Hello everybody!
I recently left my "Apple Bubble" and caved in and bought the Galaxy Note 8.0. Now, i've had an Iphone for years, and i would consider myself to be accustomed to jailbreaking. However, ever since i picked up the Note 8.0 and researched on rooting, I've come to notice that not only does it seem more technical and risky, but also the bar for learning at a grass root levels is high! i've looked through forums and youtube videos of people to explain it in the most layman terms, and even though i learned enough to get started, its like walking through a forest trying to find a direct answer for a topic.
So, here is my general question to the community:
1.) How do you add custom themes made by people for the Galaxy Note 8.0? A step-by-step process would be much appreciated.
2.) If i need to root my device, can you recommend a root for the Note 8.0 that wont disable my S-Pen features?
3.)How do i change the system sound and boot logo of my device? Does that require rooting? If possible, can you provide a link to where i can download some?
4.) Any suggestions for must-have apps for a new android user like myself?
I really want to learn how to use android devices, just so i can trick my tablet out with the most slickest looking themes. Any advice or arrows in the right direction is much appreciated!
1.) How do you add custom themes made by people for the Galaxy Note 8.0? A step-by-step process would be much appreciated.
You don't need to root for that. Basically you replace the default launcher with a third party one that supports themeing etc and there are many available on play store free as well as paid. for starters you can try go launcher or buzz launcher and try few themes etc to get hang of how it all goes.
2) If i need to root my device, can you recommend a root for the Note 8.0 that wont disable my S-Pen features?
Root won't disable your s-pen features, what you do after that can. like installing a different rom etc.
I have not rooted my device yet, but read and look about cf-autoroot as that is most used and high success rate, make sure it's applicable for your device model.
3.)How do i change the system sound and boot logo of my device? Does that require rooting? If possible, can you provide a link to where i can download some?
System Sounds, perhaps you can select different sound files for notifications and stuff. but anything more you'll need to be rooted for this.
4.) Any suggestions for must-have apps for a new android user like myself?
its a very subjective and objective thing as many apps exist to accomplish same tasks.
but here are a few I can't work without (on this device) :
1.ES-File explorer. (complete file management with lan/ ftp access. share files/folder among devices on same wifi network.
2. A Third party Music player (I have purchased both poweramp (very good for most) and neutronMP (for audiophile quality and Network mounts)).
3. Google keep (notes and reminders)
4. Pocket (read later)
5. Diskusage
6. Antivirus (I use avg)
7. Sketchbook pro
These along with what already comes installed is the bare minimum (along with book/pdf readers) for my needs from the device.
>>
I really want to learn how to use android devices, just so i can trick my tablet out with the most slickest looking themes. Any advice or arrows in the right direction is much appreciated!
Already partially answered in 1, look into different widgets etc and combination of a theme and widgets should get you there.
intelliriffer said:
1.) How do you add custom themes made by people for the Galaxy Note 8.0? A step-by-step process would be much appreciated.
You don't need to root for that. Basically you replace the default launcher with a third party one that supports themeing etc and there are many available on play store free as well as paid. for starters you can try go launcher or buzz launcher and try few themes etc to get hang of how it all goes.
2) If i need to root my device, can you recommend a root for the Note 8.0 that wont disable my S-Pen features?
Root won't disable your s-pen features, what you do after that can. like installing a different rom etc.
I have not rooted my device yet, but read and look about cf-autoroot as that is most used and high success rate, make sure it's applicable for your device model.
3.)How do i change the system sound and boot logo of my device? Does that require rooting? If possible, can you provide a link to where i can download some?
System Sounds, perhaps you can select different sound files for notifications and stuff. but anything more you'll need to be rooted for this.
4.) Any suggestions for must-have apps for a new android user like myself?
its a very subjective and objective thing as many apps exist to accomplish same tasks.
but here are a few I can't work without (on this device) :
1.ES-File explorer. (complete file management with lan/ ftp access. share files/folder among devices on same wifi network.
2. A Third party Music player (I have purchased both poweramp (very good for most) and neutronMP (for audiophile quality and Network mounts)).
