboot for the changes to take effect.
Good luck with your skinning project
hmm thanks, i will try it!
Well my old thread got deleted, So i decided to redo it.
I am sure by now most of you know that editing .9.pngs cause some ill effects on certain images. Well i found a way to edit these images and make them look as good as Google's!
What you need:
Android SDK - Will be using the draw9patch tool in the tools folder.
Eclipse IDE - We will need this to compile the .9s
Photoshop or other image editing sfotware - with PNG compression.
Setting up the enviroment:
When i setup the SDK and Eclipse, i put them inside of C:\Android. Make sure to follow the instructions from here, it will walk you through setting up Eclipse to work properly with Android.
::Tip:: When you get to the part "Installing the Eclipse Plugin (ADT)" the URL "https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/" sometimes gives an error, just change https to http and it should go through without an issue.
Now basically put a .9.png is an image with guides that tells Android where the image can be stretched and where the content will be placed inside the image. An easy example is a button, some fit only one word and others stretch across the whole screen and Android will put the text in the middle of the button.
When you open a .9.png you do not see the guides, that is because they are hidden. When you want to add the guides to an image, you have to drag it into the draw9patch tool. Now the tool has a hidden secret i figured out.(not really hidden, but not well described) If you open an image with the .9.png extension it just opens it. But if you open an image without the .9.png extension, it adds 2 pixels to its width and height. These 2 pixels are for the hidden guides. For example the btn_default_normal_disable.9.png in framework is 44x48. But if you remove the .9 from the file name and drag it into the draw9patch tool it changes to 46x50. Which you will notice after you save the image from the draw9patch tool. Also it will add the .9 to the file name.
Howto: draw9patch
The idea of the draw9patch tool is very simple, you drag an image into it you create the guides and you save the image. But the guides are very specific and if you do not do them properly your image will look strange. So follow these few rules about the tool.
Remove the .9 from image name before you drag it into the tool.
The top and left side guides set where the image can be stretched. Where ever you put a guide is where the image will stretch. Do not put more then 2 next to each other.
The bottom and right side guides set the content area(where the text will go). Now you can only put the guides in the outer border, once the image is compiled this border will be hidden. The tool will not let you put any guides anywhere but the outside border. Now usually you will put a 1x1 guide on the top and left sides, on the right and bottom you want to draw a full line. I have tried putting multiple guides on the top and left but the aapt tool seems to stress out and crash before compiling.
Once you save the image the draw9patch tool should of added the .9 to the name. That is all to adding the guides to the image.
So now your saying ok, i have the image and i still see the guides. To get rid of these lines we need to compile them with Eclipse. Basically we add them to a project in Eclipse and create an apk. During the compile the aapt tool from the sdk will set the image back to its original resolution and hide the guides.
(I am hoping to figure out some command lines for the aapt tool so we can skip this step. But until then editing these .9s are a big pain in the arse!)
Howto: Compiling in Eclipse.
I am assuming you followed the link above for setting up Eclipse and can create a new Android project.
Once Eclipse is open you want to go to "File\New\Android project". Select "Create project from existing source". It should default to the path of the samples in your SDK directory, but if it doesn't just browse to them. I have been using my own project but any sample should be fine. Choose "Finish" and on the left hand side under Project Explorer, you will see the name of the project you opened. Expand the project, then Res and you will see the Drawable folder. You will want to drag your edited .9s here. Once all of the images are in the drawable folder you want to right click the top level folder(Project name) for your project and choose "Android Tools"(second from botom) then "Export Unsigned Application Package..." Save the apk where ever you'd like, just remember where you put it. Cause you will want to open it and take the images out of the drawable folder. You will notice now that the guides are gone and the resolution is back to the normal size. Drag the images into your theme and you are done.
The images below are some screen shots of the draw9patch tool. The first one shows how most of the .9s should look with guides, the second shows with the Show Content checked and the third is what happens when you put your mouse inside the outer pixel range.
Attached is a zip with the drawables from framework-res, launcher, contacts and phone apks from the source. It has the .9s and xmls before being compiled, so you can use these images instead of having to use the draw9patch tool. But it doesn't have all of the same images, there are some missing and some that are not in our firmware yet. So do not just copy and paste all of the images, i have been just copying certain ones into my theme directory and editing them there. Also becareful when editing these images, if any of the guides color changes Eclipse will throw an error. This is easily fixed by using a 1 pixel pencil tool in photoshop and going over the guides with black. Also you need to make sure that there is not anything other then the black guides in the 1 pixel border of the images. you will get errors before compiling if there are. I normally use the rectangle marquee tool to highlight the edge and use the Del key to make sure nothing is in the outside edge.
I wonder why the other thread was deleted?
Anywho, thanks again for all the help on the .9.png files, I know its probably one of the biggest frustrations for new theme makers like me. I'll be working more with them on my second theme, the first one will just have to do without I suppose.
Thanks for all the contribution to the theme community!
Nice find, thanks for the info!
Seems like a lot to do, I've had no problems at all with my .9.png's, but this is good to know.
Bookmarked.
Thanks Man I have been trying to piece this info together with the thread and was getting nowhere. thank you for putting this out here.
A lot of work for sure, but if you're going for a full system theme you'll pretty much have to take the time to do things right. Very good info.
