@Ticklefish, I'm a First time user of TMA, and I had to come here and give you my Thanks and say this is a very good Tool and it works great. I love all the Advanced Options and how easy it is to use. I have seen others I know and some I don't talk about TMA for years and have visited this Thread at least three times, but I finally decided to give it a go and now wish I would have sooner. So anyone that has done the same as I have do yourself a favor and download this and get going, no reason to put it off another day.
Thebear j koss
Senior Member
You've wasted like over 10 years now with your themes. Lol About time you made your life easier...
I cant find any good apk signer. I even tried signing the original APK. It installs, but then force crashes (even the original one, without edits).
I understand correctly that the code for extraction is a single line that is transferred from Android directly to the "in" folder ? If it's not in the folder after I've pulled it then maybe there's a problem with the connection to my phone ? Or something else ? Help me please . I will have a better understanding of what is going on. Thanks))
What phone do you have? Do you have usb debugging enabled in developer settings?
HTC One , about usb debugging I don't know if it's on or not, how do I check it?
Thanks in advance)
You have to enable it in developer settings. In settings "about phone" find your build number. Tap on it rapidly 8-9 times until it says developer settings are now enabled. You'll find a new folder in settings/system called developer. Inside is where you toggle it on. Do it with your phone hooked up to your pc. It'll ask you if you trust this pc, check the box. If you are not aware of this already, you might need to find some tutorials before you start trying to mod.
I realize this is way off topic but since so many great devs use ticklemyandroid, I thought I would try. I'm looking to put the battery percentage on the left side of the battery icon. Anyone have any ideas? I've uploaded what I thought to be the applicable files, though I could very well be wrong. I can do it using a custom battery but would rather use the stock one.
Thebear j koss
Senior Member
I would think it would be in system ui smali somewhere since the battery percentage when enabled shifts all icons to the left. But I haven't looked in an app in a while now.
Yes, I believe it is in here but I can't seem to figure it out.
Thebear j koss
Senior Member
It may be easier than going thru smali. Did you try in layouts, moving the correct resources around in statusbar.xml, qspanel.xml, and quickstatiusbarexpanded.xml? I think it would be easier to move everything that way.
Battery is in system_icons.xml, which is in the status_bar.xml. The battery and battery percentage is not a separate entity but merged together at some point in the smali files. I just can't figure out where. I've done some smali editing but haven't been able to get this one yet.
Placement of the battery depends on the layout in the xml files. No need to edit smali. If it's a linear layout then just change the position of the icon in the xml file. Done.
Thebear j koss
Senior Member
These are the only layout files associated with the status bar and battery. I don't see any way to change location of the battery percentage in regard to the battery icon. Perhaps I'm not clear on what I want to accomplish.
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15
And so it has come...
I started this thread 10 years ago today (depending on your timezone). XDA had been so helpful to me that I wanted to give something back. So I wrote a quick batch file that sped up the decompiling and recompiling process as well as doing a few other nifty things.
A decade later people are still using it! Which is amazing and very, very humbling.
Unfortunately the modding scene has changed and these sort of tools aren't as in demand as they used to be. And my personal life has taken an unpleasant turn so I can't write code as much as I used to.
So there hasn't been a new version of TMA for a long time, and I don't have any planned.
But this thread is still alive, the download link still works, I still check in from time to time and...every single person reading this is still one of the greatest people on the planet.
Thank you all for using my little program over the past 10 years. It means more than you will ever know.6
Thank you for all your time and effort. And for answering all questions, regardless if it pertained to TMA or not. You've been a tremendous help to me personally, for years.6
I'm with Tulsadiver, not only has Ticklefish always gone above and beyond but users of TMA have always been helpful and respectful. Almost every other thread on XDA I have been a part of has been derailed by entitled users, devs who never help others, or fanboy cliques. Although I rarely theme or mod anymore, every once in a while, I'll theme a simple app, and see if I can still pull it off. And of course I always use TMA. Amazing that this has been around for 10 years and it still can't be beat. @Ticklefish thanks for the tool, years of support, and having the best users available on XDA. Thanks to all the fellow users that never fail to help and taught a total newb the ins and outs of modding android. Keep the spirit of android alive by helping others, and keep on modding, theming, and sharing.