3. Google keep (notes and reminders)
4. Pocket (read later)
5. Diskusage
6. Antivirus (I use avg)
7. Sketchbook pro
These along with what already comes installed is the bare minimum (along with book/pdf readers) for my needs from the device.
>>
I really want to learn how to use android devices, just so i can trick my tablet out with the most slickest looking themes. Any advice or arrows in the right direction is much appreciated!
Already partially answered in 1, look into different widgets etc and combination of a theme and widgets should get you there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestions! I've checked out both launchers, and to my surprise, they work just like Dreamboard for the iphone. But if you dont mind, there's some more questions I would like to ask...
1.) Are there any themes for Android that changes the UI for the tablet?
2.) Any suggestions for some kool looking or productive widgets?
Tha_Pimpfather said:
Thanks for the suggestions! I've checked out both launchers, and to my surprise, they work just like Dreamboard for the iphone. But if you dont mind, there's some more questions I would like to ask...
1.) Are there any themes for Android that changes the UI for the tablet?
2.) Any suggestions for some kool looking or productive widgets?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1.) Are there any themes for Android that changes the UI for the tablet?
If by changing the UI you mean chaning the internals look of menus , settings etc,
then i don't think there are any apps that would do it.
You would have to root and either change to a another ROM that allows some tweaks in there or would have to edit / flash resources into system which depending on how much and what they affect can cause issues with s-pen or other things,if touchwiz (samsung's skin and rom) specific options are not accounted for.
2.) Most of the widgets I have are come with their respective apps themselves. The only widgets I use for looks are
1: GIGANTICON, allows for different sized icons for apps on home screen.
2. Dashclock which has large amount of plugins, based on needs.
Dude if you want to theme... Wanam is the go to hands down, simply install xposed from xda and get wanam from The play store. Wanam offers literally everything you can imagine for customizing your stock 4.2.2 and higher touchwiz. I've themed with other methods, but wanam is not only the easiest, most strait forward method, but also the most stable method I've ever seen. I've pretty much quit flashing roms after I discovered wanam and only flash custom kernels now, since I can do everything a rom could offer with one simple app.
Mega
megalomanic14 said:
Dude if you want to theme... Wanam is the go to hands down, simply install xposed from xda and get wanam from The play store. Wanam offers literally everything you can imagine for customizing your stock 4.2.2 and higher touchwiz. I've themed with other methods, but wanam is not only the easiest, most strait forward method, but also the most stable method I've ever seen. I've pretty much quit flashing roms after I discovered wanam and only flash custom kernels now, since I can do everything a rom could offer with one simple app.
Mega
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I just started using Wanam. and it's pretty good, but I wish there was a way to implement a complete theme on my GN8. Nova and Wanam get me part of the way there, but thene are still artifacts that take away from the complete aesthetic experience. For example, I can't get the items indicated by the yellow arrows below to take the changes I've made in Wanam (Notification Title text and background), and there seems to be no way to change the separator lines between Quick Settings tiles. If anyone has a solution, I'd LOVE to hear it!
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
TIA!
---------- Post added at 08:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:21 PM ----------
Also, is there any way to change the system font for Touchwiz? Xblast tools allows you to change the font for toast notifications and the status bar clock, but that's it. I would like to be able to use Roboto light system wide.
usn.mustanger said:
Yeah, I just started using Wanam. and it's pretty good, but I wish there was a way to implement a complete theme on my GN8. Nova and Wanam get me part of the way there, but thene are still artifacts that take away from the complete aesthetic experience. For example, I can't get the items indicated by the yellow arrows below to take the changes I've made in Wanam (Notification Title text and background), and there seems to be no way to change the separator lines between Quick Settings tiles. If anyone has a solution, I'd LOVE to hear it!
TIA!
---------- Post added at 08:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:21 PM ----------
Also, is there any way to change the system font for Touchwiz? Xblast tools allows you to change the font for toast notifications and the status bar clock, but that's it. I would like to be able to use Roboto light system wide.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes download a text pack, and side load it in the system with root explorer.
You can theme the panel your pointing at... its notification title bar in wanam theme setting.
