[Q] Background Colors - SMS, Conversation History...

plwalsh88 · Jun 14, 2012

CodeRedDewd said:
I attached an image. I'm not sure if it's going to show up in the post as an image; we'll see.

There is a white box around what is suppose to be shown as the editor. In the center of the black box it's not true black as the black surrounding it that I changed in the .9.png. The center must be another image.

I'm thinking I'm just going to make the white black, find the other gray images the buttons are on and make that one black. Who needs transparancy when it's all black, which is what I want anyway. lol

I'm going to look into the 9patch some more... It just seems so complicated with how to install and get working. It would be nice to work with someone who is actively editing .9.png's to get me on track....

Do you have an interest in editing those png's? lol

Haha unfortunately, not right now. Although I am also very picky about things and like to try to make everything how I want it to be. I just haven't had much time lately to do any modding. Sorry I can't help you any further on the 9-patch editing. Hopefully someone else with a little more knowledge on it will come along at some point. But yea as you said, if you just make everything black, it shouldn't matter haha!

CodeRedDewd · Jun 14, 2012

I added another image for what I'm shooting for. I edited the screenshot in Gimp to see what it would look like. I inversed the colors on the balloons, but would probably do something different. Basically just light text on BLACK background.

I tried to install the xda developer tools that have 9-patch in it, but it won't let me. It says I don't have the JDK installed, but I do. I added the environmental variable as it said and pointed to the folder java.exe is in. I'm not sure if that's exactly right though.

I think 9-patch is going to be the answer because I'm thinking the background around the editor box with the send button it is in an xml file. I'm not sure though, and decompiling the apk will allow me to change the .9.png and the xml files I think.

I attached another screenshot that shows no white area.

My next step is to try to install the xda Developer Tools... I think that's what it's called, with the 9-patch in it.

mostyle · Jun 14, 2012

CodeRedDewd said:
I think 9-patch is going to be the answer because I'm thinking the background around the editor box with the send button it is in an xml file. I'm not sure though, and decompiling the apk will allow me to change the .9.png and the xml files I think.

My next step is to try to install the xda Developer Tools... I think that's what it's called, with the 9-patch in it.

Been looking for a new project. I'll decompile the MMS.apk and see what I can find. I like the black background too FWIW.

Are you set on specific colors? I'm thinking Sent messages maybe white or a shade of grey.. and sent being a shade of blue to keep with the ICS (AOSP) color theme.. Ideas?

CodeRedDewd · Jun 14, 2012

mostyle said:
Been looking for a new project. I'll decompile the MMS.apk and see what I can find. I like the black background too FWIW.

Are you set on specific colors? I'm thinking Sent messages maybe white or a shade of grey.. and sent being a shade of blue to keep with the ICS (AOSP) color theme.. Ideas?

I don't have any specific colors. What I set out to do was to make the editor a true black box and not some grainy almost black. I wanted to make the conversation background black too. Things sort of propogated and now I'm wanting to make the area around the editor and send button black too. Then if I was able to do that, I was going to try to darken the two buttons send and attach. I want to make the list of conversations have a black background too. I have an apk that has this last thing. If I knew where it was I could just switch out the XML, if that's where it is?

When I get back home I'll attach the Mms that's interesting so you can take a look to see if you like it. Maybe you can help a bit with getting me up and running? It'll surprise you that I've only been rooting and changing apk's for a week. Lol

CodeRedDewd · Jun 14, 2012

I added a couple of screenshots for the attached Mms.. I kinda like it.I would probably go for darker though. Get rid of all that gray and make the editor black.

Okay, getting started on making 9-patch work... *sigh*

What are you using to decompile and work on .9.pgn's?

CodeRedDewd · Jun 14, 2012

Here's some new screenshots of what I did.
I reversed the received bubble.
Made the border around the editor one pixel.
Made the text able to start closer to the top in the editor.

I was able to use 9patchPngSuite to decompile and recompile my images after editing in Gimp. That progam is incredibly easy to use. I'll attach it. I fully understand how the images work now and can do what I want. The problem is that I suck at making images look good because I don't know how to use all the fancy tools in Gimp to make nice stuff.

Here's the Mms.apk so far as I have it and some screenshots.
BEWARE: If anyone installs this apk you may at some point in time see some bright colored crazy lines on something. I did this to find which png's I wanted to change. Example below.

On those 9.png files... The lines or sometimes dots at the top and left are defining areas that can be stretched vertically and horizontally. The lines on the right and bottom define a box the text must remain within. If it gets to be too much text, it stretches. Maybe this will get you started with making your own .9.png's!! If you have any questions hit me up. I think I have this down pretty well. Plus if you mess up the uncompiled 9-patch the PngSuite lets you know when it tries to compile.

