Okay please forgive the Noobish question, I come from the old school droid 1 themeing days (mostly png edits and recoloring).
Im very interested in doing some sense 3.0 themes for my bolt especially the pulldowns in his tut.
My questions here. I am using apk manager 5.0.2
I put framework-res and systemUI into the appropriate folder and decompile I get two decomped foldrs I tried doing one edit to the transparency to get the feel for it but no dice I get a few errors on recompiling and unable to get a working systemui.apk should i be signing them?
I open the xmls in notepad and do my edit and save them (not as a text file it still shows a a xml when i do save as and choose all files then save)
Anyway you could give a brief rundown of the apps needed? and anything that needs to be done to have a succesful apk? Help is appreciated from any and all
Thanks
Never a noob'ish question. We all had to start somewhere.
I dont personally use Apk Manger. I wanted more options at my fingertips so I use:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1053227
Awesome product and can do alot of the stuff you have to do as a themer.
Anyways to you question. (Windows)
1. You must load the Framework-res.apk and com.htc.resources.apk, as well as the SystemUI.apk into the system so APKtool knows what files to use for decompiling. it's not hard at all to do.
2. Extract framework-res.apk, com.htc.resources AND apk files you want to decompile from the ROM and copy them to the root directory of APKTool(If doing another brand of phone the system files names may be different)
From command prompt type:
apktool if framework-res.apk
apktool if com.htc.resources.apk
apktool if SystemUI.apk
This in effect loads these files into your system and now the APKtool of your choice will know how to decompile apk files.
If the above is done right, you will see it saying it loaded them as 1.apk, 2.apk, and SystemUI.apk loads as some number like 300 or something.. As long as it loads them into the system you are on your way.
This is the type of thing your looking for:
I: Framework installed to: C:\Users\apktool\framework\1.apk
** If you use autoApktool use can use option to load your system files from within program **
Now that your done with that your ready to decompile. Depending on your tool you use, you can use the options to decompile, and then edit and then recompile.
If you want to decompile manually you would do this from command prompt(where your apk's and apktool files are at.)
apktool d SystemUI.apk (that command tells apktool to decompile SystemUI.apk)
You should see something like this:
I: Loading resource table…
I: Decoding resources…
I: Copying assets and libs…
3. Yes you can use Notpad++ for xml editing, I use Ultraedit, becuas eit allows me to search through xml's and such. Personel choice.
4. Signing apk's really depends on your ROM and the files you are trying to edit. I know this is not an answer, but in my ROM I dont need to sign my SystemUI, but say I edit Mail.apk, that needs to be signed. As a gerneral rule any apk's in system/app need to be signed, unless you find out otherwise. The apk's in system/framework do not need to be signed. (framework-res.apk, and com.htc.resources.apk)
I hope this helps get you started. Ask away..