First time poster, but long-time lurker and avid Android Developer here.
I'm putting the finishing touches on a tool that decompresses resource files (including the ARSC and any compressed XML files). It's something I sort of took interest in in my spare time, as a learning experience, and I think it would be helpful to the community. It could probably be used to make modifications to compressed layouts in a ROM, such as HTC Sense-based ROMs (decompress the resources, make edits, compress, sign...).
Anyways, I figured I'd ask first... does a tool like this already exist? If so, whatever, this was a learning experience anyways. If not, I'd like to get it out there for all of you geniuses to use.
I'd also like to know what kind of options might be good to have on this tool. Right now it's command-line-based (and might stay that way... I think a UI might be overkill). Let me know. I'll be watching!
That's great!
In which language is it written? Will you open-source it? If so, on which license?
I'm asking cause I need such tool for my Omnipatcher project and I intended to make it myself
Java. I'll probably open-source it once I clean it up enough. I mean, nothing's really a secret in there. I figured out everything I needed from the Android sources.
Brut.all said:
That's great!
In which language is it written? Will you open-source it? If so, on which license?
I'm asking cause I need such tool for my Omnipatcher project and I intended to make it myself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When?
When will you relase this?
Oh, good work!!!
Any news?
itanczos said:
Oh, good work!!!
Any news?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry guys, I'm really eager to get this out, I'm just struggling to pay the bills, too. I hesitate to make promises, but it should be out sometime this month. I'm just as excited as you probably are to use it. I can't wait to see what kind of themes/mods sprout up once you all get your hands on this.
That sound cool, I was also thinking in creating such a tool or maybe just a shell script that uses aapt to get all the infos and generate an xml out of it but if you already have something in the pipe for doing this... I hope it's finished (or better said at a release stage) soon.
rac2030 said:
That sound cool, I was also thinking in creating such a tool or maybe just a shell script that uses aapt to get all the infos and generate an xml out of it but if you already have something in the pipe for doing this... I hope it's finished (or better said at a release stage) soon.
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Click to collapse
Doesn't aapt only compile the resources, and not the other way around? I didn't think aapt gave us all the information we needed to go back to the original XML.
binarybulge said:
Doesn't aapt only compile the resources, and not the other way around? I didn't think aapt gave us all the information we needed to go back to the original XML.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has dump command and output looks like full XML data just in different (easy to parse) format:
Code:
N: android=http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android
E: manifest (line=44)
A: android:sharedUserId(0x0101000b)="com.google.android.apps.maps" (Raw: "com.google.android.apps.maps")
A: android:versionCode(0x0101021b)=(type 0x10)0xcf6
A: android:versionName(0x0101021c)="3.3.1" (Raw: "3.3.1")
A: package="com.google.android.apps.maps" (Raw: "com.google.android.apps.maps")
E: uses-sdk (line=54)
A: android:minSdkVersion(0x0101020c)=(type 0x10)0x4
E: uses-permission (line=58)
A: android:name(0x01010003)="android.permission.CALL_PHONE" (Raw: "android.permission.CALL_PHONE")
binarybulge said:
Doesn't aapt only compile the resources, and not the other way around? I didn't think aapt gave us all the information we needed to go back to the original XML.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Code:
aapt dump xmltree xxx.apk AndroidManifest.xml
This does output some sort of xml like output... at least as far I have analyzed the output, it should be possible with some parsing code to recover or better said reconstruct a working xml ;-)
Of course, just implementing a complete encoder/decoder would be a nicer solution and as you said, theoretically all the needed framework stuff is on git so it wouldn't be hard to implement it if you have time... I though that this was what you have done or not?
rac2030 said:
Code:
aapt dump xmltree xxx.apk AndroidManifest.xml
This does output some sort of xml like output... at least as far I have analyzed the output, it should be possible with some parsing code to recover or better said reconstruct a working xml ;-)
Of course, just implementing a complete encoder/decoder would be a nicer solution and as you said, theoretically all the needed framework stuff is on git so it wouldn't be hard to implement it if you have time... I though that this was what you have done or not?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha, yeah it is what I have done. You guys just kind of worried me a little making me think I was reinventing the wheel.
aapt would have been one approach, but I'm still not sure it covers all bases. For example, the strings.xml, arrays.xml, etc files. Those obviously aren't handled the same as layout files. Their contents get compressed into the arsc file. I'm also handling some more complex cases, such as one package referencing drawables from another package.
My goal of course is to restore all input XML, including things like strings.xml, and all of those in various configuration-specific folders (orientation, locales, screen sizes...).
is there any public source of this Compressed Resources (resources.arsc) Decompressor?
i'd like to test it!
Hello Binarybulge!
News?
