yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
Luckily even though it didn't seem like it was on, it actually was and I could get into a shell :)

Phew!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] rvr350:
glad to know you got it working again. I got into infinite boot loop yesterday, and it was a while before i got everything back to where i want it.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] itsmee22:
Doesn't look like you got around to it. I can try. Just need to know how you figured out which file was the correct background for the white on white? Do you know which file for the black on black? Did you just try all the "background" files?

Thanks.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
The file that controls this is called bn_btn_radio_label_background.9.png ;)
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] itsmee22:
Thanks, I'll try that, but how do you go about figuring out which png controls what menu? Trial and error or this a better method?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
Its pretty trial and error really but the descriptions are fairly good :)

I'm just working on changing the Nook animations now :)

---------- Post added at 01:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:32 PM ----------

that didn't quite work! Ended up with a white boot screen instead :)

I'll have another go later, probably just down to the images I used ;)
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
This really is a hit miss mod without really knowing what does what. I'm sure if you fix some, others go wrong :( I'm still getting white on white menus in some places (beautiful widgets weather setup screen for one)

I really do hope somebody who knows exactly what they are doing can rebuild the framework apk for us!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] zaptoons:
I'm pretty sure the black popups are drawn by: popup_full_dark.9.png and popup_top_dark.9.png. (The top part shouldn't matter)

Anything prefaced with a bn is probably going to affect only the B&N interface, the bootscreen, etc.

This seems to be the root of the problem: B&N has applied a custom theme for their interface, and the normal interface files aren't planned to work. We were never supposed to be using anything other than apps from their walled garden that work with the same theme. Much of the non-approved stuff in the normal Android interface runs into compatibility problems with the images in the stock B&N theme.

What would really help is if people can do screencaps whenever we run into menus/popups that are affected- both before and after being fixed. Then we can match to the affected .png files. We could then develop a map of every file that needs to be changed for a full theme fix.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
The bn_btn_radio_label_background.9.png did effect the buttons though so it appears they have really messed with the theme, some its effect there own stuff and some effects other stuff! Confusing!

We need very clever bod to build us a whole new theme :)

Agreed, I really should have done that :(
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] mtemal:
Is there an xml file that I can edit that will just change the font color in the more menus? It look slike chaning the bg image isnt a true fix
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] zaptoons:
Every.xml file I've looked at seems to be encrypted. If there's some way to read them, I don't know what it is.

Here's an idea: developers can emulate the Android OS on the desktop. It would be a huge shortcut to push the framework-res.apk file to an emulator, and experiment with changing the files there- rather than chance crashing the NT with every fix.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
Yup I found the exact same problem...

I am not sure how that would work, I've tried modified version of the os in bootable x86 versions but I am not sure just changing the framweork would work. That said if it is that somple we could cheat and just nick another framework from another device?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] zaptoons:
I don't mean a bootable version for x86, I mean emulating the actual mobile OS using the SDK. (Devs do this to see how their apps will work). In the emulation, applying the NT's framework res file, and then modifying it there.

I also thought about just swapping out all the regular interface files from my DroidX- keeping all the bn_ files of course.

I can't actively try any of these things myself though until I can openly mess with the DX.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] rvr350:
Hi, i tried to use ninjamorph to change the color of the go launcher->preference menu color. Is it the same png file that was mentioned initially?

How about root explorer? If you click "more", and the menu that it shows is also white on white. Any fix to that?

Thanks!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
I'm assuming we also need to tweak systemUI.apk to get everything sorted.

Just in case anybody has the stupid idea that I just did about using framework from a different gingerbread device, don't bother! You get stuck in a weird flashing boot loop.

So tempting to just try copying absolutely everything from a different device and pasting it in. Doubt it would work though...Probably needs the kernel tweaked to get anything working that isn't BN
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] succulent:
Search for apk manager on xda. It'll allow you to edit apk.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] mtemal:
I thought there was a problem with my nook displaying those xml files. Why would they encrypt them?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
Theyre exactly the same on my asus transformer.

Not sure why
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
The stupid thing is that that image is actually white!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
For anybody doing the menu mod manually here's a better 9 patch background image so you keep nice curvey corners instead of having a solid block of black.

