[Captivate Themes and Apps] DemonWav:
I know this isn't the question/answer section, but it is the theming section. This will probably also get lost in all the other threads, but I figured there are enough people that have asked questions it might be a good idea to make this thread. The idea is, post a question, any question, about theming and me or someone else will answer it. I'm not a theming genius but I know a bit about theming and there are many more people that know much more than I do that might be able to help. This can also be a discussion place for people to figure out how to solve issues that no one is quite sure how to solve yet. I will post a few of the posts that I can find that answer some of the questions people have asked as a basis to get started.

Some people don't know where to start, so here are the "tools of the trade."​

Graphics Editing Software

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You will need some sort of image manipulation or graphics editing software. There are some free options out there and some not so free, but you can usually find a quality program to fit your budget.

This s a list of good programs that I know of, but I have only actually used GIMP and Photoshop.

-GIMP (FREE - Linux/Windows/Mac)

-Photoshop (PAID - Windows/Mac) Here's a quick tip if you want to use Photoshop.

-PaintShop Pro (PAID - Windows)

-Pixelmator (PAID - Mac)

-Paint.NET (FREE - Windows)

Android SDK

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The Android SDK contains a set of tools that are essential to theming.

Get the SDK here.

(will update in the future with what these tools are and how to use them)

Tools you will need:

- Draw 9-Patch (/tools directory of the sdk)

- DDMS (/tools directory of the sdk)

- Zipalign (/tools directory of the sdk)

- ADB (/platform-tools directory of the sdk)

APK Manager (apk tool)

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APK Manager is a simple to use, easy to understand tool that utilizes apk tool, zipalign, and a bunch of other tools. I recommend using this as it is easier to use for newer people, but I prefer to use apktool as it is more versatile.

I always had problems with the apk tool that APK Manager 4.9 comes with, so if it doesn't work for you (mainly on Samsung ROMs as far as I know) you may want to replace the apktool.jar in the /other directory of the APK Manager with this apktool.jar.

7-zip - WinRAR

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This is definitely a must. Windows has a built in .zip browser but I strongly recommend using 7-zip or WinRAR. I personally like 7-zip more, but that is all personal preference. You can open APK files as an archive, without having to decompile it. This allows you to do quick .png editing, or you can even replace post-compiled xml with other post-compiled xml if you so desire.

OptiPNG

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This isn't essential but it is something I strongly recommend as a "quality" standpoint. OptiPNG allows you to optimize the .png's in your theme by recompressing the image files down to a smaller size, allowing them to be loaded faster. Don't worry though, no information or quality is lost in the process.

Notepad ++

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This is another essential tool for theming. Notepad ++ is by-far the best text-editing program on the market for Windows. At least, in my opinion. It is also free. Basically if you want to do any xml editing, you need this tool. You can also do just about anything else that you want to do with it...​