Related
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.
Ok...here it is. I new too theming but I finaly created my first cm 6 theme to share with the community, besides a few minor tweaks it will be ready sometime this week. I ran into a problem I want to add a themed swiftkey apk for those of us who use it. I'm trying to make a black with blue glow. Now I successfully edited the png's via gimp but I ran into a problem some png's are indexed layered png's. I can't colorize them. I looked everywhere I could think of but could not find directions on how to edit those types of png's. Could someone send me a link on how to do this or just give me some pointers. If I posted this in the wrong forum...my bad I just figured I would ask here since it has to do with a theme. Anyways...I'd appreciate it.
Set the mode of the image to rgb then when your done editing set the mode back to indexed... in gimp.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Thanks man I'll try that out.
Yea...that worked perfect only thing is when I press a key the keyboard force closes but I think I might not have switched the mode back to index on a couple. Thanks again.
Shouldnt matter... indexing is a way to optimize a png. What your doing is taking the colors and applying a 255, or less, color palette.
Your fcs might be that you ruined the 9patch pngs you can't edit these in gimp or ps it ruins the 9patch information... if you want to edit a 9 patch de compile the apk first then edit, leave the outside 1 pixel border untouched, then re compile it.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
First of all, major thanks to JsChiSurf for his amazing work on this port!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=877003
This is a separate thread for themes of this mod.
I've always wanted a clean, slick looking shade on the notifications pull down and thanks to JsChiSurf, it's pretty easy to theme it.
Here are two that I made today. I haven't gotten around to skinning the buttons yet though.
Try these, static images don't do them justice, it's neat seeing the way they move. For more details on flashing these, please refer for JsChiSurf's thread above. These already contain the updated 2.1.1 services jar.
After zipping, you can use this:
http://circle.glx.nl/
to restore your battery %. Thanks chogardjr!
PCS_v2.1.1 Brushed_Metal_Grate_Small_Circular_Light
PCS_v2.1.1 Brushed_Metal_Grate_Small_Circular_Dark
PCS_v2.1.1 Brushed Metal Grate Small Circular Dark Industrialized
PCS_v2.1.1 Brushed_Metal_Grate_Small_Dark_Industrialized_Android
PCS_v2.1.1 Brushed_Metal_Grate_Small_Dark_Industrialized_Android_v2
PCS_v2.1.1 Brushed_Metal_Grate_Small_Light_Industrialized_Android_v2
Neo3D said:
First of all, major thanks to JsChiSurf for his amazing work on this port!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=877003
This is a separate thread for themes of this mod.
I've always wanted a clean, slick looking shade on the notifications pull down and thanks to JsChiSurf, it's pretty easy to theme it.
Here are two that I made today. I haven't gotten around to skinning the buttons yet though.
Try these, static images don't do them justice, it's neat seeing the way they move. For more details on flashing these, please refer for JsChiSurf's thread above. These contain the 2.1.1 services jar.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong section to post this in, however, nice MOD.
Hi. How do i go about installing this mod please?
Jason Black said:
Hi. How do i go about installing this mod please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
jschisurf has intructions in his thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=877003
since he originally ported this, it's best to refer back to his thread.
oh, i already included his latest 2.1.1 services jar, so there's no need to flash twice.
SteelH said:
Wrong section to post this in, however, nice MOD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry Thanks for moving it to the correct section!
Using with Myn rom
I think the brushed metal version looks great and want to install, but would that change myn's black notification menu power control back to white or just add the metal screen drop down. I like the black notification menu power control over the white version.
Thanks
terence74 said:
I think the brushed metal version looks great and want to install, but would that change myn's black notification menu power control back to white or just add the metal screen drop down. I like the black notification menu power control over the white version.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, honestly, I'm still new at this, so I don't know. Can you make a Nandroid image, then flash it and let everyone know?
terence74 said:
I think the brushed metal version looks great and want to install, but would that change myn's black notification menu power control back to white or just add the metal screen drop down. I like the black notification menu power control over the white version.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, it will.
This is all very easy. If you have done this much then you can do it all. I have faith in you.
chogardjr said:
This is all very easy. If you have done this much then you can do it all. I have faith in you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it just a matter of replacing the PNG's?
What PNG optimization do you recommend?