Working on the other stuff as and when I get a chance. It's 1:21am here in Wales UK now though so I'm gonna shoot to bed before the wife gets stressed !
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] mtemal:
Can you post a screen shot of it in action?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] zaptoons:
Weird. What's really confusing is these are definitely the .png files on my phone that create the same dark popup items in Titanium and Root Explorer, (I checked them with my phone) but a different .png is being used on the NT. That I don't get at all. I would think that third party apps will always use the same stock interface items if they exist (which they do). The popups should be black on white, not black on black, but somehow they're using a different set of .png images. I'm not sure what/where in the system would control that, but I'm guessing an encoded xml file.

Very confusing!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
Here you go
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
OK I've got one step further, I've completely decompiled the framweork apk so now the xmls are in human writing instead of coding. Now where the hell do we go to edit the font colours we want to edit!

Anybody been nosing around and spotted a likely xml?

In case anybody is interested here's the manifest file out of the root of the apk, interestingly it does mention bluetooth....

Looking further I think it's a pretty standard manifest...
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] xdahgary:
Can you create a metamorph for this?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
I'd never seen metamorph before but it looks like a possible idea. My issue is that I'm unlikely to be able to do it now because the wife will be around all the time and I obviously don't want her to see it.

If I get a chance I'll see what I can, otherwise I'm not sure when.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] xdahgary:
Why are women always stifling progress! lol.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] xdahgary:
Can some identify what image I can change to get the beautiful widget settings menu to be able to see? The text and menu background is white.

Sent via Nook Tablet
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] kenblat:
Weird!! i use your edited png... but still white menu??? check back the framework-res.apk i can see that the png is gray as your ... but menu still white... reboot did not help!!!! GRRR :confused:
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] MotorHeadCG:
Thanks for this... Was waiting forever then I saw this post.

Thanks all for the help on this, I can now see my menus.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] cfoesch:
From the stock Email.apk showing up black-on-black for the "Default account", I started trudging through all the "decompiled" XML files and figuring it out. The problem is that they are using the default Checkbox style, which is the same as the one used in Settings, which means either we end up with a black-on-black with a black-on-white; or a white-on-black with a white-on-white. Of course, it might be possible to get a grey-on-both so that at least we can see all of the text... but that is a might bit harder than figuring out why we're getting black-on-black text occasionally.

I think the chief problem is that B&N went for just supplanting the standard theme, rather than switching their layouts to use the *_inverted styles, which would allow other apps to work properly without issue. (But why do that? Not like anyone can install those dangerous apps anyways...)

... hey! some of us are actually trying to make things better for all of us... stop playing like there are no women on the intarwebs. :P
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] xdahgary:
Hello. How you doing? :cool:
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] cfoesch:
I'm very tired from staying up all night hacking and haven't showered yet today... how are you doing?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] blazednova:
seriously? i've been waiting over an hour now for ninjamorph to finish, how long is this supposed to take?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] gwreedak:
If you mean the initilizing screen - after 15 minutes or so I just hit the home button and rebooted and reopened and it opened fine and I was able to do the fix mentioned a few pages back.

~ G
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
No more than a minute or so really once it's decompressed it all again. Hit the home button, go to manage applications and kill nominally, then go back to development and toggle USB debug. I sometimes have to turn it off then on again for it to work. Even after I've done that I sometimes have to do it all again for the debug to actually stick and allow nominally to work.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] gwreedak:
A big Thanks to CelticWebSolutions for the white on white fix. Installed w/ no problems a few days ago and is working great. Still waiting for a black on black fix ;-)

There is one widget I like that I can only see a fraction of the options (Sense Analog Clock Dark).

As I am not a dev by any means I appreciate all the hard work those who are are putting into this effort.

~ G
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] cfoesch:
I looked through things. This seems to be because an app is using a standard styled checkbox or such, which would normally be designed by a theme to be visible on a black background. If they were using a checkbox on a white background, then they would either custom style the text, or use the *_inverted styling.

However, B&N apparently chose to forego all the sense in theme building, and replaced the normal formats with white backgrounds and black text, rather than use _inverted stylings in their preference dialogs and styling those to be black on white.

