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Changing System Icons on WM6?

I downloaded a bunch of nice glass icon set and would like to replace the existing WM6 icons such as MEI and other programs. What is the easiest method of doing this? I did a search but found no results. Any help would be appreciate it.

To change icons in start menu you need to replace the icons on shortcuts by changing the *.lnk files in windows\start menu and its sub-folders.
Just add a ',' (coma) to the end of the text in the file followed by the name of the icon file. You could also look for apps that make shortcuts on PPC. There are even some free ones.
But if you want to change icons of today plugins and other system icons you need to unsign, res-edit then resign some DLLs and that's not an easy process.

Darn it, check this out i got these awsome icons i wanna use.
Link: http://solsie.com/glass-icons-ms-windows/

Ok so these are program icons. No problem there - just get a good graphics app to shrink them to 32x32 pixels and save as *.ico (windows icon format).
Check out GIMP, its free and supports many formats including *.ico and *.png
Then change the shortcuts in start menu.
Like I said before there are several apps (sorry, don't remember their names) that will let you do it easily.

But if you want to change icons of today plugins and other system icons you need to unsign, res-edit then resign some DLLs and that's not an easy process
The above is what I want to do, can you point me in that direction.

YES!!!!, I was able to copy the .png file to my storage card. Then using total commander, I was able to MOVE the file to the windows directory overwriting the original file. Then I did a soft reset to make sure it stuck, and it DID!!!

any chance you want to post the files that you used to overwrite the system files
thank you!

I`m intrested too! Thanks!

IronRed said:
YES!!!!, I was able to copy the .png file to my storage card. Then using total commander, I was able to MOVE the file to the windows directory overwriting the original file. Then I did a soft reset to make sure it stuck, and it DID!!!
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Can you tell me what the location was that you copied to - all I can find is the hklm etc etc and it wont let me move to there

Icons for folders? (and possible discovery)

Is it possible to make icons for our folders in the apps menu?
I opened the Office Mobile folder and there was a .ink file with the office icon. I moved it to another folder (named Utilities) and this folder now had the office folder icon. Any hint of how this could be used?

well, windows mobile has a special folder design, no?
Good job on the discovery.
You could probably create custom folders for apps.

It is really very simple.
It's not ink its lnk, a shortcut file. If you manage to open it in text editor you will see a simple text string pointing to a dll, exe or ico file.
WM looks for a shortcut named 'icon.lnk' in folders and if it finds it will assign the folder the icon shortcut is pointing to.
You can look to windows\start menu\programs\games for an example of such file.
Also make sure it has the 'hidden' attribute or you will see it when opening the folder from start menu.

So it was lnk with an "L"? When I opened the file with word, it was pointing to a DLL file and it didn't open quite well with Word.
Thanks for the highlight, I'll try making icons
I might post them later.

I'm having more trouble to find free glossy folder icons than anything else...

Alright, I tried once, failed. Trying again and again!

Yes thats Lnk with "L" as in lamp (sorry, habit picked up from phone customer support)
Do not use Word or any other fancy editor as they do not handle plain text files well and may shove some garbage in there when you save the file.
Use notepad or even dos edit command.

levenum said:
Yes thats Lnk with "L" as in lamp (sorry, habit picked up from phone customer support)
Do not use Word or any other fancy editor as they do not handle plain text files well and may shove some garbage in there when you save the file.
Use notepad or even dos edit command.
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Ok I'll try that, thanks!
EDIT: I found a thread on brighthand that says only DLL files can be used as a source. Then if I'm not mistaken you must specify the code line where the icon is situated. The best solution would be to make a really small app with an icon then use this icon.
I'd try it right now but some piece of **** called ActiveSync refuses to work for a random reason.
EDIT 2: Activesync fixed, now working with a ressource editor and some DLLs to get it all working

Simply copy the .lnk to your desktop (PC). use notepad to editi t.
1. open notepad
2. open file xyz.lnk ....simple.

