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[REQ] Metamorph to remove 'phone' text from black droid launcher

I can't find the original post on this forum that contained the attachment, so I am attaching it here. I'm not sure what was changed in the file to get it to do it. Was hoping I could find more info from the person who made it... but I can't find the post.
Can anyone help with this, please?
Thanks!

That's weird. I just got a PM about an hour ago regarding the same question. When the "mods" thread got "cleaned up" much of the stuff went missing, unfortunately.
The phone text is cleared out in:
Rosie.apk\res\layout-port\button_bar.xml
Attached is a patched XML file that will clear the text out. You will still need to replace the applicable .png files with transparent ones, for example, if you want to remove the phone icon, etc.
Download <--- Right click to save the file, otherwise, it will attempt to load in your browser.

wow lol thats kinda funny

wtphoto said:
wow lol thats kinda funny
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know, right? Well, here you go .

JsChiSurf said:
That's weird. I just got a PM about an hour ago regarding the same question. When the "mods" thread got "cleaned up" much of the stuff went missing, unfortunately.
The phone text is cleared out in:
Rosie.apk\res\layout-port\button_bar.xml
Attached is a patched XML file that will clear the text out. You will still need to replace the applicable .png files with transparent ones, for example, if you want to remove the phone icon, etc.
Download <--- Right click to save the file, otherwise, it will attempt to load in your browser.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. That worked in removing the phone text, but it didn't center the phone icon on the button. Can you do that, too?

I can't seem to find the file that centers the phone image onto the middle button for the launcher. I've tried launcher.xml but no dice. bb_btn_middle.xml perhaps?
Also, could you provide some insight into what folders to edit? What is mdpi, land, port? Which folders get edited with our phone? I find myself constantly playing a guessing game with which folder the edits go into.
EDIT: Ok, it turns out it was the button_bar.xml file. Now that I knew that, I pulled it out of the zip in the first post and the phone icon is centered. Attached just the xml.

Jedis said:
I can't seem to find the file that centers the phone image onto the middle button for the launcher. I've tried launcher.xml but no dice. bb_btn_middle.xml perhaps?
Also, could you provide some insight into what folders to edit? What is mdpi, land, port? Which folders get edited with our phone? I find myself constantly playing a guessing game with which folder the edits go into.
EDIT: Ok, it turns out it was the button_bar.xml file. Now that I knew that, I pulled it out of the zip in the first post and the phone icon is centered. Attached just the xml.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone icon is in Rosie.apk res/drawable-normal-mdpi. Its called icon_p_phone_rest.png and icon_p_phone_on.png.

VinceOB said:
The phone icon is in Rosie.apk res/drawable-normal-mdpi. Its called icon_p_phone_rest.png and icon_p_phone_on.png.
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Click to collapse
I didn't need to edit the actual png, it was just something in the xml file that centered the placement of it. It's all fixed.
My goal is all Metamorph's with the black droid launcher with phone text removed, all clear widgets (Digital Clock Widget, GenieWidget, pure calendar, pure music player, power control widget, etc). Genie, pure calendar/music is done. Digital Clock Widget is working, but tapping on it to edit the alarm is busted since the WorldClock was removed for the lockscreen...
I'm sick of remembering which files were editted in the apk files to achieve the mods... Metamorphing will make everything much easier, but it's a process to figure out which files were edited, since repacking the zipfiles usually modifies the 'modified date'.

[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.

editing the lockscreen

I want to make a minor change to the way the lockscreen looks and want to see if its something easy enough for me to do.
I'm looking to make the gray part with the dots on ether side slightly transparent. I would also like to keep the clock solid. Also not lose any of the functionality of the htc lockscreen.
Is this easy enough for someone with no theming experience to do?

Assuming you are rooted and if you are just changing images it is not difficult at all.
The lockscreen slider is actually in
/system/framework/com.htc.resources.apk
and there are 3 that start with lockscreen_arc
You need to copy the apk to your PC and open it with 7zip (my preferences) and extract the res folder to the PC. Do your graphic changes in that folder. Then reopen the apk in 7zip and drag the modified res folder over the window and drop it in.
Then you just do and adb push to put it back on the phone
You can use the same process to modify other images in the
/system/app/HtcLockScreen.apk
Changes that are not just graphics become very difficult and require de-compiling the apk to edit xml files.
AND Do a nand backup before just in case you mess up.