1. Extract files from the apk.
2. Find the images you want to edit, put them in the compiled folder and run menu.bat.
3. Put your compiled .9.png in the compiled folder and run menu.bat.
4. Open and edit the decompiled file in Gimp leaving it in that folder and save.
5. Run menu.bat and compile to the output folder.
6. Using 7-zip right click the apk and use open under 7-zip.
7. Drag and drop the compiled .9.png to the folder you got it from in the 7-zip window. It will overwrite the original.

DONE!!

What is it you're good at?

mostyle · Jun 15, 2012

CodeRedDewd said:
Here's some new screenshots of what I did.
I reversed the received bubble.
Made the border around the editor one pixel.
Made the text able to start closer to the top in the editor.

I was able to use 9patchPngSuite to decompile and recompile my images after editing in Gimp. That progam is incredibly easy to use. I'll attach it. I fully understand how the images work now and can do what I want. The problem is that I suck at making images look good because I don't know how to use all the fancy tools in Gimp to make nice stuff.

Here's the Mms.apk so far as I have it and some screenshots.
BEWARE: If anyone installs this apk you may at some point in time see some bright colored crazy lines on something. I did this to find which png's I wanted to change. Example below.

On those 9.png files... The lines or sometimes dots at the top and left are defining areas that can be stretched vertically and horizontally. The lines on the right and bottom define a box the text must remain within. If it gets to be too much text, it stretches. Maybe this will get you started with making your own .9.png's!! If you have any questions hit me up. I think I have this down pretty well. Plus if you mess up the uncompiled 9-patch the PngSuite lets you know when it tries to compile.

1. Extract files from the apk.
2. Find the images you want to edit, put them in the compiled folder and run menu.bat.
3. Put your compiled .9.png in the compiled folder and run menu.bat.
4. Open and edit the decompiled file in Gimp leaving it in that folder and save.
5. Run menu.bat and compile to the output folder.
6. Using 7-zip right click the apk and use open under 7-zip.
7. Drag and drop the compiled .9.png to the folder you got it from in the 7-zip window. It will overwrite the original.

DONE!!

What is it you're good at?

Nice work. I'm using this now!

Glad you were able to get it the way you wanted.

That's almost exactly what I wanted as well! I may make a png edit here or there but thank you!

CodeRedDewd · Jun 15, 2012

mostyle said:
Nice work. I'm using this now!

Glad you were able to get it the way you wanted.

That's almost exactly what I wanted as well! I may make a png edit here or there but thank you!

I've been messing around and it turns out you can even put one of the message bubbles in place of where the black editor box is and it looks like you're typing directly into the message bubble. I've not had one FC and everything has worked. I found a couple of goofy message balloons that I copied and pasted into Gimp, touched up a whole lot to get a good clean edge and made a couple of .9.png's. If you do this, you have to make sure it's named ".9.png" before you compile. Also make sure that around the outer edge there are only your black marks. I had an error for a pixel that was nearly invisible. If you make a bubble for outgoing, just reverse the middle part of the image and not the outer one pixel area because unless you fix it exactly the same the bubbles won't be identical. I'll attach the Mms for the screenshot.

On this one I've not made the images for the pressed balloons yet, so they completely change. lol

Do you know how to change the color of the text in the balloons and how to change the background color of the conversation?

CodeRedDewd · Jun 15, 2012

CodeRedDewd said:
I've been messing around and it turns out you can even put one of the message bubbles in place of where the black editor box is and it looks like you're typing directly into the message bubble. I've not had one FC and everything has worked. I found a couple of goofy message balloons that I copied and pasted into Gimp, touched up a whole lot to get a good clean edge and made a couple of .9.png's. If you do this, you have to make sure it's named ".9.png" before you compile. Also make sure that around the outer edge there are only your black marks. I had an error for a pixel that was nearly invisible. If you make a bubble for outgoing, just reverse the middle part of the image and not the outer one pixel area because unless you fix it exactly the same the bubbles won't be identical. I'll attach the Mms for the screenshot.

On this one I've not made the images for the pressed balloons yet, so they completely change. lol

Do you know how to change the color of the text in the balloons and how to change the background color of the conversation?

