[TUTORIAL] Want to Theme?

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spc_hicks09

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Jan 23, 2011
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Marion, OH
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Hey guys! Someone recently posted that they wanted to start to making their own themes and I posted a very long reply and figured, might as well post a "somewhat easy to understand" tutorial here for everyone.

So you want to make your own themes?

First off, it is important to know that if you plan on porting any themes over and releasing it to the masses, that you get permission from the theme owner first!!

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR PHONE EXPLODES OR MELTS! lol

NOTE: IF YOU'RE A NOOB (you know if you are) DO NOT MESS WITH ANY IMAGE THAT ENDS IN ".9" UNTIL YOU READ UP ON THEM.......A LOT! IF YOU'RE JUST REPLACING AN IMAGE, THEN READ ON.

What you will need:
Apkmanager: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=695701
7zip: http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
An empty flashable zip: http://www.multiupload.com/DBEMBUOCND
Lot's of time on your hands!


GETTING STARTED:

Apkmanager is going to be your "all-in-one" tool for making a theme in Windows.
(I'll go into all the options of apkmanager a little later)

The process you need to follow is actually kind of simple. It's just very time consuming.

First you will need to make the images that you want (unless you are porting a theme).

Now what you need to do is one way or another, get the framework-res.apk and the SystemUI.apk from your phone, you also need the RES_cappuccino.apk (found in /system/framework. (If you don't want to mess with using adb, use Root Explorer, just copy the apk then paste on your sdcard, then copy and paste from your sdcard onto your pc.)

Extract apkmanager to somewhere easy like the desktop and you should end up with a folder named "apkmanager" or whatever.

Inside that folder, you should have the following folders:

Other
place-apk-here-for-modding
place-apk-here-for-signing
place-apk-here-to-batch-optimize
place-ogg-here
projects

Then the following files:
log
Script

DO NOT MODIFY THE NAMES OF ANY OF THESE FILES OR FOLDERS OR NOTHING WILL WORK!

Take the 3 files that you got from your phone and place them in the "place apk here for modding" folder.

Double click to open the "Script" file

Press "22" and hit enter to set your current job

Select either 1,2 or 3 for whichever apk you want to start on first and hit enter

Select "1" to extract. You do not need to decompile unless you are editing XML files.

Once the extraction is done, go inside the "projects" folder and now you have a folder inside there with whatever the name is of the apk you just extracted.

Inside that folder are the images and XML files you need to replace (you might not have to edit any of the XML files, that's a little more advanced unless you already know how to.)

Most of the images you will need to edit will be in the following folders of each apk:

res>drawable
res>drawable-hdpi

Once you get everything done and you're ready to test it out, you need to go back to that "Script" file in apkmanager and open it back up. Now you're going to do pretty much the same stuff you did when you were extracting the apk, in order to rezip the apk.

In the Script for apkmanager, you're going to press "22" and hit enter, then select which file you want to compile first by either pressing 1, 2 or 3.

Select the file and hit enter, then press "3" and press enter

Now press "1" so that apkmanager knows it's a system file and will retain the files signature.

As long as you didn't mess anything up during the process of changing stuff, you shouldn't receive any errors. If you do, you need to figure out what it was you messed up on and fix it.

Go through and rezip all the apks that you edited. Once that is done, you will go to your "place apk here for modding" folder again and you will notice that you have 3 new files in there:

unsignedframework-res.apk
unsignedSystemUI.apk
unsignedRES_cappuccino.apk

Remember that empty flashable zip you downloaded earlier? Now you need it.

Right click on the flashable zip and mouse over "7zip" and click on "Open Archive"

Take the unsignedSystemUI.apk and place it in the "app" folder. Now rename that to its original name:

SystemUI.apk

Now take that unsignedframework-res.apk and unsignedRES_cappuccino.apk and place them in the "framework" folder of the flashable zip. Rename those to:

framework-res.apk
RES_cappuccino.apk

Now you can close out of the flashable zip file and place it on your sdcard.

Reboot into recovery, wipe cache partition, wipe dalvik.

Now go back and flash the zip file you just put on your sdcard.

Since you wiped your cache and your dalvik, the reboot will take a little while. You should now be good to go!

NOTE: Since I did not create apkmanager, I will not be able to answer many questions about it but feel free to ask. If I don't have an answer for you, Just go back to the post above where you downloaded it, and post your question there.



