Database Info

"Start"

If this is the wrong section, let me know please.
I see a lot of themes or people SS's of their home screen and, the Start button at the top, i see a lot of people have custom names there, like in Laskar's theme and etc. i was wondering how it's possible to put a custom name there... Like... Susa instead of Start, or something along those lines

i would also like to see this possible

Well, i still don't know how to do it, but the new co0kies 1.7 has an option for it now, so all's well

Susasama said:
Well, i still don't know how to do it, but the new co0kies 1.7 has an option for it now, so all's well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought it was only your service provider details that CHT would change, not the txt next to the start button?
I'm still after customizing the start txt if any one can help...

There's two ways that I know of..........
Either look here. Needs a bit of knowledge to do that, tried a few times but couldn't get the dll to re-sign correctly and gave up in the end.
Or.......the cheating option which I use.
Install the "No Start" patch attached (WWE only), no idea who wrote it originally so can't credit them, but it came off here somewhere.
Then in Photoshop add whatever you want to replace it with, this has the advantage that you can use whatever font/image/colour you want rather than just sticking to white text in your system font if you do it the proper way.
To align in Photoshop, take a screenshot to show your start icon with no text, then overlay it with some transparency onto your new wallpaper then you can see perfectly where you need to paste your new text/icon or whatever.
Hope this helps.

sniper-wolf said:
There's two ways that I know of..........
Either look here. Needs a bit of knowledge to do that, tried a few times but couldn't get the dll to re-sign correctly and gave up in the end.
Or.......the cheating option which I use.
Install the "No Start" patch attached (WWE only), no idea who wrote it originally so can't credit them, but it came off here somewhere.
Then in Photoshop add whatever you want to replace it with, this has the advantage that you can use whatever font/image/colour you want rather than just sticking to white text in your system font if you do it the proper way.
To align in Photoshop, take a screenshot to show your start icon with no text, then overlay it with some transparency onto your new wallpaper then you can see perfectly where you need to paste your new text/icon or whatever.
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Sneaky, but I like it! Will give it a go!
Must admit, I'm a bit surprised no one has come up with a editor yet

[Q] [IDEA] Porting HDPI themes to MDPI

Just recently been into themes and knew how they work.
If I use some kind of batch image resizer to resize hdpi png's to mdpi, and put those resized in drawable-mdpi it would work.
Am I correct? I see no reason why it can't be as easy as that.

I resize them with GIMP. Don't know what you use but in theory have to work

well, i don't know any coding language.
Maybe someone could make a script to resize images??
it would be a pain in the a** to resize them one by one

There are many batch resize windows apps that will let you convert a complete folder full more at once..
just google it
Sent on the run from my Magic 32A

It will not work on many .9.PNG files unless you resize them from source. Sorry but I've tried it with my theme. .9.png files are not just normal png files. They are made to stretch and readjust depending on the orientation of your device (landscape versus portrait) and may have what is called 'guides' coded within the images to tell the OS how to display that graphic. If you were to edit that file in any way those guides are over written and it messes up your whole theme. So if you were to use a batch resizer you would probably experience a disgusting looking interface coupled with acore crashes. Unless of course you used the files from source and just created the app from the source code. But who knows you might get lucky and whatever app that you are trying to theme may not use those pesky .9.png files.

Binary100100 said:
It will not work on many .9.PNG files unless you resize them from source. Sorry but I've tried it with my theme. .9.png files are not just normal png files. They are made to stretch and readjust depending on the orientation of your device (landscape versus portrait) and may have what is called 'guides' coded within the images to tell the OS how to display that graphic. If you were to edit that file in any way those guides are over written and it messes up your whole theme. So if you were to use a batch resizer you would probably experience a disgusting looking interface coupled with acore crashes. Unless of course you used the files from source and just created the app from the source code. But who knows you might get lucky and whatever app that you are trying to theme may not use those pesky .9.png files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this Binary100100..
In a regular theme, about how many pngs are .9?
and what do you mean "created from source"?

