[RESOURCE] Modding Sense 6

fisha21 · Dec 31, 2014

So Sense 6 is finally here, and it brings with it another round of the cat and mouse game that HTC loves to play with XDA themers.

Veteran HTC themers will know that each version of Sense brings new challenges, and sadly Sense 6 is no exception. I had made a bunch of reference guides for Sense 5.5, but other than sending out the Dropbox link, never got around to doing much with them.

I figured this time I'd hit the ground running and create a central thread where we could all share what we've found, rather than scattered posts in various mod/theme/rom threads. The aim of this thread is to create a place to share our findings, rather than all trying to overcome Sense 6's idiosyncrasies individually. As such, it is not intended to be a How-to theme guide. Most of the information posted here will assume at least a basic knowledge of theming, xml editing and apk manipulation. There are lots of such guides already available on XDA, and are easily found with little effort. However, I have added a couple of links to the bottom of this post to get you started.

Please feel free to add any theming stuff you find while exploring Sense 6, requests for help etc. Pictures of your themes/mods are welcome, provided you are also explaining how you did them if the info isn't already posted in the thread.

INDEX

Post 2: General tips, pointers and observations

Working with Sense 6
Troublesome apks
Frameworks and tags
Public id's

Post 3: fisha21's Guide to HTC's built in themes

Sense 6 themes
- What are they
- Where are they
- How to change them
- How to add new themes
How to stop the 4x1 weather clock changing colour according to time of day

Post 4: Fringe theming - hosted by @Pneuma1985

Internalizing color in htcclockweatherwidget.apk & Inverting 4x1 clock
Change small / large weather icons to white in smali
Change the vertical divider in 4x1 clock to an image that can be themed
Removing the SystemUI notification drawer bg fade in/fade out..
Changing fonts selectively in any apps not causing a global change
Animate the status_bar_close_on and keep the carrier label at the same time
Add Operator_name to statusbar
Move signal_cluster to the left
Turn on spinning 3g icon in stock SystemUI

Post 5: Theming on the razor's edge - hosted by Raymond Ebertt

Transparent Prism Appdrawer Background
Custom Panels for the WeatherClockWidget.apk
Inverting Issues
Inverting Data Usage Background
Inverting Weather.apk Backgrounds
Background in Browser.apk when Navigating Tabs
Pop-up Window on HTC_IME - Word Correction

Theme controlled fontcolors - thanks @ineedone and @PuNkA.YaNoU

Change which weather icons sets are used for day and night clocks - thanks @2WildFirE

HTC app buttons - thanks @ineedone

Ok / cancel buttons in HTC apps - thanks @ViNOK16Bit

Entry field background in pop up Contact card - thanks @ineedone

Middle white box behind Phone, Message etc icons on pop up Contact card (when clicking on Contact's thumbnail in Phone, Messages, Mail etc (see screenshot for Entry field background) - thanks @Basil3

Remove On / Off labels from HTC settings toggles - thanks @ineedone

Moving signal cluster to lefthand side of statusbar - thanks @Pneuma1985

SIM PIN lock entry field in Settings - thanks @Onepagebook

Icon PSD's for HTC apps - thanks @Pfaffinator (the icon king!)

How to remove coloured overlays from Settings page icons - thanks @Basil3

HTC mini+ launch screen

Inverting the background for the Send SMS window you get, after declining a call - thanks @billbowers

Changing the colour of tab number in Browser - thanks @PuNkA.YaNoU

"Release to refresh" text colour (screenshot in post) - thanks @PuNkA.YaNoU

"Accounts and folders" header in HTC Mail app (screenshot in post) - thanks @PuNkA.YaNoU

Blinkfeed side menu issues with newer versions of Blinkfeed - thanks @Basil3 and @Raymond Ebertt

Redirect app drawer Playstore icon to within Prism.apk - thanks @[email protected]

