[Android Themes] fluxboxmedia:
Good Afternoon XDA Family and Friends - Modders and such...

Today, I would like to bring you something of a how to that would possibly get Sticky-d as I think that this app is growing in popularity and customization requests. Due to some demand on our Youtube Partner Channel, we are working on a Video on how to modify and deploy these new themes for this app to your non-rooted phone / device.

Many of you may or may not know about this software: MiLocker - App to allow you to get the MIUI type Themes that are seen on their ROMS on Non-Rooted and Rooted Phones. This app will let you customize your Lockscreen and have that MIUI type theme.

Please note that this tutorial - How To involves basic knowledge of XML and modifications of types of variables that are used in the theme.

I have enclosed 2 Samples that you can use as a basis, I have converted them from Japanese / Chinese language so that you can understand them better.

Some of the basic steps are outlined below.

1.	First get the theme downloaded that you wish to modify using the Machine of your choosing: Mac or PC.

a.	Upon getting the theme from the provider of the application to the device, you will then need to get it on the PC.

b.	Connect your device to your machine as normal, and use “Disk Drive” to access the data storage on the device. (this could be internal or SD depending on device)

c.	Once you have accessed the data on the device, look for the folder “MIUI” and under will be the “Theme” folder. In this folder will be all your downloaded themes. (MTZ Format)

2.	After you have the MTZ files copied to your machine, (always best to create copies as this ensures you don’t break the mtz file you have already as source)

3.	You can then (if you don’t already get 7zip for PC or The Unarchiver for Mac both free utilities) to then open the MTZ file and extract it’s contents to your desktop or destination of choosing.

4.	Upon extraction you will usually find a few folders and files in there. Most notably: “Preview Folder”, “Wallpaper Folder” “Fonts folder”, lockscreen file, icons file, description.xml.

5.	These are usually the basics for the theming. Most of them are self-explanatory.

a.	For modifying or making your own wallpaper or preview, this is quite simple, just modify the wallpaper you find in the folders and create new ones using Paint, Photoshop or GIMP (utility of your choice)

b.	Create a new wallpaper of the same dimensions used and name it the same as the original file found in the folder. Just delete the original when done. (Best cases for this I have tested are : 480x954, 480x860 and a few others) at about 72DPI or better.

6.	Once you have created the wallpaper and it’s preview that you wish to show in the chooser, place those files in the respective folders.

7.	To first start the modification and in this the main reason for the XML is to change the Chinese Characters displayed to English or US. Most people will just change the Wallpaper and repack, and that is ok. This is for those who seek to have English displayed.

8.	In the first XML : description.xml - This file allows you to customize fields of Title of the Theme , Author, Version and such. These are the only three I recommend changing. ONLY CHANGE DATA between the <Title> THIS IS TO BE CHANGED</Title>

a.	(changing only the data between the start and stop tags which are the <Field></Field> items)

9.	Please note that changing the information in-between the start tags and end tags for XML is how the data is read by the application. So those values are how this is displayed.

10.	The second XML is called the manifest.xml file, and it’s in the lockscreen file.

11.	To modify this file, you need to rename the lockscreen file to lockscreen.zip and then extract the contents and open the folder under and look for the manifest.xml file.

a.	Renaming method for Windows: Start > Run > cmd | in the command prompt, CD to the correct location of the lockscreen file and then issue the command with out quotes: “rename lockscreen lockscreen.zip”

b.	Renaming method for MAC: Terminal – cd to the location of the lockscreen file issue the following command : “sudo mv lockscreen lockscreen.zip” It will ask for password, input your user password.

12.	If the renaming happened correctly you should now see the file as a zip file.

13.	You can now extract this file using 7zip or Archive utility or other to extract to a destination of your choice.

14.	After you have done this, find the “manifest.xml” file in the folder from extraction.

15.	You can edit this file in any great number of free XML utilities out there: PC : Notepad++ and MAC : TextWrangler. Editing this will allow you to find all the characters, which are not English and then copy them, open a browser and go to translate.google.com and translate them and insert the correct words as necessary.

16.	When you have completed editing all the Japanese and Chinese out of the document, save it and then back out of the directory that you extracted and then ZIP the lockscreen file back up using Winzip, 7zip or Arhcive Utility in Mac or whatnot.

17.	Once you have compressed and ZIP’d the lockscreen folder back up, you will see a new lockscreen.zip file with your modified files in it.

18.	Now it’s time for you to Reverse Rename the file and removes the .zip file making it a file plain object. (Hint – Do the reverse of step 11 above, going from lockscreen.zip to lockscreen)

19.	Once you have completed this phase, you will need to compress it to a MTZ to put back on the phone. 7Zip has this built in and you can just compress using 7zip and select MTZ as the file format. As for MAC I recommend using this Automator, which will do it for you. (MAC USERS WILL NEED TO TO one extra step)

a.	Mac users will need to after creating the MTZ file, make the file Unix Executable – Terminal (open this app) and then go to the MTZ file and issue the following command: “sudo chmod a+x yourfile.mtz” , it will ask for password, do as above. Then the system will make it a UNIZ Executable just like the other MTZ’ files

20.	Now transfer the MTZ file you have created back to your device and launch the app and choose your new theme.

MAC TOOLS for MTZ:

PLEASE EMAIL ME for TOOLS (don't have enough posts)

IF you have any questions, please feel free to email us at geektekneek@gmail.com

Or check our Youtube Channel as we will be posting a tutorial on this soon!

Please EMAIL for YouTube Channel (not enough posts)

Thanks.

FluxboxMedia and GeekTekneek

*****UPDATE******

Upon more and more research , our team has discovered that simple repackaging of the theme once modified does not always work as listed above. If you are using the PC and wish to use the 7zip method, the tip we found on DroidForums was to Open the MTZ file in 7zip and leave it open. Then 'Drag' From the file manager of 7zip the contents to your machine which will allow you to modify a copy of the theme. Make your changes , wallpapers and such, and then copy 'drag' them back into the open Archive of MTZ theme you did from above in this update. Once done, close the archive by closing 7zip. If you make any changes to the 'advance' folder under the lockscreen file (note you can just 2x click on the lockscreen file while in the 7zip archive and it will open), you will need to copy the changed files into this folder, and then click the "up one folder icon " it will annouce "There are changes to the original packing files, would you like to update the file and repack?" CHOOSE YES. Then you can close the entire 7zip app and deploy to your device. If you have questions, please feel free to email us. Video YTube tutorials will be online shortly.