MicroMina said:
Thank you for this Binary100100..
In a regular theme, about how many pngs are .9?
and what do you mean "created from source"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.9.png with guides? I have no clue. For an entire rom... I would say over a hundred easily. There are about a dozen of them just in the Dialer app itself. If you modify any one of them the whole thing get's messed up. It's very delicate. What do I mean create it from source? Download the source code from HTC website on a Linux machine and create the ENTIRE rom from scratch. It's not that hard actually once it's all set up. Before you do the "make" command you would do your xml edits, resizing, color edits, etc. You can tell what a .9.png file is because it has a line on the right of the image and a line on the bottom beneath it. It will have a black pixel at the top and one on the left. So you edit those files the way that you want it and then create the app or the entire rom. If you chose to create the entire rom then remove the parts from the rom that you don't want in your theme and then make an update-script file for your flashable theme. Nobody said that making a theme is fun or easy and in many cases the developers of the theme (like myself) do it just because they did it for their own device and chose to share their work. On average if you want to create an entire theme it will take you at least 30+ hours of work if you are already set up and knowledgable with Linux and image editing. That's how long it took me anyway.

Thank you for this very informative post.
I guess its not that easy after all. Maybe one day I could try it.
Thanks again.

MicroMina said:
Thank you for this very informative post.
I guess its not that easy after all. Maybe one day I could try it.
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh it's plenty easy, it's just very time consuming to make a theme from scratch and since you can't take a 3kb file measuring 20 x 20 and turn it into 36 x 36 and turn it into a 5.4 kb file without losing resolution (thus defeating the purpose of being on a AMOLED HD display) even if you were to suceed it probably still won't look very good. Think of it like this. Take a standard 800 x 600 video for your non-high definition television. Sure it looks alright but what about if you displayed it on a 1080p television. Is the picture going to look any better? Not really because it's the quality of the video and not the television itself. Now, if you could enhance the video... it would make a huge improvement. But by simply resizing the images wouldn't really do anything for a HD screen (my theory anyway).
But if you build everything from the source code (that is such as Cyanogen's github) and edit all the images from scratch then you shouldn't have a problem. But it is VERY time consuming like I mentioned before. I loathe the idea of upgrading my phone now because that means that my current theme along with all of the work that I've done with it... will be obsolete until I can do it all over again from source. Ugh.

[mod] My Amigo Skin Ported to Android Igo My Way

I created this for Amigo a long time ago. I made a quick port for the Android version, and I thought I would share it. I have ZERO plans to develop it more, but if anybody else would like to develop it, go ahead. I've included the gro converter to turn the file to a zip for editing.
Problems:
Only works in landscape mode.
There are alignment issues.
The starting animation is off center.
I'm sure there are more problems.
All these problems were fixed by Mmarz. Bobroberts has gone ahead and polished the skin and added multiple resolutions. Thank you to both of them!
You can use this skin by copying the data.gro to /data/data/com.navngo.igo.javaclient/
Back up your original data.gro first. You may need to change the permissions on the new data.gro to "777"
Here is what the skin looked in Amigo: http://www.igo8navigation.com/index.php?topic=161.0
To summarize, you can add vias, advanced saving of favorites, add/remove speed cameras, add/remove road blocks, create routes, and lots more.
Well, enjoy.
Use Bobroberts's version found here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=18529122&postcount=32

Thank you for this!
I worked on this skin and got most of the portrait mode working:
MyAmigoSkinV41AndroidFix9
This is the 9th version I've made. (I upgraded the version number because I added some goodies)
Place the data.gro inside the folder /data/data/com.navngo.igo.javaclient/
I've included an audio folder with some wav files from the skin that you must place in the following folder if you want the red light camera voice prompts to work:
/data/data/com.navngo.igo.javaclient/audio

See above.

Thanks for this, very nice!
Exit button doesn't work though,

sbarro said:
Thanks for this, very nice!
Exit button doesn't work though,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does it do when you press the exit button? Nothing?
Can you send me the data.gro that you used before that worked?

Sorry, I should have elaborated; the program goes thru the exit sequence, and then reboots.
I think I found the culprit, in \ui_android\common\ui\general.ui
<state ExitState>
<uselayer ui_Exiting/>
<script init>
remote_call 0 "android.on_exit_pressed" - change to: remote_call "android.on_exit_pressed"
1 EXIT
</script>
</state>

sbarro said:
Sorry, I should have elaborated; the program goes thru the exit sequence, and then reboots.
I think I found the culprit, in \ui_android\common\ui\general.ui
<state ExitState>
<uselayer ui_Exiting/>
<script init>
remote_call 0 "android.on_exit_pressed" - change to: remote_call "android.on_exit_pressed"
1 EXIT
</script>
</state>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both ways work for me. I'll change it to your way since it is more compatible.... I guess. Not sure what the "0" does. Thanks! I'm really glad I found this skin for Android. I loved it for Amigo.

mmarz said:
Both ways work for me. I'll change it to your way since it is more compatible.... I guess. Not sure what the "0" does. Thanks! I'm really glad I found this skin for Android. I loved it for Amigo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too. I considered freddysams' Amigo skin the best out there. Fascinating to follow his developing it from v10 or so up to his last - v40!
Thanks for the fixes, I know how much work is involved, been there, done that.

