Theming the MMS Background

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Hey guys,
I was wondering whether it's possible to add an image as the background when you theme the default messaging app?
I've been told it's possible, but nobody's told me how..

So if anyone's able to shed some light on it, that would be much appreciated

Cheers,

Yeah im sure it's possible just by changing some image files, but im not out much use in that category. If you want to take the easy way out I think go SMS or one of the third party SMS apps give you that option

Jellin' like a felon

Yeah, I thought about it and I've been modding android for a while, but never really looked into theming until now. I know all the standard changing colours and such, but i'm not so familiar with adding in content.

Hey man- i'll be sure to show you how- i forgot earlier and i'm exhausted at the moment. Tomorrow, i'll post some steps. Pretty easy actually.

you'll need to edit some xmls. (This is off the top of my head)

conversation_list_screen.xml
change line 4

android:background="#ffffffff"

to

android:background="@drawable/your_image"

create an image for your background and place it in the drawables-xhdpi folder. Name it whatever you want but make sure it matches the code above where it says 'your_image'


conversation_item_xml
you want this to be transparent, so your image behind it will show.

make sure at line 2, the background is set to this:

android:background="#00000000"

message_list_item_send.xml
Set the linear layout at line 8 to transparent. Make sure the background is set to
#00000000.
Do the same thing for the time stamp at line 14.

message_item_list_recv.xml
Set the linear layout at line 8 to transparent. Make sure the background is set to
#00000000.
Here, the timestamp is at line 11. make it transparent too.

This should take care of all the transparencies. Text colors can be altered here too if you need. Try it out and post some screens!

Thankyou so much!

I'm just heading off to bed now, but you've been more than helpful. I'll try it out in the morning and post results

Originally Posted by artvandelay440

you'll need to edit some xmls. (This is off the top of my head)

conversation_list_screen.xml
change line 4

android:background="#ffffffff"

to

android:background="@drawable/your_image"

create an image for your background and place it in the drawables-xhdpi folder. Name it whatever you want but make sure it matches the code above where it says 'your_image'

Can you alternately point it to an image in framework, say for instance, background_holo_dark.png?

.....memoirs of a flash addict.

Originally Posted by stumpy352

Can you alternately point it to an image in framework, say for instance, background_holo_dark.png?

.....memoirs of a flash addict.

Yep- that's what 99% of all "dark mms" mods do. Only thing you change is instead of conversation_list_screen line 4 redirecting to your own image, make the background #00000000 as well. Also, make sure in styles.xml, your parent theme is theme.holo

Originally Posted by artvandelay440

Yep- that's what 99% of all "dark mms" mods do. Only thing you change is instead of conversation_list_screen line 4 redirecting to your own image, make the background #00000000 as well. Also, make sure in styles.xml, your parent theme is theme.holo

Ah, I think I get it. So the mms background will be transparent, and will instead be able to see the parent theme behind. Is that right? Can you also change the parent to theme.holo.light?

.....memoirs of a flash addict.

Originally Posted by stumpy352

Ah, I think I get it. So the mms background will be transparent, and will instead be able to see the parent theme behind. Is that right? Can you also change the parent to theme.holo.light?

.....memoirs of a flash addict.

Yes, and yes.

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