You can also change the black background of notification panel and settings background in wanam with soothe pictures or colors, by using system holo dark theme, and notification panel.
You can theme nearly 100% of your device wroth wanam and 100% between wanam and xblast
Mega
megalomanic14 said:
Yes download a text pack, and side load it in the system with root explorer.
You can theme the panel your pointing at... its notification title bar in wanam theme setting.
You can also change the black background of notification panel and settings background in wanam with soothe pictures or colors, by using system holo dark theme, and notification panel.
You can theme nearly 100% of your device wroth wanam and 100% between wanam and xblast
Mega
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like this is an example of my note 3 theme...
megalomanic14 said:
Yes download a text pack, and side load it in the system with root explorer.
You can theme the panel your pointing at... its notification title bar in wanam theme setting.
You can also change the black background of notification panel and settings background in wanam with soothe pictures or colors, by using system holo dark theme, and notification panel.
You can theme nearly 100% of your device wroth wanam and 100% between wanam and xblast
Mega
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I saw the notification title stuff in Wanam, but as I said in my post, any changes I make to those particular items don't take. I've changed them in Wanam several times, and rebooted after each change, to no avail. As you can see, everything else does. Might be due to the ROM I'm using (Civato's Flex-Beam).
In search of this elusive "near 100%" theming you mention, can you please tell me what you use to theme the rest of the Touchwiz UI, such as Settings pages (which I see you did), progress bars, pop-up dialogs (modal or otherwise) keyboard suggestion text, ui controls, quick settings divider bars, etc? These all go towards that 100% theming I'm going for, but I couldn't find any of these items in either Wanam or xblast tools. I'd be very appreciative to you if you could please point out what I'm missing. TIA again!
---------- Post added at 08:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 AM ----------
Also, can you please enlighten me on the procedure for changing the system font? I found an apk for the Roboto light font, but I don't know how to change the system font. Thanks again!
usn.mustanger said:
Yeah, I saw the notification title stuff in Wanam, but as I said in my post, any changes I make to those particular items don't take. I've changed them in Wanam several times, and rebooted after each change, to no avail. As you can see, everything else does. Might be due to the ROM I'm using (Civato's Flex-Beam).
In search of this elusive "near 100%" theming you mention, can you please tell me what you use to theme the rest of the Touchwiz UI, such as Settings pages (which I see you did), progress bars, pop-up dialogs (modal or otherwise) keyboard suggestion text, ui controls, quick settings divider bars, etc? These all go towards that 100% theming I'm going for, but I couldn't find any of these items in either Wanam or xblast tools. I'd be very appreciative to you if you could please point out what I'm missing. TIA again!
---------- Post added at 08:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 AM ----------
Also, can you please enlighten me on the procedure for changing the system font? I found an apk for the Roboto light font, but I don't know how to change the system font. Thanks again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude you can see how heavily themed my setup is right. Here's the thing, there's no trick I've told you already...I only used wanam. There's no secret or anything to it I simply did all the selection, making sure you switch the on toggle at the top and hit aapply for each different part you theme. Don't do 50 at a time, change a few, reboot change a few..There is no grand secret I'm hiding from you lol just trial and error and you'll figure it out.
As for font change...use the search man there's prolly 15 different guides on xda alone..
Mega
Hey,
I liked your post. In fact I am not perfect with the questions you asked but the third one I can answers. More specifically the apps that I prefer to be in the android devices are as follows;-
1 - watsapp
2 - youtube
3 - facebook
4 - linkedin
5 - twitter
6 - templerun
7 - subwaysurfer
8 - traveling app
9 - time tracking app
10 - money management app
Leslie!!!
About
In this guide I will be telling you about how to create your own device mods like this. This involves using an engine built into Android Nougat. There is no root required.
Prerequisites
- Apktool installed (official guide here)
- The apk of the app you wish to modify (ex: SystemUI.apk) (system dump here; USE WINRAR AS 7z DOESN'T EXTRACT RIGHT)
- Android Studio
- Basic knowledge of apk guts
- Template RRO project
- optional: Finished Example Project (for reference)
Tutorial
The first step is to decompile your target APK so we can see what options we can change. For this tutorial, I am going to be modding SystemUI.apk.