[REQ] Igo Skin/Modded apk for QHD Resolution for Atrix, Sensation,etc [I can pay $]​
I need it badly which is the best for Middle east navigation (United Arab Emirates). I can pay some $ if somebody can provide me a modded apk with QHD resolution support.
Thanks.

rselva_kr said:
[REQ] Igo Skin/Modded apk for QHD Resolution for Atrix, Sensation,etc [I can pay $]​
I need it badly which is the best for Middle east navigation (United Arab Emirates). I can pay some $ if somebody can provide me a modded apk with QHD resolution support.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might be able to use this skin. Try adding the following to your sys.txt:
Code:
[rawdisplay]
screen_x=640
screen_y=910
screen_x2=960
screen_y2=590
highres=1
double_screen=1
show_cursor=0
combine_dirty=1
You can find sys.txt in this folder: /data/data/com.navngo.igo.javaclient/

For which resolutions is this skin?
I checked the link you provided and says that support 320x240 resolution, but it is very big for that.
Is there any way that I can do to make it fit, on 320x240 screen or it doesn't supported?

dancer_69 said:
For which resolutions is this skin?
I checked the link you provided and says that support 320x240 resolution, but it is very big for that.
Is there any way that I can do to make it fit, on 320x240 screen or it doesn't supported?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No it doesn't support it. It would take a lot of work to make all the resolutions function. This is 480x320. Igo does have a "stretch" option, but I don't think you can make it shrink.

thanks for this, i was using the only other 480x320 skin i could find: 12Carrera12 Sbertaud13 V7.0d EUR+ , but unfortunately some parts are in french, this one has the advanced options at least in english
EDIT: you can also use thin igo v1.2 http://oron.com/8c1dbsrv5rqs/2.rar.html if you dont have root or just want an easier way to edit data as it installs and run all data from SD

I made one last touch up to the interface. Everything should work for the most part.
http://www.multiupload.com/T53BLIC5XO

Application not found
Each time I modify something in the zip, iGO didn't start: application not found.
I have modified a lot of data.gro for win version without problem.

corfou said:
Each time I modify something in the zip, iGO didn't start: application not found.
I have modified a lot of data.gro for win version without problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Open the file, within the zip that you modified, using a hex editor. For me, sometimes random invisible characters are inserted at the beginning of the file. Delete those using the hex editor.
Never use the return key inside of a windows text editor as it might add hidden characters as well. Use copy and paste of nearby lines instead, and then overwrite the line.
Never completely unzip the zip. Extract the files you would like to edit. Modify them, and then add them back into the zip.
Last comment, does the unmodified data.gro work?

If anyone wants to carry this on, here is a half way done port of the skin for 800x480:
http://www.mediafire.com/?j85ht32c610vlxn
I don't have a device to test it on, but this should theoretically load on your device. It will look all wrong. That is for sure. But all of the functions and images are in there. The only thing that hasn't been done is fixing the x-y location of all the elements
Here is what needs to happen to finish the skin. I've included three folders. 800_480_final contains the files inside data.zip that still need to be edited. Every single element within these file is correct except their location and size. These are the values used in the 480x320 skin created by Mmarz. What needs to happen is that you need to go line by line and fix the following values:
x=
y=
w=
h=
fontsize=
paddingright=
paddingleft=
align=
iconalign=
iconvalign=
Just so you understand the language m3:x= would be the x location in landscape mode and m4:x= would be the x location in portrait mode. x is measured in pixels from the left side of the screen. y is measured from the top of the screen. w is the width of the element and h is the height in pixels.
In the folder 800_480_orig I included the files from a regular 800_480 igo my way skin. This contains the correct x,y,w,h..etc values for the majority of the elements. Use these as a reference when fixing the values. Some elements won't be in here.
In folder 800_480_myamigo_old I included the files from the original my amigo skin. This contains the correct x,y,w,h..etc values for any elements missing from the above folder. But this is only the landscape version. For portrait values (m4:x=, m4:y=, m4:w=...etc), you'll need to use your best guess as to the correct location and size of the elements.
If anyone decides to finish this, please post it back on here so others can enjoy it.