Full-screen caller contact photo - thanks @Kiray1982

USEFUL RESOURCES FOR BEGINNERS

List of useful guides etc compiled by superthemer @pstevep - the parent thread is also well worth a read. Although some of the stuff refers to older versions of Sense, there are still some hugely useful tips and techniques in there. Of course I'm a little biased, since his thread was what inspired me to make this one
[GUIDE] Want to learn how to theme? - by @theimpaler747
VTS website - there are several tools you can use for apk/jar manipulation, but in my experience this is by far the most complete. The VTS website also has a bunch of tutorials on how to get started with VTS, and also how to get started with apk manipulation in general
Official Android developers' website

THINGS THAT STILL NEED FINDING

fisha21 · May 5, 2014

General tips

Working with Sense 6
By now people have found that Sense 6 apks are a little troublesome and it takes a bit of effort to decompile/recompile some of them. The main thing, as Raymond Ebertt stated in his post, is to make sure you are using the most up to date files. There is some conflict about which version of apktool to use, 1.4.2 or 2.0.0. It is complicated by the fact that the public release version of VTS doesn't yet work with apktool 2.0. Either version of apktool will work fine, but both might require a little tinkering with the apk. Now that the new version of VTS is out, it makes things a lot simpler, since apktool 2.x is now supported.

Those people using manual apktool, I would suggest making sure you use apktool 2.0.0beta9 - that's worked me for me where earlier versions of 2.0 failed.

As for smali, I have been using 2.0.3 since Sense 6 dropped, and not had any issues with that.

If you're using VTS, you need to put the updated binaries in the appropriate folders in C:\Program Files (or Program Files(x86))\Virtuous Ten Studio\External. The newest version of VTS ships with apktool 1.4.2 and 2.0beta9, and smali 1.5.2 and 2.0.3, so you shouldn't need to add any additional binaries.

There are also a few special-case apks:

Troublesome apks

You may have found that there are some apks that give you public.xml errors on trying to recompile them. The cause seems to be some broken images in the apk itself, and seem to affect the images used in the Sense 6 themes. You can see which ones they are by opening the apk as a zip archive and looking in the drawable-*dpi folders - the broken images all have a filesize of 0bytes.

The easiest way to fix this is to replace those images in the apk before decompiling it. Once you've done this, the apk should recompile without the above errors.

You can get all the required files from com.htc.resources.apk, but to make things a bit easier, I have zipped up the required files for most of the faulty apks.

You can download them here

Note that these zips contain compiled 9.pngs, so you need to copy them into the apk before decompiling - they won't work properly if you put them into an already decompiled project.

If there are any problems with the zips, please let me know.

If your apk still fails to compile, just double check all the drawable-*dpi folders and make sure there are no 0byte images. If there aren't, then there is another issue with your project.

========

Phone.apk. This app often fails to compile due to some issues with strings.xml. Basically, there is a special character (٪) that gets replaced with a normal % on decompiling.

You have 2 options to fix this:

1. use the error log to identify which symbols need replacing (the log will tell you which xml, and which line, needs fixing)

2. grab the fixed files I added to the folder I linked above

- these are decompiled files, so will need to be placed into your decompiled apk

========

There is another reason I've found for some apks not to compile. Some of the apks, eg Messages, have issues with apktool 2.0 whereby the package name of the apk gets altered.

If you get an error saying that it could not find resources for package com.htc, you need to check the AndroidManifest.xml - you'll find that package name has been changed to com.htc.

Two ways to deal with this - either re-edit the package name to the original (which can usually be found somewhere further down in the AndroidManifest.xml, or use apktool 1.4.2 to de/recompile the apk. Thanks to @hawknest for pointing out the cause of this one.

Frameworks and tags

Just a short note on frameworks, since many people seem to misunderstand them. When you install a framework, the resources.arsc is taken out of the file and put inside an .apk file in your C\:<User>\apktool\framework folder, where it essentially acts as a look up table for decoding the resources inside any given apk. By default, framework-res gets installed as 1.apk, com.htc.resources as 2.apk. Go take a look in your installed framework folder, you'll see what I mean.