6
I think that if I wrote the long version, it'd just ressemble what @Thebear j koss wrote, and if I wrote the short version, it'd ressemble what @Tulsadiver wrote.
Thank you @Ticklefish for TMA and all your other threads about theming modding, it really helped me, and I had fun learning !
Thank you people in this thread. This thread has one of the finest, polite and useful community, it embodies what XDA used to be : a bunch of knowledgable people learning from each other, and learning together, and, sometimes, helping newcomers learn too.
My best theming year are behind me I think, it's been very long since I've themed/modded anything.
Thanks you @Ticklefish, and I hope life will be nicer to you in the futur !6I've been following this thread for a long time and read all tips and tricks from @Ticklefish and other users. Very useful thread. Thanks you for it and happy 10th -
712
Tickle My Android - Over Seven Years Old And Still Going Strong!
Download version 16.5 from here: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=4349826312261743827
Click The Box Below For The Changelog:
Click The Box Below To See The Credits:
(All The People I Have To Thank)
Click Here For Frequently Asked Questions And Help
TMA is a quick, powerful and easy-to-use tool that uses a piece of java called "apktool" to decompile and recompile Android app's.
Along with that, Tickle My Android offers the ability to:
- decompile and recompile multiple files in a batch,
- sign APK and JAR files
- zipalign APK files,
- create flashable ZIP files,
- let you choose between multiple versions of Apktool
- lets you theme up to eight different roms or devices at the same time,
- use the tool in different languages
- control the tool by keyboard or MOUSE!
To use Tickle My Android, you will need:
- - a rooted Android phone or tablet with USB Debugging enabled and a custom recovery installed,
- - any version of Android on that device,
- - a Windows PC (XP or above) with the phone or tablet's drivers installed,
- - Java Runtime Environment 8.0 or above installed to your PATH (http://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.xml),
- - a USB cable to connect your device to the PC,
- - patience and a little common sense
(Thanks to @carl1961 for the picture)
Download the latest version from the link at the top of this post and run it. (Please don't look in the 'Downloads' tab - it's not working right now.) This is a self-extracting archive which, once it's extracted everything, will put on your PC a new folder called "Tickle My Android". This is where the tool runs from.
The "_WorkArea1", "_WorkArea2", "_WorkArea3", "_WorkArea4", "_WorkArea5", "_WorkArea6", "_WorkArea7" and "_WorkArea8" folders we'll talk about later.
The "tool_files" folder contains various files Tickle My Android needs to run. Don't touch these!
The "user_files" folder holds different versions of Apktool, as well as the different language files.
And the "Tickle My Android" exe file starts the tool. Double click on that and away we go!
How To De/recompile An App
How To Add An Application To A Flashable ZIP
What Happens If It Goes Wrong?
Tickle My Android has been designed to be easy to use but the very nature of Android means that things might not always go smoothly.
If you're having problems, look at the 4th post in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=25621684&postcount=4 This is the FAQ post which should hopefully be able to help you out.
If you're still having trouble, please feel free to post in here. Include your "history.txt" and I'll try to get to back to you as soon as I can!
How To Say "Thanks"..
TMA is free and always will be. You can use it as much as you like, you don't owe me anything.
But, if you want to give something back, please consider placing one of the banners below somewhere in your signature.
Your support lets me know I'm doing something useful and it keeps this tool alive!! Spread the word!
XDA:DevDB Information
[TOOL] Tickle My Android - Decompile & Recompile With Ease, Tool/Utility for the Android General
Contributors
Ticklefish
Version Information
Status: Stable
Current Stable Version: 16.3
Stable Release Date: 2019-11-30
Created 2018-11-30
Last Updated 2019-12-03
XDA:DevDB Information
[TOOL] Tickle My Android - Decompile & Recompile With Ease, Tool/Utility for the Android General
Contributors
Ticklefish
Version Information
Status: Stable
Current Stable Version: 16.5
Stable Release Date: 2020-03-12
Created 2018-11-30
Last Updated 2020-03-12191How To De/recompile An App
Decompiling and recompiling an Android app for the first time can seem quite complicated and time-consuming, but it really isn't once you know what you're doing.