Not it! I don't have a 800-480 screen, nor the free time.

mmarz said:
You might be able to use this skin. Try adding the following to your sys.txt:
Code:
[rawdisplay]
screen_x=640
screen_y=910
screen_x2=960
screen_y2=590
highres=1
double_screen=1
show_cursor=0
combine_dirty=1
You can find sys.txt in this folder: /data/data/com.navngo.igo.javaclient/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noob Here. Does his require rooting. Trying to get the QHD resolution on Sensation

sadiqsabia said:
Noob Here. Does his require rooting. Trying to get the QHD resolution on Sensation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need rooting but the method described above does not work in general. Someone needs to make that resolution specifically for your phone.

[Guide]Change the Ticker Clock Color!

Alright, I am going to try and make this guide as easy to follow as possible for the 1000x people who requested it, lol...
Before starting there is a few things you are going to need/should have:
apk manager...
text editor...
General Idea with How to Work a Computer/Follow Directions
Since we are going to be editing xml's, you have to use apk manager... Hopefully you have some basic knowledge with this "program", since it takes a little getting used to.. If not though, i will try and make this as painless as possible
First, open up apk manager and decompile (9) the framework-res.apk of your choosing.. You can unzip my gingerbread theme and use that framework-res, or any other one that you can find
Now, go to the projects folder, and navigate to "framework-res.apk\res\layout".. This is where, as the name implies, all the layouts for the ticker are placed... They are in xml format, so you can easily use notepad or such...
The XML that we are looking for in order to change the color is "standbymode.xml". Open it up in your text editor... Don't be intimidated, i know it looks confusing lol.. We are only messing with a little part...
Navigate down to the 13th line, aka "<TextView android:textSize="@dimen/time.text.size"... This is where the phone gets its information about the size, font, and color for the Time!
Scroll through that line until you come across android:textColor="blah"... As you can guess the Hex Value within the quotes is the color the clock is! Right now it is ffeaff00, but we can very easily change that
All you have to do now is by googling "Hex value for purple" or whatever color you want, find the hex value that you want to use The code should be exactly six letters/numbers, no more and no less... Now, copy that hex value, and replace the old code from "ff" on! Do not erase those first two letters, because that is telling the phone what transparency value to use, and we would like to keep it fully visible
Easy Enough, right? The hard part is now done!
All we have to do now is recompile the apk, which can be tricky if you don't know what your doing..
P.S if you know how to do this, you are done! I would still scan over these steps though, just to make sure you are doing it right
To compile in apk manager, just type 11! if you get a compile error, then you did something wrong That shouldn't happen though, this is a relatively easy mod....
Wait a while until you get a "Is this a system apk?" message... type "y".... then type y again for the next message... Now do what it says!
Don't forget to delete the "resources.arsc" file, and the "standbymode.xml" file!
Now you are done!! Just replace that framework using whatever method you use, Whether that be with adb when the phone is in recovery, or by replacing the new modified apk with the original within a zip file already made by me
If you make your own, don't be stingy.. Upload it to XDA or whatever, and share it with the community I will put it up on the front page, and give you the credit Make sure though you share with me what kind of framework-res.apk it is, and where you got as in, if you got it from my gingerbread package, or from my stock 2.2 Accurate theme, or Reboot Options, or any other option

fantastic guide! thank you for this!
but im just wondering one thing, why dont you have a donate button for all the hard work you have been giving to the continuum community? hmmm

Trail, is there any code we can get to that's worth modding that's in Java? If so, I can start doing some development.
Sent from my SCH-I400 using XDA App

http://www.mediafire.com/?ajjo09hwxejqsl0
I added my own outlined orange softkeys, and and orange ticker color.
and a few things to the lockscreen text for the lulz

Also I failed to mention that it's based on your accurate gingerbread theme.

Thank you Jakeschweinz for sharing with the community I shall put this in the main mod Thread, and make it easy for everyone to find it And i'll be sure to let you have all the credit
Thanks again!

just a quick link to help you guys out with color
http://html-color-codes.info/
and here's my baby blue clock color
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30842475/framework-res.apk
6FCAF5 <---- if anybody wants to know the color code for it,
And thanks again Trailblazer for this Guide.

You tricky bugger you figured it out without me lol..
Nice job!

So I'm kinda new to doing this, and I saw the upload that someone has on there for mediafire, and I was wondering, do you just download that, or do you put it in the .apk manager and change it?