As such, any solution that turns black-on-black into white-on-black would then introduce a new white-on-white problem for the Settings pages. (Maybe not a bad thing, if we restyle them to be a dark background.) So, it's either white-on-white, or black-on-black, there isn't much room for just fixing the one, without breaking something else.

... this whole tablet's software design reeks of being hacked together from chewing gum and spit. (No duct tape... that would actually have worked.)
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
As it stands at the moment I haven't managed to get a lookin on the NT since I packaged it up and gave it to my wife for Christmas. As for the black on black, I managed to fix it in some things by tweaking anotehr image, often where checkboxes were, It's far from a 100% fix because it just puts a box behind things and once there you realise that for some reason part of the writing goes behind the check box. As said above I think B&N did a really shoddy job of changing the theme and just messed with existing files instead of makinga proper theme for their apps which means that anything not designed for the NT ends up with duff menus.

When I get a chance I'll get back onto it and see if I can't fiddle with it a bit more, something I did notice was if I fixed some menus it then broke menus elsewhere because some menus are programmed for the modified colours while others aren't. I actually have another brand new still sealed in the box NT but I should really be selling that on, I'm in the UK and imported 2 to cut the overall postage per item.

I'm really hoping somebody manages to crack / bypass the boot loader so we can get rid of this really crappy modified android and get something decent on on here!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] itsmee22:
What if we changed things to white on grey and black on grey. Shouldn't everything then be visible?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
Yes I have tried that, it's not great, but I guess it's better than not being able to see it at all!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] gwreedak:
grey

Got a modified .png for that? I'll try it. Thanks.

~ G
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] cfoesch:
I was thinking about that myself, the grey-on-white/black as a solution. Like you said, it's better than nothing.

I think the proper solution would be to retexture the settings dialogs in dark colors, and then switching the default checkbox text back to white. Basically, undo all of their theming.

I tried putting a stock CM7 framework-res.apk on my NT, but it didn't take, so it would definitely have to be something that is hacked up, and pieced together. Let me know what to change in the .apk though, and I'll integrate it into the snowball-mod.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] FergyA:
Just to make sure, shouldn't that file be menu_background.9.png rather than menuitem_background_pressed.9.png? The menuitem pressed file should be the background when you're pressing a list item (by default the white-grey gradient). About to try the mod myself, but want to make sure I don't mess something up.

Also, in the case that the file name should be changed, should I do something to the pressed .png as well so the text doesn't semi disappear when I press it? Invert it possibly? Just want to make sure it doesn't break the theme too horribly.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] cfoesch:
A person on the IRC channel was confused apparently by this thread, so I wanted to clarify openly. There is no reason why a framework-res.apk from one NT cannot be used in another NT.

If this were true, then snowball-mod would NEVER work, because it replaces the framework-res.apk

More than likely what happened between the two attempting to test using the other person's framework-res.apk, was that they made a mistake in how they installed the framework-res.apk likely messing up permissions or something like that, and as a result, producing a bootloop.

There is no device id or any per Nook Tablet specific information or block that ensures that one cannot share their framework-res.apk. However, installing it is a careful and dangerous affair, and must be done absolutely correctly, or it will cause a bootloop.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] FergyA:
Reply\answer to my own question, the file does indeed need to be renamed to "menu_background.9.png". To anyone else, don't do like I did at first and rename it menuitem_background.9.png as that causes all kinds of fun (aka fcs whenever you pull up a menu). Also, I didn't end up doing anything to the existing pressed file, it looks great as is. Thanks a ton, was a bit of a challenge to use MathStudio (which has about 20 items in the "more" menu) without this.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] rwhitfield:
White On White Fix Clarification

So reading this thread, I first give kudos to all the wonderful work the developers accomplish to make all of these rooting items function. I love my rooted Nook Tablet, and my laptop is hardly ever out anymore.

For the white on white menu fix, am I to take it that all that is needed after Celtic's work is to replace / rename the .PNG file in the proper location, and confirm permissions? Can this simply be accomplished with Root Explorer (or something like it), or is ADB in debug mode required?