First you'll need to choose which WorkArea you want to use. There are eight WorkAreas in total, which means you can easily work on up to eight different rom's or devices without having to reset the tool everytime you want to change from one to the other.
Inside each WorkArea are five folders. The '_in' folder is where files about to be decompiled go, the '_working' folder contains the results of that decompiling and the '_out' folder contains the recompiled files. There's also a "Frameworks" folder, which will contain the framework files you've installed. You can pretty much ignore that last one most of the time.
(When you first use TMA, you'll be in WorkArea 1 by default.)
To decompile an app, you'll first need to put the relevant APK in the "_in" folder. You can either copy this into the folder yourself or you can 'pull' it from your Android device. If you want to pull the file, this next section is for you. If you don't, skip ahead to the one after that.
How To Pull A File
First select the "Pull FileFrom Device" option.
This gives you the option of pulling some of the most commonly modified system apps, or any other file you wish.
Choose which file you want to pull and the tool will try to do that for you. If the pull fails, it could be that you don't have the adb drivers installed on your PC for your particular device, or the file doesn't exist, or any one of a number of things. Have a look in the "history.txt" file that's automatically generated to see what's going on.
That's actually all we need to know about pulling - it's really not that complicated. Once you've pulled all the files you need, you can move on to decompiling them. But you might need to install your frameworks first..
How To Install Framework Files
If you want to modify a system app (like SystemUI.apk or framework.jar) you'll need to install the right framework files. These are files that contain resources that are shared amongst most of the system apps. Those resources need to be made accessible to apktool (the program that does the actual decompiling) or the app won't decompile fully and it won't work.
There are many framework files available. Stock Android only comes with one (so far) and it's called "framework-res.apk". OEM's like to include their own, though, just to make life more interesting. Samsung used to have "twframework-res.apk" in their rom's before replacing it with "samsung-framework-res.apk". Framework files are found in "system/framework" on your devices internal memory and should be an APK file with "res" in the filename. You need to make sure you install every framework file in your rom to ensure a system app decompiles, so make sure they all are put in the "_in" folder.
Select the "Install Framework File" option and choose whether you want to install all the framework files in your WorkArea or some individual ones. You can select up to five individual files to install in one go.
If the tool isn't able to install the files you'll be shown an error, otherwise you'll go back to the install menu. If you've installed all the framework files you need to, go back to the title menu because we're finally ready to do some decompiling!
How To Decompile A File
Select the "Decompile File" option and choose whether you want to decompile all the files in the "_in" folder or individual ones.
Once you've chosen your files, you'll be asked whether you want to decompile with "Standard" or "Advanced" settings. This is new to Version 16 of Tickle My Android. Apktool has a lot of different options when it comes to decompiling and you can now choose which ones you want to use. The standard settings will just make the tool try to decompile the entire file, as it used to in previous versions. The advanced settings let you control the process a little better..
These are the main decompile options available for the latest version of apktool available at time of writing (2.4.0.). Full explanations of each are available on the apktool github here: https://ibotpeaches.github.io/Apktool/documentation/#decode. To give you an idea though, you can use "Don't Decode DEX Files" if you don't want to modify any smali files, which makes the decompile a lot faster!
Choose your options and the tool will try to decompile your file for you. If it succeeds the decompiled files will be in the "_working" folder, if not you'll get an error message. The full details of that error will be in the "history.txt" file.
Once your app is decompiled you will be free to modify it however you like. Change images, alter layouts, add functionality..whatever you want to do. When you're done, you'll need to recompile your app to be able to use it again.
How To Recompile A File
Select the "Recompile File" option and choose whether you want to recompile all the files in the "_working" folder or individual ones.
Once you've chosen your files, you'll again be asked if you want to recompile with standard or advanced settings.