Another screenshot...

alteredlikeness · Jun 15, 2012

Sorry if I'm walking into conversations...
But, here are some quick .9.png editing tips that I've picked up:

- you must decompile the apk first in order to edit .9.pngs (no extracting images)
- you may edit with GIMP without breaking the .9.png by leaving the 1-pixel black boarder untouched (if you simply desaturate, the black boarder will not be affected - or select everything except the one-pixel edge, then change hues or whatever). Also note where the black pixel dots are, that's where the image will stretch (if you overlay anything onto it and it crosses that patch line, it may unintentionally stretch as well)
- when saving or (exporting in 2.8) the final image with GIMP, I choose replace and save all interlacing, gamma, and layer offset..
- if you edit the shape of the image, you may have to redraw the black pixel boarder using draw9patch (which comes in the Android SDK) - I have actually redrawn the 1-pixel boarder in GIMP (using hex #000000, of course) after changing the hue, and that worked ok too.
- also, use draw9patch to compare the patches with stock images and to see how it stretches in the preview pane
- if you have errors recompiling, check the log... or check your .9.pngs to make sure they haven't been broken (you'll see two files with the same name: one dummy image.9.png, and one simple .png - if that's the case either redraw the patches or replace it with a stock image and start your edits over)

Whether any of this is helpful, wrong, or common knowledge - I've been wanting to write a few notes about it anyways..

CodeRedDewd · Jun 15, 2012

alteredlikeness said:
Sorry if I'm walking into conversations...
But, here are some quick .9.png editing tips that I've picked up:

- you must decompile the apk first in order to edit .9.pngs (no extracting images)
- you may edit with GIMP without breaking the .9.png by leaving the 1-pixel black boarder untouched (if you simply desaturate, the black boarder will not be affected - or select everything except the one-pixel edge, then change hues or whatever). Also note where the black pixel dots are, that's where the image will stretch (if you overlay anything onto it and it crosses that patch line, it may unintentionally stretch as well)
- when saving or (exporting in 2.8) the final image with GIMP, I choose replace and save all interlacing, gamma, and layer offset..
- if you edit the shape of the image, you may have to redraw the black pixel boarder using draw9patch (which comes in the Android SDK) - I have actually redrawn the 1-pixel boarder in GIMP (using hex #000000, of course) after changing the hue, and that worked ok too.
- also, use draw9patch to compare the patches with stock images and to see how it stretches in the preview pane
- if you have errors recompiling, check the log... or check your .9.pngs to make sure they haven't been broken (you'll see two files with the same name: one dummy image.9.png, and one simple .png - if that's the case either redraw the patches or replace it with a stock image and start your edits over)

Whether any of this is helpful, wrong, or common knowledge - I've been wanting to write a few notes about it anyways..

Hey, thanks for the tips... I can't get any of the android SDK to work to decompile an apk.... It's saying some version of Java isn't installed, but it is. I even set an environmental variable as it said in the error window. I think it's right....

Check on my previous posts in this thread. I've learned a few things. I've been grabbing images from the web and editing them in Gimp to compile them in 9patchPngSuite. This is a sweet program!!! It tells you any error that exists on the 9-patch before it compiles, such as a pixel that isn't completely black or if one exists, but so dim that it can't be seen. It tells which edge and pixel number is the problem. At the end of this thread I'm posting some screens and the Mms.apk I'm running. I added a small surprise to it.

Do you know how to change the text color in the conversation background, behind the bubbles? I'm thinking it must be in an xml, but I can't decompile the apk, so I'm toast on that until I'm able.

CodeRedDewd · Jun 15, 2012

CodeRedDewd said:
Another screenshot...

Progress!

I have attached the Mms.apk for what I'm running. It has the space between the bubble and the side of the screen. The attached apk is of the screenshot that has the thin borders, which is the one on the far left.

For the animation I stuck a paper airplane in so that it flies from the editor to the sending speech balloon. It turned out kinda cool. Check it out!

alteredlikeness · Jun 16, 2012

CodeRedDewd said:
Hey, thanks for the tips... I can't get any of the android SDK to work to decompile an apk.... It's saying some version of Java isn't installed, but it is. I even set an environmental variable as it said in the error window. I think it's right....

Check on my previous posts in this thread. I've learned a few things. I've been grabbing images from the web and editing them in Gimp to compile them in 9patchPngSuite. This is a sweet program!!! It tells you any error that exists on the 9-patch before it compiles, such as a pixel that isn't completely black or if one exists, but so dim that it can't be seen. It tells which edge and pixel number is the problem. At the end of this thread I'm posting some screens and the Mms.apk I'm running. I added a small surprise to it.

Do you know how to change the text color in the conversation background, behind the bubbles? I'm thinking it must be in an xml, but I can't decompile the apk, so I'm toast on that until I'm able.