Also, how do you change the color of the fonts? I tried to look at the xml files but they open up as strange characters in any text editor I use (Notepad++, notepad, etc)
I also noticed that I lost my battery % after flash jschisurf's mod?
Thanks for your faith! The hardest part is knowing where all the PNG's are that need to be replaced!
Replacing png's is the noob way to do it. But is is the best place to start. You need to find apktool and learn how to use it. This will solve most of your problems with xml's. You also need a program called xml editor. This is my starters list. Here is a link you might learn a lot from.
http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/index.html
As far as learning which png's, most are in the drawable-hdpi folder. Stay away from .9.png files untill your ready for them. Apktool will let you know when you make a mistake and where the mistake is to fix. Search youtube and do a lot of reading in this forum. It seems like a lot but after a while you will start to understand how the OS works and manages the files. Happy Themeing!
Neo3D said:
Is it just a matter of replacing the PNG's?
What PNG optimization do you recommend?
Also, how do you change the color of the fonts? I tried to look at the xml files but they open up as strange characters in any text editor I use (Notepad++, notepad, etc)
I also noticed that I lost my battery % after flash jschisurf's mod?
Thanks for your faith! The hardest part is knowing where all the PNG's are that need to be replaced!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Neo3D said:
I also noticed that I lost my battery % after flash jschisurf's mod?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to the sticky where the rom wiki is and at the bottom of that page you will find kitchens. One is for changing battery icons. That one is the easy fix to getting the icons you want into the his mod. But if you must know more, there are 3 xml files in the drawable folder that needs to be replaced to work with more png files than his stock ones. All I can say is APKTOOL and 7ZIP is the bread and butter.
Thanks for the awesome tips and info!
I found the .png for the toggle switches (stat_power_background.9.png) and yea, it must be some kind of special PNG cuz I measured it out to be 80x75 but rendered incorrectly.
Sweet, looking forward to learning more about Android!
BTW, just finished looking over that Android page and is this the APKTool you're referring to?
Android Asset Packaging Tool
Thats one of them. Here is a post made by a guy who compiled them all together for anyone who wants them. Use just the tools and use that link I gave to learn about them. APKTOOL is something made by someone here on xda but I can't find his link.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=882742&highlight=apktool
Neo3D said:
Thanks for the awesome tips and info!
I found the .png for the toggle switches (stat_power_background.9.png) and yea, it must be some kind of special PNG cuz I measured it out to be 80x75 but rendered incorrectly.
Sweet, looking forward to learning more about Android!
BTW, just finished looking over that Android page and is this the APKTool you're referring to?
Android Asset Packaging Tool
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found the website: FWI use v1.3.1 as v1.3.2 has bugs
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...8j1-bcnOf1Rz8k9fA&sig2=4MkcxzG_ROaqAr4-tWwlGw
As stated, just changing the .png's is the starting way of theming. Just make sure you do a nandroid backup before you go around messing with anything.
When you get comfortable with that, the next step is to look into XML. XML is generally easy to learn but can be complicated at parts. I don't really know of a good starting guide to XML for android but I'll post one if I see it.
NinePatches (*.9.png) aren't as complicated as people think. Once you get the concept of it, they are actually pretty easy. I'm creating a guide for it when I have time. But the basic concept is:
The NinePatch tool ads a 1px border to an image.
The new border can be colored black (except the 4 corners).
The left and top borders defines the stretchable area.
The right and bottom borders defines where content is allowed.
Like I said, I'm making a guide to it which will explain it better and have pictures.
chogardjr said:
Thats one of them. Here is a post made by a guy who compiled them all together for anyone who wants them. Use just the tools and use that link I gave to learn about them. APKTOOL is something made by someone here on xda but I can't find his link.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=882742&highlight=apktool
I found the website: FWI use v1.3.1 as v1.3.2 has bugs
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...8j1-bcnOf1Rz8k9fA&sig2=4MkcxzG_ROaqAr4-tWwlGw
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok sounds good, thanks!
Skullmonkey said:
As stated, just changing the .png's is the starting way of theming. Just make sure you do a nandroid backup before you go around messing with anything.
When you get comfortable with that, the next step is to look into XML. XML is generally easy to learn but can be complicated at parts. I don't really know of a good starting guide to XML for android but I'll post one if I see it.