The reason you need to install frameworks for each Android distro you're using is precisely because of their function as a look up table. Let's say you install AOSP frameworks - great, you can now decompile AOSP apks just fine. But what if you're using a MIUI rom, or Sense, or Touchwiz? These distro variants all contain resources that the stock Android doesn't and so when you try to decompile a Sense apk that has non-standard resources within, the AOSP frameworks will fail. Ok, no problem, install the Sense rom frameworks instead and it'll work just fine. Problem is, when you installed the Sense frameworks they overwrote the AOSP ones. So now, if you want to go to use an AOSP apk, you first need to reinstall those frameworks again. What a pain, right?

This is where tags come in. If you install the frameworks using a tag specific to the Android distro, in the apktool/framework folder you'd see 1-aosp.apk, 1-sense.apk, 1-miui.apk etc. Now, when you're decompiling apks from a particular distro, just use the tag you assigned the frameworks to let apktool know which set of frameworks to use. This way, you can have frameworks for multiple distros installed at the same time.

Just to clarify, all the frameworks from a given distro need to have the same tag. So, for example, your installed frameworks from AOSP would be called 1-AOSP.apk, 2-AOSP.apk, 127-AOSP.apk etc. When you decompile using a tag, you're telling apktool to use all the frameworks with that tag as reference tables for the decompile. If all your frameworks from one distro have different tags, apktool won't find all the references it needs, and you'll get an error about missing resources and a failed decompile.

As for when you need to install frameworks - as I said, the purpose of installing them is to provide a lookup table for decompiling resources. So you really only need a set of frameworks when you're working with something that's likely to have unique resources. This will either be when dealing with different distros - AOSP, MIUI, Sense etc - or when there has been a version change - 4.3 to 4.4, or Sense 5 to Sense 6 etc. If you're working with a Sense 6 build of one rom, say Renovate, and you want to decompile an apk from InsertCoin, you can use the same frameworks for both, since they are both based on Sense 6, and we rarely tend to add new resources to framework files.

Public id's

Public id's are how smali code call on a particular resource. Public.xml lists all the public ids for every resource contained within a particular apk. Pretty much all apks use a public id format of 0x7fxxxxxx, which means that the resource attached to that id can only be used by the apk it is contained in. So, if for example, you're looking in smali and you see the id 0x7f100000. You search public.xml and you see that 0x7f100000 is allocated to type="string" name="app_label". So you know that that bit of smali code is setting the app label. This can also work the other way round - say you have an image and you want to find the smali code that draws it on screen. Find the name of that image and look it up in public.xml. Say it has an id of 0x7f000010. So you just search all the smali for that reference and have a look at the resulting files.

This is true for all apks in HTC roms except for three. Since com.htc.resources.apk, framework-res.apk and framework-res-htc.apk act as central repositories of resources for other apps to use, they each have their own unique public ids so system apps know which one to call a resource from.

Code:

framework-res = 0x01xxxxxx
com.htc.resources = 0x02xxxxxx
framework-res-htc=0x03xxxxxx

So, next time you're looking in smali and you see an external reference with one of the above 3 formats, you'll know exactly which framework apk to look in

Note: the formats shown above are how they appear in the decompiled public.xml of that apk. When other apps call these public ids in smali, the first 0 after the x is dropped.

For example, say the clock widget wants to use an image from com.htc.resources. In com.htc.resources/public.xml, that image might have the public id 0x02000001. But in the clock widget smali where that image is called, the public id would be given as 0x2000001.

fisha21 · May 14, 2014

What are the Sense 6 themes?

This is the easy bit! If you open Settings/Personalise/Theme, you'll be presented with the four built-in themes:

Where are the Sense 6 themes?

This is where things get complicated.

There are four themes, each of which is split into five categories. The themes are called:

The system wide theme is controlled by hex colour codes located in colors.xml and styles.xml of com.htc.resources. This controls the majority of system apps.