Please enjoy and happy themeing!!!!!!


And to add. There is also another great way for beginners to start making themes. It's very simple, all you do is select the changes you want made, then upload the framework-res.apk and the SystemUI.apk and it does all the work for you!!!! Even puts everything into a flashable zip! All you have to do is download the zip file then flash it! Here's the link to the UOT Theme Kitchen:

http://uot.dakra.lt/kitchen/


Also, thanks to drt054 for pointing out that Apkmanager is being improved on and the name is changing to APK Multi-Tool. If you use this tool instead, I will not be able to help with any troubleshooting because I just recently started using it. You can download it here:

APK Multi-Tool: http://apkmultitool.com/
 
Last edited:

mtmichaelson

Senior Member
Apr 5, 2009
1,160
1,105
Mt. Juliet, TN
Great post!

Don't forget, UOT can be a great starting point for inspiration also, at least give a little jump start.

Also, the hardest part is also getting your paths set up for apk manager to read adb. Just Google it and the answers are easy to find!

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
 
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spc_hicks09

Inactive Recognized Contributor
Jan 23, 2011
3,899
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Marion, OH
www.facebook.com
Great post!

Don't forget, UOT can be a great starting point for inspiration also, at least give a little jump start.

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk

Very true! I'm so used to doing it this way that I sometimes forget about UOT lol. I'll post a link in the OP to it. Thanks Mt! Did you see my newest addition to the Themes section?
 

flaminfury

Senior Member
Jan 9, 2012
102
1
wow thats a bit harder then i thought lol... maybe ill just leave it up to you guys the real dev. lol but thanks! maybe when i get more into the phone and modding/tweaking stuff ill try it ha
 

spc_hicks09

Inactive Recognized Contributor
Jan 23, 2011
3,899
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Marion, OH
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wow thats a bit harder then i thought lol... maybe ill just leave it up to you guys the real dev. lol but thanks! maybe when i get more into the phone and modding/tweaking stuff ill try it ha

Indy's comment to your post was exactly true. It really doesn't take that long once you get the hang of it. Making your own images is what takes longer than anything in my opinion. Even if it takes you a long time to push a theme out, just remember that "it's about quality, not quantity." As long as you put out an awesome looking theme, most people won't care how long it took or how long it takes to push out updates. It definitely wouldn't take long if you use the UOT Theme Kitchen. The link for that can be found at the bottom of my first post.
 
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indyred99

Senior Member
Sep 19, 2011
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Indy's comment to your post was exactly true. It really doesn't take that long once you get the hang of it. Making your own images is what takes longer than anything in my opinion. Even if it takes you a long time to push a theme out, just remember that "it's about quality, not quantity." As long as you put out an awesome looking theme, most people won't care how long it took or how long it takes to push out updates. It definitely wouldn't take long if you use the UOT Theme Kitchen. The link for that can be found at the bottom of my first post.

Great job well said! Listen to spc and you can't go wrong. Nice write up too.

Sent from my VS910 4G using Tapatalk
 
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47th_Ronin

Senior Member
Jan 17, 2012
521
297
Indy's comment to your post was exactly true. It really doesn't take that long once you get the hang of it. Making your own images is what takes longer than anything in my opinion. Even if it takes you a long time to push a theme out, just remember that "it's about quality, not quantity." As long as you put out an awesome looking theme, most people won't care how long it took or how long it takes to push out updates. It definitely wouldn't take long if you use the UOT Theme Kitchen. The link for that can be found at the bottom of my first post.

Hey Spc i have a question, how do you make your own images and such? do you have to use something like Photoshop or gimp or some other program? Been playing around with the uot kitchen and its really a great program, but eventually i'd like to do more custom made stuff too.
Thanks!
 

spc_hicks09

Inactive Recognized Contributor
Jan 23, 2011
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Marion, OH
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Hey Spc i have a question, how do you make your own images and such? do you have to use something like Photoshop or gimp or some other program? Been playing around with the uot kitchen and its really a great program, but eventually i'd like to do more custom made stuff too.
Thanks!

I always use Paint.NET just because it's free and it's a great image editing program for people that don't want to mess with too much technical stuff. You can get it here www.paint.net

Good luck and I can't wait to see some stuff you come up with!
 