NinePatches (*.9.png) aren't as complicated as people think. Once you get the concept of it, they are actually pretty easy. I'm creating a guide for it when I have time. But the basic concept is:
The NinePatch tool ads a 1px border to an image.
The new border can be colored black (except the 4 corners).
The left and top borders defines the stretchable area.
The right and bottom borders defines where content is allowed.
Like I said, I'm making a guide to it which will explain it better and have pictures.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried the 9patch app and it's pretty easy to use (I have experience with Illustrator and Flash). However, when I replace the original 9path file w/the new one, it shows the 1 px border on my android. Also, it seems to scale it wrong. I attached an example of what I'm talking about. I measured the bkg of the power toggles to be 80x75, but on the Android, it shrinks the graphic and you can see the 1 pixel border?
Looking forward to that guide!
Neo3D said:
I tried the 9patch app and it's pretty easy to use (I have experience with Illustrator and Flash). However, when I replace the original 9path file w/the new one, it shows the 1 px border on my android. Also, it seems to scale it wrong. I attached an example of what I'm talking about. I measured the bkg of the power toggles to be 80x75, but on the Android, it shrinks the graphic and you can see the 1 pixel border?
Looking forward to that guide!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are you talking about the background of the icons or the entire power area?
the background of the icons look fine to me even zoomed in.
if your trying to make the entire power area be the caution image, then there is an xml edit involved in res/layout-hdpi-v4/status_bar_expanded.xml. ill give you the exact change you need if you cant figure it out.
just keep in mind that ninepatch will only stretch images, not repeat.
Skullmonkey said:
are you talking about the background of the icons or the entire power area?
the background of the icons look fine to me even zoomed in.
if your trying to make the entire power area be the caution image, then there is an xml edit involved in res/layout-hdpi-v4/status_bar_expanded.xml. ill give you the exact change you need if you cant figure it out.
just keep in mind that ninepatch will only stretch images, not repeat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ahh ok, i wasn't sure how the background of that area worked. so there's a background png and a background png for each widget?
i found this png: stat_power_background.9.png
which other one is for the background of the entire thing?
about the extra 1 pixel showing, you can see on the sides of the background a black vertical line. on 9patch png's, is the 1 px border that defines the 9patch actually supposed to show? i think there might be something wrong with my 9patch png's.
also, if you look at the screen cap again, there's horizontal white space above and below the toggle widget bkg graphics. is there a way to make them larger so they cover the white space? seems like android likes to shrink them to that size (in the screen cap) no matter how tall the image is.
Neo3D said:
ahh ok, i wasn't sure how the background of that area worked. so there's a background png and a background png for each widget?
i found this png: stat_power_background.9.png
which other one is for the background of the entire thing?
about the extra 1 pixel showing, you can see on the sides of the background a black vertical line. on 9patch png's, is the 1 px border that defines the 9patch actually supposed to show? i think there might be something wrong with my 9patch png's.
also, if you look at the screen cap again, there's horizontal white space above and below the toggle widget bkg graphics. is there a way to make them larger so they cover the white space? seems like android likes to shrink them to that size (in the screen cap) no matter how tall the image is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well theres a solid color using a ARGB hex (for the background of the power control area) and a png for each icon background by default. you can set it up so there is an image for each.
the stat_power_background.9.png controls each icon (as you may have guessed already)
i'm not sure why the power control area isnt a solid color.
when in the ninepatch editor, you are supposed to see the black extra pixel but when you load it on your phone, they should dissappear. i honestly dont see them in the ss you provided.
can you send me the framework-res.apk you are working on so i can see if everything is set up correctly?
some of the png's i open in photoshop have a black background/black pixely border. i have took a ss of one of the media control images as an example and it's attached below.
if anyone knows why this is happening could you please give me an idea? It's not all just a few here and there.
droidx11 said:
some of the png's i open in photoshop have a black background/black pixely border. i have took a ss of one of the media control images as an example and it's attached below.