If you look at com.htc.resources.apk/styles.xml line 2047 for example, you'll see that there are entries called:

Code:

etc, starting from line 2047

Categories 1-4 are represented by the four boxes along the top of the theme preview. The fifth category is defined by HTC within apks as Category 0, and this is the default category. It is used when the code within the apk doesn't specify which category to use (more on this later). With the default theme, you'll probably have noticed that various HTC apps have different coloured header bars, which correspond to the four boxes on the preview image:

So if you wanted to change the colour of the dialer, you'd edit the colour codes for HtcDeviceDefault.CategoryOne. If you were using the second theme, the orange one, you'd edit ThemeOne.CategoryOne to change dialer header, and so on...

I've managed to track down which category each HTC app uses, but if there are any I'm missing, please let me know

All of these apps use the specified category from com.htc.resources, so that's where you should edit it. There are some HTC apps that have seem to have their own internal themes:

Prism.apk
HMS_Gallery.apk
HTC-IME.apk
Video_Center.apk
HtcExtremePowerSaverLauncher.apk
EasyAccessService.apk

so they have their own specified themes and categories within the colors and styles.xml of their own apk. There may be other apks as well, I just haven't spotted them yet. They read the system flag to determine which Theme to use, but then use their own categories for various elements within the app.

So Prism for example will set the overall Theme according to what's been set in the Theme picker but then will use its own internal categories. From my testing so far, all aspects of Prism (app drawer header, Blinkfeed, app drawer icon overlay) seem to use Category 4 colours from within Prism.apk. Haven't looked into any of the other apps listed above!

How are the Sense 6 themes used?

So, which theme the system is using is determined by you, via the Theme Picker. As for which category an app uses, that is determined within the java code - thanks to @Mikanoshi for some more detailed info

Still not sure where the current theme flag is set, so that the other themed apps (Gallery, Prism etc) know which theme to use. I'm guessing framework2.jar or framework3.jar, though I guess it doesn't really matter!

As for the preview images, these are generated the first time the theme picker is opened, and then cached in /data/data/com.htc.home.personalize/files/themePreview/ - again, thanks to @Mikanoshi for more detailed info. The colour bar across the top of the previw image is the multiply_color from categories 1-4 of that theme.

If you want the Theme picker screen to show your edited themes, rather than the default ones, you'll need to delete these cached images. This can be done by full wiping, but obviously not so convenient. The other option is to add the following line

Code:

delete_recursive("/data/data/com.htc.home.personalize/files/themePreview");

somewhere in the updater-script of your rom/theme zip.

How to add a new theme

The four built in themes offer a great way to offer multiple variations of your theme. But what if 4 options aren't enough? Why not add a 5th?

To add your own theme, it's probably easiest to start with com.htc.resources as this requires the most edits. The two folders you'll need to focus on are drawable and values.

In values/styles.xml, the easiest thing to do will be to duplicate the whole block of Theme.Three entries, rename them all to Theme.Four and change the colours as you want them. You'll also need to duplicate all the htcprogress_themethree_*.xmls in the drawable folder, rename them to themefour and edit the colours,

The last step is to edit values/arrays.xmls. This will register your new theme as a usable resource. You need to

add your new theme to the multipleColorThemes array - this tells the system that ThemeFour now exists
add a new ThemeFourarray, which lists the 5 categories -
add a 5th entry to the wallpapersand wallpaper_themesarrays - this will set the default wallpaper for your theme (you can also edit this array if you want our default wallpapers to have a different filename or file type)
create new progressBarArrayarrays for ThemeFour and the four categories

If in doubt, just look for all the ThemeThree stuff, duplicate it and rename to ThemeFour. That's com.htc.resources done. Now you just need to add the ThemeFour stuff to the other 6 apps that use the theme system (see previous list). In each apk, you need to edit arrays.xml, add all the new htcprogress_themefour_*.xmls to the drawable folder, and the new ThemeFour stuff to styles.xml. If you don't add ThemeFour to an app, if you've applied your theme centrally and then open that app, the app will default to the stock green theme.