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47th_Ronin

Senior Member
Jan 17, 2012
521
297
I always use Paint.NET just because it's free and it's a great image editing program for people that don't want to mess with too much technical stuff. You can get it here www.paint.net

Good luck and I can't wait to see some stuff you come up with!

thanks for the link and info!
all i can say is that ill give it a shot lol.
but seriously you and the other folks here are very good at what you do so....
thanks again!
 

drt054

Senior Member
Jan 8, 2011
1,012
196
Cleveland, OH
Just FYI the apk manager forum is old. Go here to read:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1310151

or just go here to download:

http://apkmultitool.com/

It was renamed from APK Manager is now APK Multi-Tool. Windows version is pretty nice. Been looking at the forum, make sure you install to the root of your sdk directory.

He is working on Linux Version but doesn't have a linux machine any longer to test so it is slow going but you can still download APK Manager 5.0 for linux
 
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spc_hicks09

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Jan 23, 2011
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Just FYI the apk manager forum is old. Go here to read:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1310151

or just go here to download:

http://apkmultitool.com/

It was renamed from APK Manager is now APK Multi-Tool. Windows version is pretty nice. Been looking at the forum, make sure you install to the root of your sdk directory.

He is working on Linux Version but doesn't have a linux machine any longer to test so it is slow going but you can still download APK Manager 5.0 for linux

Thanks for the tip drt! Will add to the OP.
 

drt054

Senior Member
Jan 8, 2011
1,012
196
Cleveland, OH
Apk Multi-Tool is better in that I can recompile SystemUI.apk and RES_Cappuccino.apk as long as I don't make any changes but if I do it gives errors :( that is some progress..

sent from my V6 Supercharged LG Revo BlueVolt :D
 

drt054

Senior Member
Jan 8, 2011
1,012
196
Cleveland, OH
Ah.. It has more features and auto-updates just doesn't work for me

sent from my V6 Supercharged LG Revo BlueVolt :D

---------- Post added at 05:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:40 AM ----------

Might have figured out the issues with recompiling SystemUI and RES_Cappuccino they have to be decompiled with dependancies.. dragging frameworkres-apk into the command window and made changes and recompiled without errors. That is a first. If someone knew this and didn't tell me I will hurt somebody!!! :D Won't be able to test for a while..
 

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    Hey guys! Someone recently posted that they wanted to start to making their own themes and I posted a very long reply and figured, might as well post a "somewhat easy to understand" tutorial here for everyone.

    So you want to make your own themes?

    First off, it is important to know that if you plan on porting any themes over and releasing it to the masses, that you get permission from the theme owner first!!

    DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR PHONE EXPLODES OR MELTS! lol

    NOTE: IF YOU'RE A NOOB (you know if you are) DO NOT MESS WITH ANY IMAGE THAT ENDS IN ".9" UNTIL YOU READ UP ON THEM.......A LOT! IF YOU'RE JUST REPLACING AN IMAGE, THEN READ ON.

    What you will need:
    Apkmanager: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=695701
    7zip: http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
    An empty flashable zip: http://www.multiupload.com/DBEMBUOCND
    Lot's of time on your hands!


    GETTING STARTED:

    Apkmanager is going to be your "all-in-one" tool for making a theme in Windows.
    (I'll go into all the options of apkmanager a little later)

    The process you need to follow is actually kind of simple. It's just very time consuming.

    First you will need to make the images that you want (unless you are porting a theme).

    Now what you need to do is one way or another, get the framework-res.apk and the SystemUI.apk from your phone, you also need the RES_cappuccino.apk (found in /system/framework. (If you don't want to mess with using adb, use Root Explorer, just copy the apk then paste on your sdcard, then copy and paste from your sdcard onto your pc.)

    Extract apkmanager to somewhere easy like the desktop and you should end up with a folder named "apkmanager" or whatever.

    Inside that folder, you should have the following folders:

    Other
    place-apk-here-for-modding
    place-apk-here-for-signing
    place-apk-here-to-batch-optimize
    place-ogg-here
    projects

    Then the following files:
    log
    Script

    DO NOT MODIFY THE NAMES OF ANY OF THESE FILES OR FOLDERS OR NOTHING WILL WORK!

    Take the 3 files that you got from your phone and place them in the "place apk here for modding" folder.