if anyone knows why this is happening could you please give me an idea? It's not all just a few here and there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
because i believe you are looking at .9.png's which use black borders as a guide for stretching if the file is something.9.png then that is your answer
hmm.. i haven't seem to have a problem editing the .9 PNG's, i've tried searching this forum and a few other forums and haven't found that anyone has asked this.. that particular png file name is "ic_media_play". i've also had the same problem when opening the wifi, 3g, some of the keyboard buttons, the "spinner_black_16" image. i've tried opening them in firefox then copying image, dragging them directing into photoshop and a few other things. sorry if this is a newb question...
droidx11 said:
hmm.. i haven't seem to have a problem editing the .9 PNG's, i've tried searching this forum and a few other forums and haven't found that anyone has asked this.. that particular png file name is "ic_media_play". i've also had the same problem when opening the wifi, 3g, some of the keyboard buttons, the "spinner_black_16" image. i've tried opening them in firefox then copying image, dragging them directing into photoshop and a few other things. sorry if this is a newb question...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well ic_media_play isnt a .9.png so if it has a black outline its just for the way it looks the wifi, 3g, and spinner_black_16 images you shouldnt have a problem with since they arent .9.png's either, most of the keyboard images are tho and will need to be decompiled and recompiled to get them to work correctly. im working on a theme right now and theres no easy way to edit them, oh also if you're using something like 7zip to open up the apk that might be your problem i edit most of mine in Linux so i dont remember if you can open them in Photoshop without decompiling but the best way is to decompile, edit, then recompile and there are guides out there that describe how to better than i could but search for apktool or apkmanager
Funnyface19 said:
well ic_media_play isnt a .9.png so if it has a black outline its just for the way it looks the wifi, 3g, and spinner_black_16 images you shouldnt have a problem with since they arent .9.png's either, most of the keyboard images are tho and will need to be decompiled and recompiled to get them to work correctly. im working on a theme right now and theres no easy way to edit them, oh also if you're using something like 7zip to open up the apk that might be your problem i edit most of mine in Linux so i dont remember if you can open them in Photoshop without decompiling but the best way is to decompile, edit, then recompile and there are guides out there that describe how to better than i could but search for apktool or apkmanager
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
first i'd like to thank you for your response. what i am doing is unzipping the contents from framework-res with winrar. (i was planning on just replacing the unzipped folders with the existing folders that are in framework-res, just overwriting them.) then i just pulled the images from the unzipped folder, res -> drawable-hdpi, into photoshop... in the unzipped folder thumbnail image, these images seem to look okay, no border/stroke around the edges, no black bg etc. but in photoshop they seem to have locked layers named "index" which i just change the mode to RGB to make the layer editable. i'm not sure what i'm doing right, i'm sure it's something i'm not doing right, i just can't figure it out - maybe i'll try a different program to unzip the folder?
i've attached a ss of the folder with the thumbnail images looking okay.
(p.s. this theme is for my gf)
I've been working on a theme also, though not for the DX... I had to completely remake the PNG's in question. I'm on OSX using Photoshop and it does the same thing. First start with an indexed color version then once you get it done on a block level convert it to an RGB 8-bit image and smooth the image with a very mild gaussian blur or lens blur... personally I use gaussian.
Here's a screenshot of mine in action... I made the "empty" signal bars hollow with a neon outline..
You'll want to use 7-zip, not sure about the black stroke on the images, sounds like a .9 PNG issue. I don't use Photoshop personally, I use Fireworks. It could be Photoshop putting the stroke on the images...If you have access to Fireworks, trying using that instead.
k0smo86 said:
You'll want to use 7-zip, not sure about the black stroke on the images, sounds like a .9 PNG issue. I don't use Photoshop personally, I use Fireworks. It could be Photoshop putting the stroke on the images...If you have access to Fireworks, trying using that instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
winRAR is fine too you can open a zip file without having to unzip the entire contents, personally i use linux/Ubuntu which has an awesome photoshop like picture editor G.I.M.P. idk if you can download it or not for windows but you could check it out
droidx11 said:
first i'd like to thank you for your response. what i am doing is unzipping the contents from framework-res with winrar. (i was planning on just replacing the unzipped folders with the existing folders that are in framework-res, just overwriting them.) then i just pulled the images from the unzipped folder, res -> drawable-hdpi, into photoshop... in the unzipped folder thumbnail image, these images seem to look okay, no border/stroke around the edges, no black bg etc. but in photoshop they seem to have locked layers named "index" which i just change the mode to RGB to make the layer editable. i'm not sure what i'm doing right, i'm sure it's something i'm not doing right, i just can't figure it out - maybe i'll try a different program to unzip the folder?
i've attached a ss of the folder with the thumbnail images looking okay.