And that's it! Wipe the theme preview cache as previously mentioned, and your theme will show up nicely. Not sure if there is a limit to the number of new themes that can be added...maybe it just depends on how bored you get

There is one small issue that remains. As previously mentioned, the colour bar across the top of the preview is generated by the multiply_color entries of categories 1-4. However, for your new theme, you'll note that the colour bar remains green. Since the themes always revert to the green one when there is missing info relating to the new theme, I suspect there must be a smali array somewhere where the themes are also registered. Since the new theme is not declared there, the preview generator doesn't know to look for ThemeFour.

It is the only remaining bug, but it does annoy me! So if anyone finds where in smali these preview colours are generated, please do let me know!!

Well, that's all for now. Apologies for the slightly wordy post, a consequence of me thinking out loud. I will say one more thing though. When Sense 6 first landed, I was not a fan of these new themes at all. But having spent time exploring and getting to know how they work, I actually really like them now. Overall, theming Sense 6 requires less smali edits than Sense 5/5.5 did, and the theme picker aspect is actually quite powerful....how else could you offer 4 variants of a theme so easily. I suspect that it's better for themers like myself, who theme specific roms, than it is for standalone themers.

Happy theming!!

Article originally posted here

How to stop the 4x1 weather clock changing colour according to time of day

Pneuma1985 · Jun 21, 2014

Fringe Theming...

Ok Since fisha is so awesome and got me a spot for number 4 I will be adding to this as we progress and figure other stuff out enjoy for now!
My Tutorials are not limited to any app or by anything! I will cover how do some crazy complex theming and I will try to be as cohesive as I possibly can, within the tutorials. My main goals are usually against the grain as far as theming goes: This is stuff you won't see in other sense themes! Enjoy

Updated all links so they properly work for everyone.

Internalizing color in htcclockweatherwidget.apk & Inverting 4x1 clock
No longer applies to the updated ota.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Change small weather icons to white in smali

Change large weather icons to white in smali

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Change the vertical divider in 4x1 clock to an image that can be themed, never using com.htc.resources calls to do it.
No longer applies to the recent versions of sense 6
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Removing the SystemUI notification drawer bg fade in/fade out..

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CHANGING FONTS SELECTIVELY IN ANY APP NOT CAUSING A GLOBAL CHANGE

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Animate the status_bar_close_on and keep the carrier label at the same time.
Ok I stated above if you had any questions about the ui feel free to ask. This tutorial is a result of one of those questions.

Raymond Ebertt · May 5, 2014

Advanced Theming for Sense 6

I was fortunate enough to of had the opportunity to start theming Sense 6 before it even hit the stage as a custom ROM, but that does not give me an advantage at all. Sense 6 is a whole new concept in theming and at the best of times, an aggravated experience. So much has changed between Sense 5.5 and Sense 6 that I don’t even know where to begin. I honestly think that HTC had the common Sense kicked out of it. When life throws you lemons, you theme them….

These tutorials are designed for themers that have knowledge with xml and smali editing. There are several excellent threads that explain the concepts and the "how-to's" for these kinds of edits, therefore, I will only focus on theming issues.

The first thing that I found out was, I needed to update VTS in order to decompile any of the Sense 6 apks. My VTS was outdated and you should carefully check that you are up to date with smali, baksmali.jar’s and using a current version of apktool. Be sure to visit this page and download the latest versions of the smali.jar’s found here and replace them in the appropriate VTS folders. This will resolve most decompiling errors that you may encounter. The other errors, well it’s just the apk and way that it’s being decompiled at the moment. There’s not too much you can do other than getting a different apk and trying it.

Transparent Prism Appdrawer Background

Custom Panels for the WeatherClockWidget.apk

Inverting Issues (Not intended for this Thread)

Inverting Data Usage Background

Inverting Weather.apk Backgrounds

Background in Browser.apk when Nagivating Tabs

More Nasty Inverting Issues Resolved - HtcSetupWizard, HtcBackup, "Get Started Panel", Settings Issues Prism.apk

The following are inverting theme issues when dealing with HtcSetup and company apks. Each apk seems to have a specific edit so let’s start with the Prism.apk and the white panel “Get Started”

White box in Settings

White panel in Blinkfeed page “Get Started”

White Drop down panel – “Tap to see new stories”

HtcBackup.apk – Background inverting fix.