This guide is very soon going to be outdated
Sent from my SCH-I400 using xda premium

[Q] Background Colors - SMS, Conversation History...

I know this is probably petty, but for me it's sort of a big deal.
I like light characters on a black screen, especially at night. There are flashlight apps to turn the screen white because it's bright and at night I would prefer to have a black screen.
Is there a way to change the conversation history to black, and lso for the background behind the balloons in an SMS?
Is there a ROM that has an option for this?
Thanks for the help!

Go sms. Totally customizable. Backgrounds, fonts, font colors, etc
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

Ends said:
Go sms. Totally customizable. Backgrounds, fonts, font colors, etc
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Handcent will let you do this too.
If you get GoSMS Pro, grab the Theme builder in the market as well. It will allow you to totally create your own theme.

liquidzoo said:
Handcent will let you do this too.
If you get GoSMS Pro, grab the Theme builder in the market as well. It will allow you to totally create your own theme.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should have included that I've tried all those. Yes, they're good and very customizable. But I've not been able to get them to work seamlessly and to replace the stock messaging. One of those my keyboard does't display properly with and simple other things. Plus I really like how I can go to messages and slide to the right to call. That's the easiest way to call people. That's my favorite feature and no one else has that.
What's so hard about changing the stock messaging to black with white text? lol At one point there was a night mode that made the conversation history black, but not now.
One question... For example a lock screen. There are different ones to install. Is there a different messaging to install to replace stock that someone has added things to? I don't even know if it's possible to replace messaging or not. I don't really want to install another app... I've just not had the best luck with them having the right feel.

Firstly, are you on GB or ICS? And which ROM?
If GB, you could swap out the AT&T mms.apk with the Rogers version, as they use a dark charcoal background behind matte blue and yellow bubbles (was always my favorite). Or you could try the mms.apk that Sean used to include in his GB ROMs. It was basically stock, but came with 5 themes. If you're on NexusMod GB, somewhere in the thread R4INS posted a CM7 mms.apk which has a light and dark theme.
If you're on an AOSP ICS (which I know you're not since you mention swipe to call), you could try the inverted mms.apk, which is black. If you're on stock ICS, the only thing I can think of is to just decompile the apk and use Gimp to change the colors as you'd like them (which goes for any apk really), although I think the important images are *.9.png's which are tricky. Or since you like TouchWiz, see what the T-Mobile mms.apk from their leak looks like? And if it works? As I don't know the answer to either.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

I'm running ICS that I just flashed. I put in SKYICS also.
Thank you for getting back to me. I'm new to this and starting to figure things out. I opened the mms.apk with WinRar and found most of what I want to change. I've not used Gimp. For colors I usually use Office Picture Manager. I'll have to check out Gimp. I'm starting to understand a little about the xdaAutoTool. I suppose I have to decompile the mms.apk , modify what I want, then recompile it, zip it all back up, then install it through CWM. I can't get the adaAutoTool to run because of the OCX thing and I don't know how to register the files. I wish I knew someone that could decompile the apk, let me change some of the .png files and recompile it for me. I want to change the editor box from this almost black to black beause it looks incredibly grainy at 1% gray or whatever it is. The hard thing for me would be figure out how to change the text color to white if I had to on the conversation list. I think I'll do as you suggested and look for another mms.apk.
You said I like TouchWiz... I'm not exactly sure what that even is. Isn't that something to do with the buttons and how they look at the bottom?
You mentioned the CM7 something. I'm not exactly sure what the CM is. I have CM5 and it said I have a mismatch when I tried to restore my original ROM that I backed up. it was 2.3.6 I think.
Thanks for the help and I'll be back. I'm going to look for another mms.apk...