Alright, here's my progress:
-Downloaded a copy of shellres.dll, the location of the existing icons (because you can't take it from the phone)
-Using Ressource Hacker, I changed the icons (in Icons Group) for iPhone icons (other free icons aren't nice)
-Now I copy the edited shellres.dll to the Windows folder (didn't work elsewhere)
-I make a copy of a icon.lnk file in every folder I want to see the icons of and edit the ressource number to match the one in the DLL.
Here's a standard icon.lnk file: 1#SHELLRES.dll,-8216
Translated to: 1#[location of the dll],-[ressource number]
And edited to: 1#iconpack.dll,-8210
Screenshots coming soon.
Now the only problem is that the whole process is not automated. I don't know much about programing so I can't make a program that makes .lnk that points to the right icon.

There you go! What do you guys think?
BTW it only shows up in 256 colors, which is bad considering how nice the icons were...
EDIT: The whole thing is 1.4 freaking MB in size, so I gotta find icons that come in 32x32 instead of full packs including vista icons. Each icon was 80kb in size...

Try GIMP. It's free (open source) and it can edit icons. I didn't check if it can manage the different images that are packed in a single ico file but its worth a try.

I have gimp but I suck at using it. Anyway those icons are perfect for me but don't hesitate to ask for help to install your own.

Program Names Question

I'm wondering how easy it is to replace the names of program launchers. I would like to rename programs in the menu from something like "alarmclock beta 1.0 supa" to something shorter like "alarm clock". Obviously this is just an example. How easy would it be to do this? Is it a simple edit of an xml file or would a full recompile be necessary.
Thanks.

Well I'm not sure about on here. I'm gussing it is stored inside the APK file. I know on the iPhone you just edit a .plist file inside the .app. After a quick look inside the APK file none of the XMLs are editable for me they are just jibberish. Sorry I couldn't help more...

A little help with autoapktool

Hey guys, question is kind of simple. I've been editing my frame work and system apks. Last night I finally figured out how to properly decompile the apks so the apktool creates the .yml file. What my question is, ive edited the framework apk and added more png files to it then edited the xml files except public. What is the easiest way to set the hex ids for the png files? I read recompiling would do it but I didn't have time to try it. Would that work or is there another way?
Sent from my htc evo

Just adding pngs cannot add hex ids to public.xml while recompiling
The pngs should be registered first
e.g: If I want to add 1% battery mod then I will register those pngs in status_battery.xml and then add the pngs and then hex ids are addded automatically.
Anyways what are you trying to do?
Burned from my laser torch using pencil cells

Theming my phone using uot kitchen files from a bunch of different mods on there, so basically I downloaded all the kitchen files I liked then took out the images from each I wanted and combined them into one. After that I also edited my own version of headphones using adobe ps and created a fully working and smooth sync animation. Ive already edited the drawable.xml file and added the animation xmls to the appropriate folders. The only thing I need left is do I have to manually add the hex ids in the value folder or does the recompile do that for me?
Sent from my htc evo

Ok so I figured out how to properly theme but for some reason the animations for wifi in range and sync aren't working. This it's what I did from looking at someone elses mod on uot. Created the xml files and placed them into the res/drawable folder. Added the png files to drawable-hpdi folder and changed the original wifi_in range name to a zero at the end. For sync_anim0, made that a 1. So now the xml files I created reflect the png names starting with those two. Is there anything else I need to do?
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium

Theming for dummies - replace the icons inside themes from Samsung's Store - no root