HtcSetupWizard.apk – Background inverting fix

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

New Edits

Pop-up Window on HTC_IME - Word Correction

budeone · Mar 28, 2014

Thanks for this. How will this effect creating a 4x5 home screen?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

nashshafrulrezza · Mar 28, 2014 at 3:51 AM

So it guide me to change the letter and it work.. the weather control by pngs or smali too? Looking at the same smali you gave to change the background and letter.. but didn't found any related to weather icon?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

maurydes · Mar 28, 2014 at 6:10 AM

well done fisha21 this and really useful

:good:

---------- Post added at 07:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 AM ----------

nashshafrulrezza said:
So it guide me to change the letter and it work.. the weather control by pngs or smali too? Looking at the same smali you gave to change the background and letter.. but didn't found any related to weather icon?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

yooo Nash i love your skins remember one x time

nashshafrulrezza · Mar 28, 2014 at 7:02 AM

maurydes said:
well done fisha21 this and really useful:good:

---------- Post added at 07:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 AM ----------

yooo Nash i love your skins remember one x time

I'm really hoping the new theme engine working as the skin back then.

too bad HTC prefer it other way. I'm trying too port back my classy transparent skin. Hopefully sense 6 would be easier.

thanks btw.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Mr Hofs · Mar 28, 2014 at 8:40 AM

Will help here where i can !!! Awesome

ViNOK16Bit · Mar 28, 2014 at 1:46 PM

another one to follow! :good:

vinman12 · Mar 28, 2014 at 3:26 PM

Will add what i can, ty

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

dragonesdenano · Mar 28, 2014 at 4:04 PM

Thanks fisha!! Amazing

:thumbup:

2WildFirE · Mar 28, 2014

Great thread thanks a lot

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vinman12 · Mar 28, 2014 at 9:21 PM

Nice

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

nashshafrulrezza · Mar 29, 2014 at 5:03 AM

2WildFirE said:
Great thread thanks a lot

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Have you deactivated the day/night color change? If yes how you do it.. can't find the solution yet.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

2WildFirE · Mar 29, 2014

@nash here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=51437526
And I using my common panel. 9png
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nashshafrulrezza · Mar 29, 2014 at 6:04 AM

2WildFirE said:
@nash here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=51437526
And I using my common panel. 9png
Powered by SkyDragon ROM

Thanks.. but I don't mean the background.. see my screen shot.. the weather icon.. what control it to change at night and day..

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

2WildFirE · Mar 29, 2014

nashshafrulrezza said:
Thanks.. but I don't mean the background.. see my screen shot.. the weather icon.. what control it to change at night and day..

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Ah ok,sry i think we can change the same way with the icons if i remember editing this smali. I will look into the smali

I mean this here

.method protected getGraphicType(Z)Lcom/htc/weather/StateResources$GRAPHIC_TYPE;
.locals 1

if-eqz p1, :cond_0

sget-object v0, Lcom/htc/weather/StateResources$GRAPHIC_TYPE;->vectorgraphic_light_xl:Lcom/htc/weather/StateResources$GRAPHIC_TYPE;

:goto_0
return-object v0

:cond_0
sget-object v0, Lcom/htc/weather/StateResources$GRAPHIC_TYPE;->vectorgraphic_dark_xl:Lcom/htc/weather/StateResources$GRAPHIC_TYPE;

goto :goto_0
.end method

edit booth to light or dark, Nash has tryed, and it works.

nashshafrulrezza · Mar 29, 2014 at 6:35 AM

2WildFirE said:
Ah ok,sry i think we can change the same way with the icons if i remember editing this smali. I will look into the smali

If you found it please let me know. That's the only thing I left for the clock.. thanks again.
@fisha21, you use vts for sense 6? I can't decompile any of sense 6 apk in vts.. any idea?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[RESOURCE] Modding Sense 6

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