There are a few .9s you can change with minimal defects but things like buttons and tabs its pretty tough to get them perfect
when I try to export it fails because it says the .apk doesn't exist. What am I missing here? Thanks for your help.
it says the bin folder doesn't exist. but if I try to create the bin folder it says it already exists. confusing. what should I do?
Hmm not familiar enough with Eclipse to help out with this. But make sure there are not any errors on the images or any part of the app.
when I open up all of the sample apps they already show errors. Any thoughts on that? They show errors in the srs and the Android Manifest. I checked all of them. They all do.
Do they show warnings or errors?
they have a red box with an X next to them. What does that mean?
says I have to fix the build path for java.lang.object - any idea how I do this? Sorry for bothering you.
Ahh its no problem. The red X's are errors, yellow triangles are warnings.
You might want to run thru the steps of setting it up again and see if that fixes it.
Sounds to me something is missing. You did set the path of the SDK in Eclipse right?
haha... nope.. that fixed it - thanks so much. As you can tell you're talking to a real nube here that just tries to get things to work when he needs them.
ok, 1 more question. If I'm using the images that you provided in the zip, what are the necessary steps to edit them? Not sure I'm clear on that
for example. I want to make the search_bg.9.png in the drawable-port transparent. What's the steps? (I of course know how to edit it in photoshop so you can skip that step)
parmenti said:
for example. I want to make the search_bg.9.png in the drawable-port transparent. What's the steps? (I of course know how to edit it in photoshop so you can skip that step)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you set the layer to whatever % you want it at. then save for web and devices.(make sure you replace the right image) remove the .9 from the name, open it in the draw9patch tool, set the guides, save the file, drag it into the drawable folder for any android project, right click the root folder in the project, choose Android tools, choose export unsigned apk, save the apk, open it in winrar take the .9.png you just put in it and replace the original in the update.zip.
done =)
what would cause the images not to compile when exporting from eclipse? I moved the images over, went through the steps to export and opened the apk but the drawable folder does not contain my edited images I added
I've got a broken screen and I'm hung up on the screen align. I placed welcome.not on the sd card root but still get hung up at the screen align when reseting.
Thanks for any help...
I guess I should be more spcific. I had a cracked screen and did a hard reset forgetting about having to calibrate the screen after doing so.
searched for a solution and found the welcome.not workaround.
went out, bought an sd card put a notepad file named "welcome.not" in the root. Fired it up and I'm still getting the calibrate screen prompt. I'm stuck. Come on nerds
probably because it is actually incorrectly named "welcome.not.txt" instead of the correct "welcome.not"
you should know that desktop windows (2000, xp, vista, etc) usually HIDE the file extension by default...this means that while you THINK you have named the file "welcome.not", it is actually named "welcome.not.txt". a symptom of this problem is that the icon you see for such incorrectly named files is the regular notepad text icon, which means it has a ".txt" extension.
if the above is true in your case, this means i am correct and i am a nerd...but it also means you are a super noob
you sir receive a "tip of the cap" and a "golf clap", albeit from a complete nOOb.
thanks....
Hi... I've recently gone through most of the pictures I had on my SD card and placed them in folders that are appropriately named. I have a question with nested folders. As an example set up, I have created a folder called Animals. Inside the Dogs folder, there are several sub-folders named for the animals they represent - i.e. "Dogs", "Cats", "Birds", etc. In the file manager program they are arranged neatly with no problems. I open the stock gallery app that comes with the ROM I have on my Galaxy Note 4 and I have the option for FOLDER and TIME. When I choose FOLDER, it shows me all the folders I have created - all at one time. Is there a way to simply show the Animals folder, and then when I tap on that, I can then see the sub folders?? I placed pictures in sub folders for this reason so that I would not see a boat-load of folders on the initial screen, but I could narrow things down by folder, then sub-folder (and even, perhaps another layer of sub-folder?)? Am I missing a setting, or did I arrange things wrong, or is there another app that might show things this way, or is it just S.O.L. for what I'd like?
Thank you in advance for your answers and suggestions
Wingmann
Hello,
I Have used the native video editor to edit a video and saved it after trimming it to a very short length.
now i can open it in the editor because its to short and can revert it.
anyone know where the backup file path is?
If you havent use option "save as copy" then there is no backup of that video file.
There is, the new default is to save as copy behind the scenes, i can prove it with a new video
Then the original video must be inside DCIM, videos folder.
It is not, whats inside DCIM is the edited one
anyone else have an idea?
My idea is maybe you accidentally make a mistake, and chose the wrong option that instructed the phone to overwrite the original long video with the short edited one.
Put another way, I think it's impossible to prove what action you performed/selected, but all the evidence you have points to that action being choosing overwrite instead of choosing save as copy.
Put a third way, it seems like you are trying to disbelieve the evidence you have in front of you on the phone, and insist that you took a different action with no supporting evidence that you did.
Sorry to sound negative. Can you find any other evidence on the phone? Maybe you can connect the phone to a computer and use Samsung's windows application called "Smart Switch" to fully backup everything from the phone to the computer's storage. Also, consider manually copying everything from the phone to the computer. Then, you can forensically sift through the copy on the Windows computer, without worry that you might accidentally harm or irreversibly delete any of the files on the phone.