So this is a simple how to aimed to people with unrooted phones that still want to replace the icons inside Samsung Themes.
First of all, just a bit of theory
1) Samsung Thems are simple apk files, so you can edit them and re-install without any trouble, they don't need a particular signature by Samsung.
2) The icons inside such themes are in qmg format, which is a proprietary format that cannot be converted without Samsung Theme designer's kit or by using the built-in converter which is in our phones... It's something that packs a png file and an xml one andnot even imagemagick for Linux can convert it.... No problem, you can replace qmg files in themes with png files flawlessly, you just need to rename them as png
So, you need apk extractor (see play store) which can extract installed apk very easily (even system files) without root and apkeditor pro (see play store as well) wich is a very handy tool for minimal decompiling. I am not affiliated to apk editor pro and you can obviously do the same thing with apk tool and a pc, though this simple how to is for 'noob dummy themers' and it makes more sense to use just your phone than apktool.
Once you have installed such apps, open apk extractor and look for the apk you must edit. Let's say you want to edit the material theme by Cambunch (see galaxy store). So, you will find two apk files with cambunch etc.... Choose the first one, the one with the words appicon inside and extract it. It will be placed into the folder ExtractedApk
I don't like, in such theme, the icons for calendar and messages, which are green and yellow, so I replaced them with google original ones. Just download them somewhere and rename them to qmg. I mean, if the original file was named message.png, just rename it to message.qmg for example.
Now open apk editor pro and choose to edit an apk file, go to ExtractedApk folder, choose the theme you have extracted and choose simple edit....
You should see a partially decompiled apk.... Go to res folder and then open the drawable etc.. folder
Inside that folder you'll see several qmg files... Look for the one that refers to message (the names are quite self explanatory) and click the 'pen' option, then use the file manager to choose the icon message.qmg you've saved as said above and replace the original one with the new icon. It can obviously been done with any icon inside that folder.
Now follow the steps suggested by the app itself and install the new apk over the former and your theme will have been updated.
If the theme had already been applied, move to a different one (even the default one) and then apply it back to see the changes.
Very simple

Just as a sample, this is the apk modded with calendar and message icon respectively in blue and light blue like the original ones by Google. It must be installed as an update of the nice theme by Cameron Bunch

How can you pull out the keyboard from a theme and apply without root?
AnThOnY- S7 Edge

iTouch24 said:
How can you pull out the keyboard from a theme and apply without root?
AnThOnY- S7 Edge
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It is not so simple, you need apktool and a pc. Apk editor is unable to fully decompile the apk files of samsung themes.
To be honest, I haven't played with themes yet and I don't exactly know how they are applied to keyboard, notification bar and so on.

Cool! Thanks for posting this. I used this to edit the soft keys on my last LG, but didn't realize it would work for themes, too. Got some editing to do when I get back from my next trip.

meyerweb said:
Cool! Thanks for posting this. I used this to edit the soft keys on my last LG, but didn't realize it would work for themes, too. Got some editing to do when I get back from my next trip.
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Glad you appreciate it
I googled a little bit and saw that you can't make a theme from scratch without Samsung's proprietary software which is reserved to approved designers only, but still it should be possible to edit a free theme and changing it into something different. I mean, not only the icons, even the Ui. At least for the things that this theme engine allows to be themed.
I would like a ubuntu touch theme or a Sony xperia one, which are not available in the theme store, but atm I have just been able to replace the icons... I have to get some spare time to decompile a theme on my pc

Why several APK files inside?
Hi,
Followed the procedure. But when choose simple edit, it shows several apk files inside the main apk file. how to replace the images?

I replied to your PM. It depends on the theme.

jisharka said:
Hi,
Followed the procedure. But when choose simple edit, it shows several apk files inside the main apk file. how to replace the images?
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lucaoldb said:
I replied to your PM. It depends on the theme.
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I have the same issue with sd-Black theme. Only apk files in assets folder, no res folder. Any way to do it?

I am sorry, but I am now on Echoerom note 7 port which has the new theme store, so I can't directly check the old themes for the s7.
Anyway, when I posted this thread, I had had a look only at a couple of themes, which were very simple do as the ones by Cameronbunch. In the following day I realised that in the theme store there a basically to kind of themes and the ones of the second kind are much more complicated to edit.
To be honest, after opening this short thread, I haven't spent any time in editing themes, but I don't think apk editor is powerful enough for the themes of the second kind. You'd better go with apktool, since you need to decompile not only the main apk, but even the ones inside it.
Sorry for not being very helpful.

I have req for someone with root, can you share here themes from store: Athletics sports and Sparkle. I want to mix it and change some things. Thanks in advance.

the easiest way: use "awesome icons" app from google play (free); than, install any icon pack that you like (I prefer Note 7 icon pack), open the mentioned app and it will give you the possibility to change any icon from each app installed in the phone, keeping the functionality (eg: unread count badge for emails); you can opt for an icon in the icon pack or a picture or any .png/.jpg etc file