"apktool d SystemUI.apk"
After it finishes, go to "SystemUI/res/values", as this will be where we change most things.
Here we can see files like "bools.xml, strings.xml, integers.xml, etc..."
Let's look in "bools.xml".
I see a line in here that mentions lock screen rotation:
"<item type="bool" name="config_enableLockScreenRotation">@android:bool/config_enableLockScreenTranslucentDecor</item>"
For this tutorial, let's change this value, as it is easy to change, and we can visually see this change.
It looks like this boolean is enabled if "config_enableLockScreenTranslucentDecor" is enabled. To override this, we have to change it to "true" instead.
Now that we know what we are changing, let's open up the "RRO_Template" project in android studio.
First navigate to the Gradle Scripts and select the "build.gradle" for the "(Module: app)"
Here lets change some variables. First is the "theme_name". Let's change it to "Lockscreen Rotation"
Next is "theme_id". Let's make it "com.mod.lockscreen_rotation"
We don't need to mess with "priority"
Last is the "package_id" Since default is the id for the SystemUI, we don't have to change anything. If you need to find this for another app, look in the decompiled APKs AndroidManifest.xml under "package="com.app.id""
Next, navigate to the res folder. If you remember, our "bools.xml" file is under "res/values/bools.xml", so let's add that file.
We can delete the sample "strings.xml" as we don't need to change anything there, and add the "bools.xml" file.
Inside of the newly created XML file, we should see a setup like this (if not add it):
"<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources></resources>"
Looking back at the setting we want to change, it's "<item type="bool" name="config_enableLockScreenRotation">@android:bool/config_enableLockScreenTranslucentDecor</item>". So let's add that line.
But since we are overriding the value to true, it will now look like this :"<item type="bool" name="config_enableLockScreenRotation">true</item>"
And that's it for the value changing!
Now let's go build the APK. Press "Alt + B" to bring up the Build menu and press "Build APK"
Click "Show In Folder" on the bottom right after it compiles to see the APK.
Put this on your phone and install the APK.
Since we modified the SystemUI.apk, we need to reboot to see the changes.
Now, lets try going to the lock screen and rotating the screen. It should rotate!
Congratulations! You made a mod / theme!
If you have any questions, please ask. I will try to help if I am available. I have classes starting in a few days so I may be busy. Enjoy the guide!
Hello tytydraco,
Not sure if my problem is totally related to your posted thread but it sounds like you are very knowledgeable on Galaxy theming! I have a rooted Galaxy S8 and have merged/moded different themes from the Theme store, such as using another theme’s icon pack or wallpaper by swapping them out of their respective .apk files and implementing them with success!
My problem is with a theme’s "InCallUI" (accept, reject, hangup icons in phone dialer) after adding cool graphic .png icons (then changing to .qmg) it works flawlessly, however every time I restart my phone or a Samsung system app is updated, they revert back to those default Samsung cartoony icons. I then have to apply stock theme then re-apply customized theme to get icons back. This process also changes/breaks 3 or 4 other theming aspects, which are not affected by restarts, that I have to re-adjust!
Not only have I altered the theme’s “base.apk” in /Data/App/MyTheme folder, but also the theme’s InCallUI.apk and placed into; Data/Overlays/Style/Mytheme folder, then changed permissions to "rwx r-- r-w". I use these permissions because all the other apk's in this folder use them. I have even tried using different theme’s InCallUI.apk, whose icons remain after restart, by just changing the icons and renaming to my theme….but to no avail, same problem!
I know this all sounds really OCD, like probably most of us within these forums, but it’s getting to be a real pain in darse to constantly have to change everything back again every restart if I want to maintain my theme!
So if I may poach upon your smart nature, do you know if there is a configuration file/folder that can be edited/altered to make those “InCallUI” icons stick upon a restart?
Any advise or corrections in what I'm doing would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
eltoro5 said:
Hello tytydraco,
Not sure if my problem is totally related to your posted thread but it sounds like you are very knowledgeable on Galaxy theming! I have a rooted Galaxy S8 and have merged/moded different themes from the Theme store, such as using another theme’s icon pack or wallpaper by swapping them out of their respective .apk files and implementing them with success!
