[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Androyed:
I like Android. I liked some of the custom ROMs even more. Especially in combination with a theme. However, there are always certain things that bother me. That's why I want to make my own ROM. Since I do not have any skill in any program language, I'm not going to build a ROM from scratch. That wouldn't be a good idea anyway :o. And I don't need to. I'm just going to use a custom ROM as a base. So mainly what I want to do is theme.

This is what I want to achieve:

- I want to theme every single aspect of the OS, or at least as much as possible. I want it to be a whole.

- As I said, I'm not going to build a ROM from scratch. That would be impossible. But my guess is that there are things that are possible to change. For example, I should be able to change the order in which the buttons in the settings menu are shown, right? And the buttons itselves? The text on the buttons? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagined it as a big text editor file in which you can just change some text. For example, there would be a big code for each button with lots of numbers and symbols, but between those codes there would be plain english text which I could edit (for example, the Application button at the menu: I could change it to say "Apps" instead of "Applications"), and I could also change the order in which those codes are shown. Anyway, that's the sort of stuff that seems editable to me, and it's also the sort of stuff I want to edit. What doesn't seem editable (or not so 'easy' at least) to me, is the fact that you can't pulldown the notification bar in the lockscreen in CM7. This is just an example, but you get it. I want to change as much as possible about a certain ROM, but only the things that I can easily change, like the order of certain buttons or the text on certain buttons.

I just used those things above as an example. I do want to change the order of the buttons and the text on buttons, but it's not going to be the only thing I want to change. So keep in mind that it is just an example.

These are the tools that I found that may be useful:

- UOT Kitchen

- HTC Android ROM Kitchen (works on NS)

- How-to-theme guide on XDA

- A Metamorph guide on XDA

I don't know if I need UOT kitchen when I'm going to use that big How-to-theme guide. Probably not. HTC Android ROM kitchen looks nice, but I don't know if it can change the order of the buttons and the text on buttons and that sort of stuff.

Things I need help with:

- Is there or is there not a big text editor file in which I could just edit some codes, or isn't it as easy as that? I'm not going to change a whole code. Like I said, I only want to change what's easy to change, like the order of buttons or text on buttons.

- What ROM should I use as a base? CM7 is probably the best, because of course I want a lot of features in my ROM.

- Can I use UOT Kitchen in combination with that guide, or is kitchen completely useless when I use that guide?

- My most important question: What, do you think, is everything I can change with my knowledge? I don't have any programming skill, but I do have time. And besides, I don't even want to edit a lot of stuff in a ROM. Just stuff from the outside. So mainly theming. Not too much feature-like.

Long thread. :) If anyone can help me get started, that would be great!