For my system, the text color for actual messages and time stamps inside the bubble is in Conversations.apk/res/values/styles.xml under TxtMsgItem and TxtDateTimeStamp.. (just changed them to white today actually trying to fix another text color issue) - not sure about any text behind the bubbles though...

But, yes, you need to decompile. Try using APK Manager and set your framework files (for me it's framework-res, blur-res, moto-res and SystemUI .apks) - do this by putting copies of those apks in your "other" folder (where apktool is), open the command prompt on that folder and type:
apktool if framework-res.apk
(and hit enter - it should give you a 1.apk file created message). Do the same for all of those framework files (and SystemUI for good measure).
Then you should be good for de/re-compiling.. just remember to delete the resources.arsc file from the "keep" folder if you edit any xmls (thats where your values folders go, in the resources)

Sent from my mind using XDA

alteredlikeness · Jun 16, 2012

Here's my latest color issue I'm chasing.. Ideas, anyone??

Sent from my mind using XDA

CodeRedDewd · Jun 16, 2012

alteredlikeness said:
For my system, the text color for actual messages and time stamps inside the bubble is in Conversations.apk/res/values/styles.xml under TxtMsgItem and TxtDateTimeStamp.. (just changed them to white today actually trying to fix another text color issue) - not sure about any text behind the bubbles though...

But, yes, you need to decompile. Try using APK Manager and set your framework files (for me it's framework-res, blur-res, moto-res and SystemUI .apks) - do this by putting copies of those apks in your "other" folder (where apktool is), open the command prompt on that folder and type:
apktool if framework-res.apk
(and hit enter - it should give you a 1.apk file created message). Do the same for all of those framework files (and SystemUI for good measure).
Then you should be good for de/re-compiling.. just remember to delete the resources.arsc file from the "keep" folder if you edit any xmls (thats where your values folders go, in the resources)

Sent from my mind using XDA

My bad... I meant to say the color of the background in the converstation behind the bubbles. It's good to know you now where the text colors are.

Wow, that's a lot of information in a short paragraph. I have no idea what you're saying with most of it because I'm not there yet. I can't even get the program installed because it's saying I need Java and I have it installed in the default directory. Do you have a compiled xml with a black background, white text and gray timestamp? That would save me hours. I'm runnig 4.0.4. and UCLD2. I'm not even sure that makes a difference. That's how much I still have to learn! But I'm going to keep pushing it forward... Hopefully the real version if ICS will be out soon and I'll have less bugs. What are you running?

alteredlikeness · Jun 16, 2012

CodeRedDewd said:
My bad... I meant to say the color of the background in the converstation behind the bubbles. It's good to know you now where the text colors are.

Wow, that's a lot of information in a short paragraph. I have no idea what you're saying with most of it because I'm not there yet. I can't even get the program installed because it's saying I need Java and I have it installed in the default directory. Do you have a compiled xml with a black background, white text and gray timestamp? That would save me hours. I'm runnig 4.0.4. and UCLD2. I'm not even sure that makes a difference. That's how much I still have to learn! But I'm going to keep pushing it forward... Hopefully the real version if ICS will be out soon and I'll have less bugs. What are you running?

I am on Motorola's GB 2.3.6. Waiting for the offical ICS release (don't want to mess around with the leaked versions).

But, you can install APK Manager without the SDK. I have it on my work computer w/o the sdk and it works fine for de/re-compiling.

And the text bubbles themselves, at least for me in my system, are located in blur-res.apk/res/drawable-hdpi - but again, that's GB Moto, so it's probably different for Samsung ICS.. so, if I did have the decompiled inverted text bubbles (which i do not), it probably wouldn't work for you. Sorry. Just keep going and things will start clicking and working for you..

Sent from my mind using XDA

alteredlikeness · Jun 16, 2012

alteredlikeness said:
Here's my latest color issue I'm chasing.. Ideas, anyone??

Found it!!

It was a small pale .9.png file in my BlurDialer.apk drawable folder.. if anyone cares..

Sent from my mind using XDA

CodeRedDewd · Jun 19, 2012

alteredlikeness said:
Found it!!
View attachment 1134725
It was a small pale .9.png file in my BlurDialer.apk drawable folder.. if anyone cares..

Sent from my mind using XDA

When I can't find stuff, I draw bright colored designs on png's so when they do show up, I can look at the designs I drew and match them with the png. It sounds crazy, but it worked for me.

BTW I flashed the Embryo ROM and it's great. The only thing is that I can't root it. I'm not sure what to do about that. Any ideas?

[Q] Background Colors - SMS, Conversation History...

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