CodeRedDewd said:
I'm running ICS that I just flashed. I put in SKYICS also.
...
I'm going to look for another mms.apk...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I may have just come across a solution for you. Did you see this post in the SkyICS thread?? I'd look into that one first before attempting any of the above.
---------- Post added at 05:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:43 PM ----------
CodeRedDewd said:
I'm new to this and starting to figure things out. I opened the mms.apk with WinRar and found most of what I want to change. I've not used Gimp. For colors I usually use Office Picture Manager. I'll have to check out Gimp. I'm starting to understand a little about the xdaAutoTool. I suppose I have to decompile the mms.apk , modify what I want, then recompile it, zip it all back up, then install it through CWM. I can't get the adaAutoTool to run because of the OCX thing and I don't know how to register the files. I wish I knew someone that could decompile the apk, let me change some of the .png files and recompile it for me. I want to change the editor box from this almost black to black beause it looks incredibly grainy at 1% gray or whatever it is. The hard thing for me would be figure out how to change the text color to white if I had to on the conversation list. I think I'll do as you suggested and look for another mms.apk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now I'm no expert on this or anything and haven't done much research on it, so I don't know everything you're talking about. But when I manually swapped out battery icon images from framework-res.apk, I didn't do any unzipping, rezipping, decompiling, recompiling. All I had to do was *open* the archive with 7zip (NOT unzip). Delete the images in there I wanted to replace. Then drag and drop the new images into the archive. As long as they were the same names and I wasn't adding or removing any images, there was no need to change any of the XML files. And it all worked fine.
As I said though, if I recall (as I actually looked into trying to do this myself with the help of another guy -- I wanted to make the AT&T mms.apk look like the Rogers mms.apk) the background image and maybe the bubble images too are 9-patch files, which are the image_name.9.png files. They require a very special process for editing. So that might require a bit more work.
---------- Post added at 05:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:51 PM ----------
CodeRedDewd said:
You said I like TouchWiz... I'm not exactly sure what that even is. Isn't that something to do with the buttons and how they look at the bottom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha something like that. TouchWiz is the graphical overlay (UI skin) Samsung puts on top of "vanilla" Android, or AOSP. Every manufacture does it. Motorola's is called MotoBlur. HTC's is called Sense. And so on. The Nexus line of phones is the only one to get stock, vanilla Android (AOSP). So it's the reason all android phones from the same manufacture look somewhat the same.
TouchWiz does consist of those buttons at the bottom and how they look (I assume you're talking about the docked apps - Phone, Contacts, Email, Apps). But it's also the system apps (Messaging, Email, Phone, Contacts, Settings, etc.) and how they look and act. The swipe right to call / swipe left to message is a feature of TouchWiz, which is why I said you liked TW because you like that feature.
---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:58 PM ----------
CodeRedDewd said:
You mentioned the CM7 something. I'm not exactly sure what the CM is. I have CM5 and it said I have a mismatch when I tried to restore my original ROM that I backed up. it was 2.3.6 I think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM stands for CyanogenMod and consists of a more AOSP feel, unlike Samsung's TouchWiz. So it doesn't have the swipe to call feature; usually just tap the contact picture inside Messaging and it gives you the option to call. CM7 was their Gingerbread build. CM9 is their Ice Cream Sandwich build.
Basically CyanogenMod has created a replacement/aftermarket firmware to replace Google Android (AOSP). It's sort of different than just a custom ROM because a custom ROM is usually just built with one phone in mind (whichever one the developer owns). CM is a firmware built the same way, with the same features, for as many phones as they can support. So your specific phone still needs to be supported and have its own specific build, but once you have it on you phone, it will look and feel just like any HTC, Motorola, etc. that is also running CM.
So it's based off of Google Android (AOSP), it's completely self-contained as its own operating system (somewhat anyway).
We have an unofficial alpha of CM9 in the development section if you want to give it a shot! (Unofficial means it's not being built by or currently supported by the actual CyanogenMod team. Just a private individual is using their source code to make it work with our Skyrocket.) It works rather well and is like 99.5% a daily driver.

Wow, thank you for that information. Some of the fuzzy things are a little clearer now but not much. lol
What you said about replacing a png - I opened the ROM in 7Zip, clicked down to the Mms.apk. I right clicked and copied to desktop. I opened that in 7Zip and dragged and dropped the png into that. I changed the file extinsion to .zip and put in on my phone. When I tried to install it though CWM touch it just aborted.
I'm not 100% sure, but I edited the png in paint. I magnified it 800 times and could see a perfect rectangle inside of this other stuff. I only made the perfect rectangle black and saved. The one I'm doing is textfield_default_dark.9.png. I don't quite think I edited it wrong since it wouldn't even install. My editing wrong would make it FC or not show right?? I don't know how to troubleshoot.
In the meantime I'm going to check out some of your other suggestions. However I would LOVE to be able to fix what I want. Why make a black that's not black and can't be displayed right by the display because the pixels are just barely on?
Suggestions on my proceedure? I read somewhere earlier that there has to be some something done to the png for permission or something strange....
I checked out the dark themed Mms.apk you mentioned at the top. This is what it says.
This is not flashable. what you'll need to do is navigate to system--> app, rename your current mms.apk to something like "mms.apk.old" or "mms.apk.bak". Then paste the attached into the same folder. Reboot your phone and voila.
I lost root access and cannot get it back when I installed SKYICS. I'm running UCLD2. I haven't been able to put together what to do about this. I tried to install my original backup and it said CM5 mismatch or something. I do believe I need root access to navigate to the system folder because I can't find it?