(p.s. this theme is for my gf)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol sure its for HER lol you can use 7zip/winRAR either one but use it to extract the drawable res folder out and pull them into photoshop, edit the ones you want and put them back in the one already zipped up, but if you do it that way stay away from .9.png's
XGX5309 said:
I've been working on a theme also, though not for the DX... I had to completely remake the PNG's in question. I'm on OSX using Photoshop and it does the same thing. First start with an indexed color version then once you get it done on a block level convert it to an RGB 8-bit image and smooth the image with a very mild gaussian blur or lens blur... personally I use gaussian.
Here's a screenshot of mine in action... I made the "empty" signal bars hollow with a neon outline..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
looks very nice so far, did you edit the analog clock also? looks amazing... thanks for the tips.
k0smo86 said:
You'll want to use 7-zip, not sure about the black stroke on the images, sounds like a .9 PNG issue. I don't use Photoshop personally, I use Fireworks. It could be Photoshop putting the stroke on the images...If you have access to Fireworks, trying using that instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the advice, i'll give fireworks a try and see how it turns out.
Funnyface19 said:
lol sure its for HER lol you can use 7zip/winRAR either one but use it to extract the drawable res folder out and pull them into photoshop, edit the ones you want and put them back in the one already zipped up, but if you do it that way stay away from .9.png's
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hahaha yea i was trying on that pink to see how it looked on me . I'm going to try to dl GIMP along with fireworks to see how they turn out and yea i've read about those .9.png's on other threads about how they weren't changing over in certain apps. hopefully i won't run into this problem but if i do then its back to the pros on xda for advice. lol
Update - Editing the PNG's in fireworks, works like a charm, a lot smoother. Thanks everyone for your useful and helpful information
You should be able to option +2x click the index layer and then cmd + J in PS to mod it without redrawing it.
Hth
Sent from my SCH-I800 using XDA App
I used to be able to crank out themes for the Crackberry in about an hour using their creator program...Is there one specifically designed for the Android OS? I've googled a theme builder for Android a few times, but nothing pulls up.
anyone want to lend a thought?
you just edit "framework-res.apk" located in "/system/framework"
Check out the sticky at the top of this forum. You can also use metamorph to make themes and provide for easy installation.
They are just png files use photoshop
Sent from my X10a using Tapatalk
Their more hand made rather than crackberry theme maker ui....
Sent from a pyramid in Canadada
Diesel984 said:
I used to be able to crank out themes for the Crackberry in about an hour using their creator program...Is there one specifically designed for the Android OS? I've googled a theme builder for Android a few times, but nothing pulls up.
anyone want to lend a thought?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://uot.dakra.lt/kitchen/
Here you go... and you are welcome. This does work with x10 as i have used it for wolfs rom. It might not be as custom as you want cause you have to chose from their selection of icons and stuff.
It is a well made online kitchen for making themes. you just need to get your hands on your framework-res.apk and upload it to the website then modify it and bammo you got a new theme.
enjoy
i use gimp and patience
Diesel984 said:
I used to be able to crank out themes for the Crackberry in about an hour using their creator program...Is there one specifically designed for the Android OS? I've googled a theme builder for Android a few times, but nothing pulls up.
anyone want to lend a thought?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
To built comprehensive theme you need to have few tools... im sure there are few shortcuts, but if you know the technique then you can get the edge on making wonderful themes.
What to change.
images- pngs & 9.pngs (most popular thing, 9.png editing is little tricky
XML files- most people don't do this as its little complicated and this is the place you can make Honda looks like a Ferrari..
Optimization- most users just replace pngs without concerning its operational outcome. its better if you can optimized pngs and finish it off with a "zipalign"
Well. its not easy to teach you like this... but you can start little googling to get help. XDA is full of resources if you know what ur looking.
My tools for above things
Images
Photoshop CS5
Run draw9patch.bat(SDK/tools) to get an idea and fix of margin on 9.pngs
XML and optimization
SDK
Eclipse
Apktool
zipalign.exe (SDK/tools)
Good luck....