I feel a little scared of this one, given other posters had root loop problems, etc. I would hate to have to start over, as I do not believe there are boot in recovery / restore modes for the NT, right?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] RickHouTX:
I have read this entire thread but have the same questions as rwhitfield. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] dodgepot:
I'd suggest getting something similar to titanium backup and using that to make a backup of your apps prior to making any daunting changes. Unfortunately I'm unable to provide any resolution to the procedure as I've yet to perform it.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] jmaddocks:
I copied the apk to my computer, used apk manager (google "xda apk manager") to extract it, replaced the png, zipped the apk, copied it to system/etc, changed the permissions appropriately, copied it to system/framework to replace the original, rebooted, and crossed my fingers. Worked like a champ!

Hope that helps.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] slgooding:
has anywhere near actually looked into the issue witthe styles.XML? in the framework apk? the style for dark and.bright is actually incorrect, making text appear as the wrong color. (afaik)
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] cyrnel:
Thank you for the quick summary (post#28), and the readable menus!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
You're very welcome, glad it helped you. I've not looked any further due to the probability of a new kernel and rom being released soon.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] pepi4:
I have probably a dumb question :o After changing the file to a solid color why can't a person just copy it to the correct area instead of using the program Ninjamorph ?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] SCClockDr:
Because the file operationally resides in a compressed package. That is what Ninjamorph does in finishing your project.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] kbs24:
Can you tell me please what is the name of that app? I am scrolling all of the Go apps and I don't see anything so far that sounds like it would do this. Thanks!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] promek:
Is it possible to use the systemframework file from the nook color? shouldnt it be the same? NC does not have this issue.

I think NC has the 1.4.0 update as well so they should be almost identical?
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] loribuono:
Thanks for this! I'm new to playing around with the files and stuff, but directions were clear, and I can see my "more" menus now. Now, if only I could see the options in Beautiful Widgets.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
I did manage to get around that but I can't for the life of me remember how!

As a stop gap if you press and hold the item you wish to read it will highlight which will allow you to read it, then slide your figure off the item and it won't actually click on it. Not ideal but at least you get to read things!

I'll look again at getting the background changed on those ;)
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] gwreedak:
CelticWebSolutions - I've done the White on White w/ no problem, did you ever come up with a working Black on Black? If so, do you have a link?

Thanks ~ G
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
Not so simple I'm afraid, they seem to fight against each other, if you fix the whiet on white you get black on black, so you fix the black on black and end up with white on white!
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] SCClockDr:
Changed Attatchment

Did you try blue for a background color?

I attached the image I used.

What apps present a black text menu? I'll confirm they work if I have one of them.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] gwreedak:
Hi - In Ti-Backup when I select a batch, i .e. back-up apps, I'll see white circles at the top of the screen w/out text next to them to tell me what they are for?

And - I used to use a couple of the Sense Analog Clock Widget apps on my NC, but now when I try to activate them most of the page is black on black and I'm unsure what the selections are.

Thanks ~ G
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
With the select boxes you can change the background of the select box label, I can't remember the image file name off the top of my head but thats how I did it, it doesn't fix every black on black menu that but it does make the check box text readable in many apps. It's far from pefect but it does work.

If you look at the images in the MDPi directory you'll see something like checkbox label.9 or something like that. Experiment a little, the app makes a backup of the apk it's repackaging so you can always copy it back using es file explorer or something if it looks awful after modifying the image.

While in Ninja Morph just press and hold on that image and a popup menu will allow you to edit the image (might be a pro feature, not sure) then you can invert the image or play with the colours, click the menu at the bottom and save. then save the project like normal and the new image will be there as a background for the text in the Titanium menu you mentioned :)

Sorry if thats not quite clear enough, but busy at the moment so didn't have time to really explain more in depth.
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] gwreedak:
:) Clear as mud to this noob - I can follow step-by-step directions, usually :rolleyes: but... they have to be fairly simple :o, like your original white on white :D

~ G
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] CelticWebSolutions:
Lol, give me an hour or so and I'll be back at home and I'll sit and write it up for you ;)
[Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet] gwreedak:
No worries - I think we are on opposite time zones so my work day is just starting and I won't have personal computer access to play w/ anything for awhile.

~ G