yeah. you need root. you dont really need to "flash" in CWM. Just replace the original in the system. But you do need root. Reboot into recovery and flash superuser

I did that a few times and nothing. I gave up on rooting for a while then now I'm rooted. Titanium, when I opened it, asked for permission. It wouldn't do that yesterday. I'm just going to have to say okay I'm rooted.
I'm trying to find the system directory right now...

CodeRedDewd said:
I'm not 100% sure, but I edited the png in paint. I magnified it 800 times and could see a perfect rectangle inside of this other stuff. I only made the perfect rectangle black and saved. The one I'm doing is textfield_default_dark.9.png. I don't quite think I edited it wrong since it wouldn't even install. My editing wrong would make it FC or not show right?? I don't know how to troubleshoot.
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Yea so like I said, since it's a 9-patch file (*.9.png), I'm not sure if you can just edit the image and throw it back in there. I'm guessing that Paint only recognizes it as a *.png, and so saves it as such. 9-patch images need to be recompiled, as far as I know. So that might've screwed you up, even if you installed it right.
CodeRedDewd said:
What you said about replacing a png - I opened the ROM in 7Zip, clicked down to the Mms.apk. I right clicked and copied to desktop. I opened that in 7Zip and dragged and dropped the png into that. I changed the file extinsion to .zip and put in on my phone. When I tried to install it though CWM touch it just aborted.
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So about installing it. Everything above sounds like the correct process EXCEPT for changing the file extension. A CWM flashable zip isn't just any old zip file. It's has a certain structure to it and includes a script file that tells CWM exactly what to do with the information contained inside the zip. With a system apk, all you need to do is get the file on your phone somehow (microSD, USB cable, Dropbox, etc.), and then copy and paste it into the /system/app directory, afterwards setting its permissions to rw-r--r--. To do this, yes you will need root access. It shouldn't be that hard to just root again if you lost it somehow. Or judging by your last post, you may have successfully rooted again.
CodeRedDewd said:
I checked out the dark themed Mms.apk you mentioned at the top. This is what it says.
This is not flashable. what you'll need to do is navigate to system--> app, rename your current mms.apk to something like "mms.apk.old" or "mms.apk.bak". Then paste the attached into the same folder. Reboot your phone and voila.
I lost root access and cannot get it back when I installed SKYICS. I'm running UCLD2. I haven't been able to put together what to do about this. I tried to install my original backup and it said CM5 mismatch or something. I do believe I need root access to navigate to the system folder because I can't find it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which brings us back to this mms.apk. Definitely give this app another shot using the above method once you obtain root again. You will need an app such as Root Explorer, which can be downloaded from the Market.
As far as restoring your backup, the error you received was an MD5 checksum mismatch error. You can Google what MD5 means, and possible reasons why CWM gave you that error. I think it gives it to you sometimes when you rename a backup file and put a space in the file name.

I'll have to research that MD5 thing...
I got the Mms.apk copied to the right directory and my changes worked. I have to use something other than paint that allows me to keep white as the transparant color. This is pretty awesome... Maybe I'll post my result when I figure out what's going on. I'm thinking the text field is a box within a box. I got a black box with a very dark gray one in the middle... But it's progress! Thanks for your help!

CodeRedDewd said:
I'll have to research that MD5 thing...
I got the Mms.apk copied to the right directory and my changes worked. I have to use something other than paint that allows me to keep white as the transparant color. This is pretty awesome... Maybe I'll post my result when I figure out what's going on. I'm thinking the text field is a box within a box. I got a black box with a very dark gray one in the middle... But it's progress! Thanks for your help!
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That's awesome man, good job! Wanna post a screenshot for me? A before and after if you have it?
But if you need something better than Paint, I'd look into Gimp. It's what most of the guys on here use. It's basically the Linux version of Photoshop. And being Linux, it's free and open source... and has been ported over to Windows. It works great for quick image editing. Just takes a bit of Googling to learn all the buttons haha.