Is this dead or what?
I'm working on such tool on my own, have managed to decode XMLs (using Android source, not parsing aapt dumps) and now I know, what binarybulge was talking about:
binarybulge said:
aapt would have been one approach, but I'm still not sure it covers all bases. For example, the strings.xml, arrays.xml, etc files. Those obviously aren't handled the same as layout files. Their contents get compressed into the arsc file. I'm also handling some more complex cases, such as one package referencing drawables from another package.
My goal of course is to restore all input XML, including things like strings.xml, and all of those in various configuration-specific folders (orientation, locales, screen sizes...).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
binarybulge: please, let me know, whether you have quit, don't have time, died or what? Currently I'm working on decoding @ids and /res/values/ and I don't want to reinvent the wheel, if you have done this so far and just don't have time to continue your work.
I'm interested in pitching in. I want an easy tool for decoding a binary .xml file, edit it including adding new elements and then convert it back to binary xml.
I'm pretty familiar with Android low level stuff. One example of my work:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5475283
If I can help in any way, let me know. I don't want to reinvent the wheel either.
jonasl said:
I'm interested in pitching in. I want an easy tool for decoding a binary .xml file, edit it including adding new elements and then convert it back to binary xml.
I'm pretty familiar with Android low level stuff. One example of my work:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5475283
If I can help in any way, let me know. I don't want to reinvent the wheel either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just for curiosity: how did you do it? Hex edited xml's and resources.arsc?
I'm still working on this tool and have made some progress
Everything that's been done on the keyboard linked above has been done in code. You of all people need no introduction to smail/baksmali
I've rewritten the configuration system (HTC's settings provider is missing in non sense roms), rewritten the parts that interfaces with google voice recognition service and some other tweaks, but it's all code mods.
To fix some remaining issues I must edit xml layouts. Just changing some color code etc. is doable in any hex editor, but adding and removing elements and attributes is kind of hard. I'm stuck at this point and was looking for a tool to convert own xml to binary xml. Since I didn't find such tool I was thinking about creating one and ran into this thread...
I've just successfully and fully automatically decoded all resources for simple HelloWorld apk, then edited them, packaged again using aapt and run on a device It's early alpha and is unusable for now cause it still doesn't support many types of resources, but I have a proof of concept, that it is possible to repackage resources
Brut.all said:
I've just successfully and fully automatically decoded all resources for simple HelloWorld apk, then edited them, packaged again using aapt and run on a device It's early alpha and is unusable for now cause it still doesn't support many types of resources, but I have a proof of concept, that it is possible to repackage resources
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yay! Cool! Waiting for release!
Greets!
This can be moved to development if needed.
^prob some Android exp needed as well, but if you're here reading this I assume you have some.^
I am interested in adding an extended power menu, among other things (CRT anim ON if possible, and maybe a few other small ones.)
(yes Im looking at you guys @garyd and @Entropy, j/k you guys work hard enough Im sure.)
While I am reading my intro to Java Programming. I understand Basic programming, Java is what I need to learn. I am also studying .dex in hopes of one day being able to at least edit it.
If anyone would like to help , I have managed to decompile .dex into .jar and from .jar got all the .classes, etc. and then decompiled to .java, which is so much more readable than .smali. ( as it should be)
I have followed the few guides I could find for extended power menu, trying a few different things as I understand all devices are different. flashed and booted, but power button does nothing.
From what I understand it is actually possible to compile .java to .smali to .dex
from what I can gather this involes adding a mReboot:I options to reboot or reboot recovery. Then adding the array to the power menu, then adding the drawable ids and string ids (which I know how to make with apktool).
I saw one thread stating an entry in build.prop ro.mot.deep.sleep.enabled=true was also required.
PM me or reply if interested. I can upload .java files.
--just trying to get some fresh "development options going"
my next book will liekly be the : 6-in-1 building an android app, which I have done with the google App Inventor. It was fun.
*small donation can be made*
This can be moved to development if needed.
^prob some Android exp needed as well, but if you're here reading this I assume you have some.^
I am interested in adding an extended power menu, among other things (CRT anim ON if possible, and maybe a few other small ones.)
While I am reading my intro to Java Programming. I understand Basic programming, Java is what I need to learn. I am also studying .dex in hopes of one day being able to at least edit it.
If anyone would like to help , I have managed to decompile .dex into .jar and from .jar got all the .classes, etc. and then decompiled to .java, which is so much more readable than .smali. ( as it should be)
I have followed the few guides I could find for extended power menu, trying a few different things as I understand all devices are different. flashed and booted, but power button does nothing.
From what I understand it is actually possible to compile .java to .smali to .dex
from what I can gather this involes adding a mReboot:I options to reboot or reboot recovery. Then adding the array to the power menu, then adding the drawable ids and string ids (which I know how to make with apktool).