Awesome, sounds like a good guide. I'll post my results once I finish it.

it seems this is going to be harder than i thought.
I made the part that I wanted translucent only to find that the two pngs under it are not editable enough to remove them from behind it, so I'm left with this. I'm assuming that the only way to fix this is to do some xml editing which is a little above me.

I actually like that

If I could just get rid of the straight parts near the top of the time, I would like it. But simply editing the pngs won't cut it as I have a feeling that the xml extends the top graphic straight down because what is seen there doesn't match up with what the png looks like.

You would be correct. The problem you're running into is the 2 images behind the main lock bar are actually .9.png images and not regular .png images.
Quick, very rough explanation: To save space these images are stretched by xml files at certain points in the image to create a background. When an apk is decoded, these stretch points are represented by a 1px border around the image. This does not show up when you just use a program like 7zip.
Something to try if you want to cheat, not sure if it'll work.. Treat it all as one image instead of 3 separate ones. Make lockscreen_arc.png a taller image, and then put the top and bottom bars on it that way. Then just make the other two .9.png files completely transparent. Since it's a regular .png, it wont get stretched. I know making it smaller works out, so I'm assuming you could also make it larger.
Edit: Just thought about it some more, and that might not work, because if I had to guess, the Verizon and date text are probably set up in the xml relative to that image.

I'll mess around a little more today and see if I can't come up with something.

i also would like to do this but not the stock lock screen but this one..
To look like this...
Just the green and yellow to blue..

If all else fails, you could use the theme kitchen (http://uot.dakra.lt/kitchen). It'll allow basic changes to the whole theme (specifically the lockscreen).

Dude this thread is almost a year old and some people like to do stuff manually

[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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
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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

[Q] Edit .9.png files

Hi everyone, I'm searching and trying for quite a while now but still can't get it right.
I'm trying to edit the chat bubbles of whatsapp to match my theme. I decompiled the app, used gimp to edit, tested it with draw9patch, compiled it & signed. But when I put it back on my phone it just won't show the edited files. I checked with 7z and the files are in there, checked any other map for the same files but nope.
I did encounter a few errors with compiling and working with .9.png's since it is my first time. But I could find everything I needed to fix them and eventually got it right, just can't find how to get it to show my edited files.
Some help would be really appreciated=)

anyone?

turkey744 said:
anyone?
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How did you edit it with gimp? You cant test it with the draw 9 tool that is used to redraw the lines.
Also remember that you have to remove the border before you edit the image or run it through the .9 tool.

zelendel said:
How did you edit it with gimp? You cant test it with the draw 9 tool that is used to redraw the lines.
Also remember that you have to remove the border before you edit the image or run it through the .9 tool.
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I put in 2 layers since I changed the opacity which affects the whole picture. So i redrew the black lines in a new layer at the same spot with the same colour(many people mentioned that you could just redraw it).
Previously I didn't redraw the black lines but then it failed to compile the app.

turkey744 said:
I put in 2 layers since I changed the opacity which affects the whole picture. So i redrew the black lines in a new layer at the same spot with the same colour(many people mentioned that you could just redraw it).
Previously I didn't redraw the black lines but then it failed to compile the app.
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You can but it is unstable and it has to be the top layer when you merge the image. I would not advise doing this way and would tell anyone that is that they are doing it wrong.

zelendel said:
You can but it is unstable and it has to be the top layer when you merge the image. I would not advise doing this way and would tell anyone that is that they are doing it wrong.
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Just made sure it was the upper layer, still the same result. And I already tried manually drawing the lines in 9patch with the same result. The files seem to be fine, if they weren't then shouldn't whatsapp be unable to open/install?

turkey744 said:
Just made sure it was the upper layer, still the same result. And I already tried manually drawing the lines in 9patch with the same result. The files seem to be fine, if they weren't then shouldn't whatsapp be unable to open/install?
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Then it is pulling the images from another folder. Use the layouts folder to find out where. I no longer use whatsapp so I'm not sure where they would be.

zelendel said:
Then it is pulling the images from another folder. Use the layouts folder to find out where. I no longer use whatsapp so I'm not sure where they would be.
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I can't find anything else that could be used as the balloons. Even checked my theme if that has something inside from whatsapp. Since it does overlay some parts, but not the bubbles. Can't I put my edited files in there so my theme overlays them?

Still could use some help