    Double click to open the "Script" file

    Press "22" and hit enter to set your current job

    Select either 1,2 or 3 for whichever apk you want to start on first and hit enter

    Select "1" to extract. You do not need to decompile unless you are editing XML files.

    Once the extraction is done, go inside the "projects" folder and now you have a folder inside there with whatever the name is of the apk you just extracted.

    Inside that folder are the images and XML files you need to replace (you might not have to edit any of the XML files, that's a little more advanced unless you already know how to.)

    Most of the images you will need to edit will be in the following folders of each apk:

    res>drawable
    res>drawable-hdpi

    Once you get everything done and you're ready to test it out, you need to go back to that "Script" file in apkmanager and open it back up. Now you're going to do pretty much the same stuff you did when you were extracting the apk, in order to rezip the apk.

    In the Script for apkmanager, you're going to press "22" and hit enter, then select which file you want to compile first by either pressing 1, 2 or 3.

    Select the file and hit enter, then press "3" and press enter

    Now press "1" so that apkmanager knows it's a system file and will retain the files signature.

    As long as you didn't mess anything up during the process of changing stuff, you shouldn't receive any errors. If you do, you need to figure out what it was you messed up on and fix it.

    Go through and rezip all the apks that you edited. Once that is done, you will go to your "place apk here for modding" folder again and you will notice that you have 3 new files in there:

    unsignedframework-res.apk
    unsignedSystemUI.apk
    unsignedRES_cappuccino.apk

    Remember that empty flashable zip you downloaded earlier? Now you need it.

    Right click on the flashable zip and mouse over "7zip" and click on "Open Archive"

    Take the unsignedSystemUI.apk and place it in the "app" folder. Now rename that to its original name:

    SystemUI.apk

    Now take that unsignedframework-res.apk and unsignedRES_cappuccino.apk and place them in the "framework" folder of the flashable zip. Rename those to:

    framework-res.apk
    RES_cappuccino.apk

    Now you can close out of the flashable zip file and place it on your sdcard.

    Reboot into recovery, wipe cache partition, wipe dalvik.

    Now go back and flash the zip file you just put on your sdcard.

    Since you wiped your cache and your dalvik, the reboot will take a little while. You should now be good to go!

    NOTE: Since I did not create apkmanager, I will not be able to answer many questions about it but feel free to ask. If I don't have an answer for you, Just go back to the post above where you downloaded it, and post your question there.



    Please enjoy and happy themeing!!!!!!


    And to add. There is also another great way for beginners to start making themes. It's very simple, all you do is select the changes you want made, then upload the framework-res.apk and the SystemUI.apk and it does all the work for you!!!! Even puts everything into a flashable zip! All you have to do is download the zip file then flash it! Here's the link to the UOT Theme Kitchen:

    http://uot.dakra.lt/kitchen/


    Also, thanks to drt054 for pointing out that Apkmanager is being improved on and the name is changing to APK Multi-Tool. If you use this tool instead, I will not be able to help with any troubleshooting because I just recently started using it. You can download it here:

    APK Multi-Tool: http://apkmultitool.com/
    1
    Great post!

    Don't forget, UOT can be a great starting point for inspiration also, at least give a little jump start.

    Also, the hardest part is also getting your paths set up for apk manager to read adb. Just Google it and the answers are easy to find!

    Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
    1
    Very true! I'm so used to doing it this way that I sometimes forget about UOT lol. I'll post a link in the OP to it. Thanks Mt! Did you see my newest addition to the Themes section?

    I did! It looks great!

    Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
    1
    wow thats a bit harder then i thought lol... maybe ill just leave it up to you guys the real dev. lol but thanks! maybe when i get more into the phone and modding/tweaking stuff ill try it ha

    Once you dig into it it's not to bad!

    Sent from my VS910 4G using Tapatalk
    1
    wow thats a bit harder then i thought lol... maybe ill just leave it up to you guys the real dev. lol but thanks! maybe when i get more into the phone and modding/tweaking stuff ill try it ha

    Indy's comment to your post was exactly true. It really doesn't take that long once you get the hang of it. Making your own images is what takes longer than anything in my opinion. Even if it takes you a long time to push a theme out, just remember that "it's about quality, not quantity." As long as you put out an awesome looking theme, most people won't care how long it took or how long it takes to push out updates. It definitely wouldn't take long if you use the UOT Theme Kitchen. The link for that can be found at the bottom of my first post.