I saw one thread stating an entry in build.prop ro.mot.deep.sleep.enabled=true was also required.
PM me or reply if interested. I can upload .java files.
--just trying to get some fresh "development options going"
my next book will liekly be the : 6-in-1 building an android app, which I have done with the google App Inventor. It was fun.
*small donation can be made*
I'm recently trying to edit my framework with this mod
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1916094
Well actually the steps in that thread are very simple, but since I'm trying to apply that to my Xperia Ray so it must have slightly different steps
What I want to ask :
- In framework/res, I found drawable-.........( mdpi,hdmpi,ldpi,etc.). If I'm going to replace the .9png's picture in there, should I make the picture as same as the original picture dimension? I'm using Dev-Drawable app in the Play Store ( it makes picture to drawable- hdpi,mdpi,etc. ), the result of using it is it gives me the mdpi version of the picture but with different dimesion from the original picture.
- I found errors and it says that I have errors in the /res/values/public.xml
I found this :
Code:
Don't do that! :) I think I should explain the purpose of public.xml file in the project wiki, because many people are confused. Note that you don't need this file when you build an apk from sources and apktool building mechanisms are very similar, so guess what: you could remove this file from decoded application and apktool will rebuild it without any problems. I had a reason why to generate public.xml - it's a feature, not a bug! ;)
Well, the reason is: there may be references to resources in the application code. If resources ids will change after build, then code will reference different resources than in original apk. public.xml file gives us sureness that resources will get same ids after build - it's the only one reason to use this file. And you want to manually modify these ids ;)
Adding or removing new resources is somewhat tricky. Yeah, I should write about that in the wiki.
You could remove any line from public.xml (even making a "hole" in the ids) at any moment, but you must be sure, that resource isn't referenced in the code.
There is never much sense in modifying ids in public.xml, because then modified lines lose their purpose.
If you want to add new resources, e.g. drawables and use them in the XML files you don't have to change anything in the public.xml file.
If you want to add new resources and use them in your code, then you have to add them into public.xml, because you need to reference them somehow. Or you could use Resources.getIdentifier() method, but this is ugly.
And now the most tricky part: if you want to remove some resources, you have to remove info about them from public.xml as well. So first you have to be sure that they aren't referenced in the code. But there is also this "hole" problem, so:
If these resources are at the end of ids stack, then there is no problem.
If resources are near the end of ids stack and you are sure, that all resources after them aren't referenced in the code as well, then you could just remove them all. Actually you have did virtually the same, cause after modifying ids you made these lines totally useless, you broke them, so you could just remove them.
If you want to remove some resources, but add same or greater quantity of new ones (of the same type), then there is no problem - new resources will automatically fill in "holes" in ids. You don't have to add them to public.xml .
If none of above conditions are met, then you have holes and you have to fill them by something. But you don't have to add "useless .pngs" - just add:
Code:
<item type="drawable" name="DUMMY1" />
<item type="drawable" name="DUMMY2" />
<item type="drawable" name="DUMMY3" />
...
Like above, you don't have to add these resources to the public.xml .
And because I'm a newbie I don't really get what that mean. So I just delete the files that I'm going to replace and I can re-compile the framework, but I got bootloop, LOL.
I confused about :
1."You could remove any line from public.xml (even making a "hole" in the ids) at any moment, but you must be sure, that resource isn't referenced in the code."
What are the "holes" and " referenced in the code" mean?
2. Because I want to add .png's picture to the drawable-mdpi folder, Do I need to add dummies to the public.xml ?
3. I'm using the tricky signing method ( open archive in the original framework, copy meta-inf & android manifest and replace those files to the modded framework). Is this cause me an error?
Help me mateee:crying:
anyone???
Hello All,
I have an application that I want to add some features to in the form of an additional activity. I have decompiled it with APK tool and attempted to add my own smali files (from the decompiled 2nd app that I developed). I immediately run into problems with the dependencies of my app being different than those of the original app. For example, my app uses the google Easy Permissions lib to ask for permissions. What is the right strategy to help de-conflict the res/values/*.xml files between two apps that both have their own resources? Are there any tools that can assist in this? What about layout and drawable resources?
I started writing a python script to merge public.xml and the others, re-map the ID's for those resources, and then search the smali files to change the values there. That seems error-prone, and I am not even sure if that is the right thing to do.
I had a second thought that perhaps aapt2 compilation of resources could perhaps be modified to give me a different package ID for the app I created and control source to (such as 0x80... instea of 0x7f...) but I am not sure exactly how to go about that, or if that would even work either
Any advice or tools I should be looking at?