My problem is with a theme’s "InCallUI" (accept, reject, hangup icons in phone dialer) after adding cool graphic .png icons (then changing to .qmg) it works flawlessly, however every time I restart my phone or a Samsung system app is updated, they revert back to those default Samsung cartoony icons. I then have to apply stock theme then re-apply customized theme to get icons back. This process also changes/breaks 3 or 4 other theming aspects, which are not affected by restarts, that I have to re-adjust!
Not only have I altered the theme’s “base.apk” in /Data/App/MyTheme folder, but also the theme’s InCallUI.apk and placed into; Data/Overlays/Style/Mytheme folder, then changed permissions to "rwx r-- r-w". I use these permissions because all the other apk's in this folder use them. I have even tried using different theme’s InCallUI.apk, whose icons remain after restart, by just changing the icons and renaming to my theme….but to no avail, same problem!
I know this all sounds really OCD, like probably most of us within these forums, but it’s getting to be a real pain in darse to constantly have to change everything back again every restart if I want to maintain my theme!
So if I may poach upon your smart nature, do you know if there is a configuration file/folder that can be edited/altered to make those “InCallUI” icons stick upon a restart?
Any advise or corrections in what I'm doing would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like the apk is reverting back... There may be another QMG file that puts the icon back. Other than that, it may be samsung's themes overriding this. Good luck and thanks for the question!
Couple of quick questions
Thanks for the guide OP!
I had a couple of quick questions.
You mention at the beginning of your guide that your method works because of a built in engine in Nougat and that it doesn't require root. I thought that RRO support was added to the AOSP by Sony in Marshmallow? Is this different, or did it just take until Nougat for Samsung to catch up?
The reason I ask is that I tried to do something very similar on an A5 (2017) running 6.0.1 and had no success. I had full root access so I manually installed my .apk into /system/vendor/overlay and could see that the app was installed in the Application Manager, but the desired changes did not take effect. I based my .apk on a similar guide from tutsplus and they say it should work on a device running Marshmallow or higher, but they emulate a Nexus which is obviously closer to AOSP than a Galaxy.
Is this guide Nougat specific or S8 specific? i.e. will a J5 2017 (released after the S8) running Nougat also work in the same way? Can you still install the app manually to the /system/vendor/overlay folder or do you have to manually install it through the UI?
Thanks again for the guide!
tytydraco said:
Enjoy the guide!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, sorry for waking this up, the RRO template links are down. Can you attach them here?
HI, wihile I'm able to initially apply a theme, I'm confused about the many choices in the paintbrush menu when I want to change an individual theme setting (eg. accent colour).
Firstly before everything refreshes the change takes a very long. to apply
Secondly the changed value not always appears in the UI, coz I'm not quite sure if using right action.
Build & enable, Build & update, Change overlay, what are exact differences between these?
I see that if I choose build & choose, the change is more like to apply, but Substratum creates a new element beside the old, and I want to replace the previous.
Also I would expect some kind of preview before applying the customized item. As I wrote, the change takes long to apply to UI, and from the menu it's not always clear how it will look.
I need some more insight how things do work. Is there a comprehensive tutorial for using Substratum?
I upgraded my Pixel 3a to Android 12 last night - stock OTA. Noticed today that websites that specify serif fonts for elements (and including the generic 'serif' fallback, so it's not a question of missing specific fonts) are now all displaying as sans-serif, both in Firefox in Chrome. Is this a general Android 12 issue, or is something up with my phone? And if it's a general Android 12 thing, are there Magisk or Xposed modules I can install to restore serif fonts? It's really messing with me.
(if you need an example, https://momijizukamori.dreamwidth.org should be entirely in serif)
EDIT: just to add - I'm aware of the Font Manager Magisk module, but that doesn't solve the problem because if I install a serif font though that, I then don't have sans-serif text anywhere. I want websites to be able to use both, which feels like it shouldn't be a big ask in 2022...