TUTORIAL: Making Themes

[htc(hot-taco-cheese)]

This is a tutorial that I posted on then incredible forum. If there is anything to change , such as the update-script being different on other devices, just tell me and I will change it.

This tutorial just goes through basic theming, once you can do this, you can get into more in-depth theming.


This thread will be used to give and take help on themes for various ROMs and devices. You may also use this thread to ask questions or troubleshoot for your themes.

You must be rooted.

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY HARM DONE TO YOU OR YOUR DEVICE.

Tools Needed:
-An image manipulation tool (If you don't have Photoshop, get Gimp. It is free and works great.)

-WinRAR or WinZip



Directions:

Download your ROM of choice to your computer. Sense or Vanilla. doesn't matter

Extract the ROM to a new folder on your computer.

Open that folder.

Delete everything that was extracted except for the META-INF folder and the system folder.

***DO NOT TOUCH THE META-INF FOLDER! (no yet at least)***

Open the system folder. This is where you will be the whole time.

In the system folder, delete every folder except for the apps folder and the framework folder.

Go into the framework folder.

Delete everything there except for framework-res.apk and com.htc.resources.apk (com.htc.resources.apk will only be present in a Sense ROM)

Go back to the system folder.

App Icons:

To theme icons, open the app folder.

Pick an .apk that you want to theme.

To open it, use WinRAR. Or if you are using Ubuntu just use the stock archive manager. (You can extract it if you want. But if you extract it, you will have to drag and drop the icon into the .apk from which it came.)

In the .apk, open the res folder.

Now open the drawable-hdpi folder. (This is where icons are almost always located. Pretty much everything that can be easily themed is in the drawable-hdpi folders.)

The file that is used as the icon most often has these following names:
- app_icon.png
- ic_launcher_appnamehere.png ('appnamehere' is where the app's name is.)
- icon.png

Open the Icon with your image editor and color it.

Save it to the exact same location, with the exact same name as it had before, and as the same type it was before which is a .png

Framework:

Go back to the system folder.

Open the framework folder.

Extract framework-res.apk

Go into the extracted folder.

Open the drawable-hdpi folder.

Change these images how ever you want to.

Save the images.

Drag and drop the changed images into the drawable-hdpi folder of the framework-res.apk that is not extracted.

When it asks you to update the archive or save changes to the archive, select yes.


[CENTER][LEFT]Creating a flashable update.zip:


Go to the folder that contains the META-INF and system folders.

Open META-INF.

Open the com folder

Open the google folder.

Open the android folder.

Open the update-script (could be named updater-script) with a text editor. (NOT Microsoft Word)

Delete all of the text.

Paste all of this into it:

show_progress(0.200000, 10);
ui_print("Installing...");
mount("MTD", "system", "/system");
show_progress(0.500000, 40);
package_extract_dir("system", "/system");
show_progress(0.100000, 10);
ui_print("Done!");
unmount("/system");

If you are theming MIUI, Redemption ROM, or Redemptive rEVO, then copy and paste this into the updater-script.

ui_print("");
ui_print("It says this while updating.");
ui_print("");
show_progress 0.1 0
copy_dir PACKAGE:system SYSTEM:
show_progress 0.1 10
show_progress 0.2 0
show_progress 0.2 10
ui_print("");
ui_print("Done Installing!");
ui_print("Thankyou!");

You can change the text in quotations next to the ui_print. So instead of "Installing..." it can be "@(^_^)@ Monkey" if you want it to.

Now zip up the META-INF and system folders into one zip file.

MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR SETUP!!!

Now, you can flash it in recovery.

Have Fun!!!


Sent from my ADR6300 using Android.net App

[enlightened]

Thanks for posting this, Taco! Very clear and easy to follow.

[Kmart95]

Thanks, great post i might actually be able to do all of this.

[tweebee]

Good post, Taco!

[stetsonaw]

Great starting place for the beginners out there!

[x-tac23]

Excellent write up.

Sent from my DROIDX using Android.net App

[htc(hot-taco-cheese)]

Anyone know if the update-script part needs to be revised.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Android.net App

[stetsonaw]

Here's a short and to the point for Pete's Bugless Beast v0.6 series.

show_progress(0.500000, 0);
mount("MTD", "system", "/system");
package_extract_dir("system", "/system");

unmount("/system");

Of course, now that i compare, that first one you have above should work fine.

[htc(hot-taco-cheese)]

OK sounds good.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Android.net App

[OneTenderRebel]

I have a mac so I am using unrarx and when I go to extract a file in the app folder is says it's not a rar file? I am sure I am missing something, can someone point me in the right direction?