You can find explanations of the first few options on the apktool github again: https://ibotpeaches.github.io/Apktool/documentation/#rebuild. It is very important to know what the options that you've selected but there are two that's worth paying extra attention to..
"Copy Original "AndroidManifest.xml" And "META-INF" Folder" - Modified system apps need to be signed with the same 'key' as the original app, or they won't run. This option ensures that the original key is used on the new app. If you want to change the Manifest file, though, you'll need a different key which involves disabling signature verification. That's a bit more complicated than this tool allows for..
"Use "aapt2" [apktool_2.3.2+]" - More recent apps can be constructed with a newer version of a tool called aapt. If you're trying to modify a file made with the newer version, you'll need to have this option actve for the recompile to work. There's no easy way to tell if this is needed or not so, if you get an error, try again with the option turned off.
(Different versions of apktool will have different options. Selecting an option that isn't available on the version of apktool you're using will cause an error.)
There are also options to sign and zipalign your recompiled apps. Signing uses a generic key and zipaligning can sometimes break V2 signature checks so, if you've no idea what that all means, it's best to leave these options alone until you know you need them.
And TMA has an option to put your recompiled apps into a ZIP file that you can flash in a custom recovery. I'll go into this in more detail in the next post but I always recommend replacing system apps this way. It's much safer than trying to replace them while the phone is running.
Choose your settings and sit back while the tool does its thing.
Once it's finished you'll get a message saying the file recompiled...or one saying it didn't. If it didn't, you can find the full error text in history.txt.
If your file recompiled, you'll find it in the "_out" folder. It's now ready to go back to your phone.
It's up to you how you do that but the route I always recommend above all others is using a flashable ZIP file. Check out the next post if you want to know more!128How To Create A Flashable ZIP File
Once you've got a recompiled app, you need to put back to your phone. If you've modified a system app, I always suggest using a flashable ZIP file in recovery. That way you're replacing part of the system, while the system isn't running. Using a file manager app, or using adb, is asking for trouble. I've broken a tablet that way and nearly a phone as well.
Tickle My Android can create that flashable ZIP for you and it's really easy to do so. You can either tell the tool to do it as soon as the app's recompiled, or use the dedicated option on the title screen.
To start, select the "Create Flashable ZIP File" option from the title screen. You'll then be asked if you want to use files from the "_in" folder or "_out" folder. This can be handy if you want to make a flashable ZIP of the unmodified apps. I normally have at least one of those containing my original SystemUI.apk just in case a mod goes wrong.
Next you'll be asked to choose your files. You can add up to five files to the flashable ZIP. Once you've confirmed which file, or files, you want to use you'll be asked where those files are going in the ZIP.
Make sure your apps go back to the right folder. If you put a modified framework-res.apk in the "system/app/" folder, for instance, those modifications won't be actioned.
Once you've chosen where the files are going, you'll next be asked what filename you want the ZIP file to have. TMA will automatically generate one for you based on the current date and time, but you can have whatever filename you want. Make sure not to use too many special characters or it could confuse the tool and/or the recovery. If you want to use the default filename, just press ENTER.
The tool will now ask you to confirm all the details.
If you're happy, then the ZIP will be made and placed in the same folder as the tool.
Copy this to your phone, flash it in reoovery and enjoy! But always, always, always make sure you have a backup first!!105F.A.Q.
Having trouble using Tickle My Android?
Something not making sense?
Something not working the way it should?
Read on..
Q. I can't de/recompile something!
Q. I'm getting a 'Java Not Installed" error...but I do have Java installed!!
28I started this thread on the 3rd of May 2012.
That's 5 years ago.
And that's really shocking. Where have all the years gone??
To mark the occasion, I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to everybody who's downloaded TMA, helped with debugging and new features, and all the wonderful people who post on here. I know there are other decompiling and deodexing tools out there. Your support means a lot to me, it really does.
TMA is still going. I'm not working on a new version yet, not until Android O means I have to change things yet again, or until I come up with a new feature. But this tool and this thread are still very much live. And everybody who's reading it and this post are automatically the greatest people ever!