I'm using Gimp because it keeps the transparant background. I had a big white box around my box from paint.
Update: When I used paint, it seemed things worked correctly besides the white box around the editor. The transparancy was lost. In Gimp, if I change 1 pixel I get a whole distorted image for the editor. In paint, I made the blue line gold and the box black. That looked great. Nothing seems to be working right with Gimp. Wait, in Paint I did notice one thing. The box was a true black, but with a lighter black, wide stripe in the middle from end to end, as if it was another png inserted into it. Hmmm... In Gimp it looks like nothing is getting inserted and the small image is stretching all the way across with the thin blue line getting super fat. I didn't jack the image up. I only changed one pixel to red in the middle of the black. I'm thinking there's more to this. Someone posted something about a decompiled image that had extra dots around the edge and one a one pixel line on two sides or something. I didn't break anything, because I put in an untouched png and it fixed things, so it's just the image.
Any ideas? I'm headed out to watch a movie, but I'm determined.

Look for a brush diameter or feathering option in Gimp and change it to the smallest one you have. I've had to do that in both Photoshop and Gimp before to get the apk changes I've made to look right and not have that outlining that you're referring to.

I understand what you mean, but this is different.The .9.png looks exactly the same when I edit it. I'm just making it darker. The .9.png files are made of 9 sections taht are stretched individually so the image is not distorted. In my case, Gimp is destroying that ability and the image is getting stretched the wrong way when displayed. For example, if you stretch a line along its lengt it still looks like the same line only longer, which is what they do. But if you stretch it across its width, it becomes this fat line, which is what is happening in my case.
I think you're editig just .png and not .9.png files?

CodeRedDewd said:
I understand what you mean, but this is different.The .9.png looks exactly the same when I edit it. I'm just making it darker. The .9.png files are made of 9 sections taht are stretched individually so the image is not distorted. In my case, Gimp is destroying that ability and the image is getting stretched the wrong way when displayed. For example, if you stretch a line along its lengt it still looks like the same line only longer, which is what they do. But if you stretch it across its width, it becomes this fat line, which is what is happening in my case.
I think you're editig just .png and not .9.png files?
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Do you think some information in this tutorial could be of any help? There's also a video tutorial available.

Yes it's possible that would be very helpful. I found either that or another tutorial last night. It was interesting how the .9.png files are sectioned. I conda figured that out on my own, because it would have to be to get bigger and not distort fine lines. I'll have to find that tutorial itself, because that post you linked has no links in it. I went to a 9patch website or something that had all the stuff, but it got too deep pretty quickly. In the short time I studied it, I had no clue how to even begin to install and use the program.
What baffles me is how Paint didn't screw up the .9.png. It worked fine with my edits, only it had no transparency so there was a white border. It was able to scale fine to landscape and portrait. It looked great. I totally though I had it figured out. :/ Have you looked at how to do .9.png files?

CodeRedDewd said:
Yes it's possible that would be very helpful. I found either that or another tutorial last night. It was interesting how the .9.png files are sectioned. I conda figured that out on my own, because it would have to be to get bigger and not distort fine lines. I'll have to find that tutorial itself, because that post you linked has no links in it. I went to a 9patch website or something that had all the stuff, but it got too deep pretty quickly. In the short time I studied it, I had no clue how to even begin to install and use the program.
What baffles me is how Paint didn't screw up the .9.png. It worked fine with my edits, only it had no transparency so there was a white border. It was able to scale fine to landscape and portrait. It looked great. I totally though I had it figured out. :/ Have you looked at how to do .9.png files?
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The tutorial is contained in the OP of that post I linked to. It contains links for all the tools you need and a short description of the process to follow. And then I think the video tutorial might just guide you through the OP of that first link.
But yea, that's really interesting how Paint worked so well. Did you happen to take any screenshots of the Paint-edited apk running on your phone?
And no, I actually have never looked into editing .9.png files. Didn't really even know how they worked until you explained them a little bit in one of the above posts.

I attached an image. I'm not sure if it's going to show up in the post as an image; we'll see.
There is a white box around what is suppose to be shown as the editor. In the center of the black box it's not true black as the black surrounding it that I changed in the .9.png. The center must be another image.
I'm thinking I'm just going to make the white black, find the other gray images the buttons are on and make that one black. Who needs transparancy when it's all black, which is what I want anyway. lol
I'm going to look into the 9patch some more... It just seems so complicated with how to install and get working. It would be nice to work with someone who is actively editing .9.png's to get me on track....
Do you have an interest in editing those png's? lol