[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] he_stheone64:
Some of your questions might be answerd, if you click last link of my signature. Even if this is very specific regarding porting my Themes to other ROM`s, you find hints for all the basic tools you need.

Your issues with ICS 4.03 framework are quite common, since apktool 1.43 does not compile plurals correct in latest framework, which leads to compile errors. That`s why you need to decompile framework with a special apktool version (which is between 1.42 and 1.43), which is linked in my thread and then recompile it with latest 1.43.

In general these are the tools I recommend for every serious Themer. Even if apkmanager is easier to use, I would recommend to understand apktool (which is part of apkmanager) to understand the basics and you should also have different versions of apktool on hand, since sometimes older version solve problems. Also make sure, you alwways copy latest apktool and aapt.exe in"other" folder of apkmanager.

Tools:

apkmanager and / or apktool for decompiling apk`s and jar files

Theme Porter for batch updating pngs

SDK & JDK

Photoshop and / or Gimp

PNGGauntlet in case you want to compress pngs

Winmerge to compare individual files

Kdiff3 to compare full ROM`s

multiupload.com - since it`s easy to download for users and you can track downloads

zipalign batch script - comes in very handy when updating full Themes - http://www.multiupload.com/OCPKW52693

In ICS most of the important color changes can be done in Systemui.apk, some in framework-res.apk. I will post a list of nice changes, that will help all themers.

---------- Post added at 06:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:56 PM ----------

Some important edits for text and background colors in ICS

SYSTEMUI.APK

VALUES FOLDER	EFFECT

drawables.xml

<item type="drawable" name="notification_item_background_color">#ff111111</item>	BG for Notifications

<item type="drawable" name="notification_item_background_color_pressed">#ff257390</item>	Press Effect for Notification

<item type="drawable" name="status_bar_background">#ff000000</item>	Statusbar

<item type="drawable" name="status_bar_notification_row_background_color">#ff090909</item>	Line between Notifications

<item type="drawable" name="notification_header_bg">#ff000000</item>	BG for Date

<item type="drawable" name="notification_tracking_bg">#d8000000</item>	BG for pull down

<item type="drawable" name="recents_callout_line">#99ffffff</item>	Line under app name in recent apps

<item type="drawable" name="notification_item_background_legacy_color">#ffaaaaaa</item>	BG for some Downloads & Widgetsoid

colors.xml

<color name="status_bar_recents_app_label_color">#ffffffff</color>	App name in recent apps

styles.xml

<style name="TextAppearance.StatusBar.Clock" @android:color/holo_blue_light	Text color clock & Provider Statusbar

<style name="TextAppearance.StatusBar.Date" @android:color/holo_blue_light	Text color Date Statusbar

LAYOUT FOLDER

navigation_bar.xml

android:background="#ff000000"	Menu Background

status_bar_expanded.xml	noNotificationsTitle

status_bar_no_recent_apps.xml	note no recent apps

power_widget_button.xml

android:background="@drawable/stat_power_bg"	BG for Power Widget

DRAWABLES FOLDER

stat_sys_battery.xml	control of battery pngs

stat_sys_battery_charge.xml	control of charge pngs

SMALI FOLDER

StatusBar.smali	see pendo`s TUT to enable transparency

PhoneStatusBar.smali	see pendo`s TUT to enable transparency

FRAMEWORK-RES.APK

VALUES FOLDER	EFFECT

colors.xml

<color name="dim_foreground_holo_dark">#fff6f300</color>	Provider Lockscreen, Text in some settings

<color name="holo_blue_light">#ff33b5e5</color>	Holo text color for dark BG

<color name="holo_blue_dark">#ff0099cc</color>	Holo text color for light BG

<color name="highlighted_text_holo_dark">#6633b5e5</color>	Holo text highlight for dark BG

<color name="highlighted_text_holo_light">#6633b5e5</color>	Holo text highlight for light BG

<color name="link_text_holo_dark">#ff5c5cff</color>	Holo link color for dark BG

<color name="link_text_holo_light">#ff0000ee</color>	Holo link color for light BG

styles.xml

<style name="TextAppearance.StatusBar.Icon" parent="@style/TextAppearance.StatusBar" />

<item name="textColor">#ff4d3902</item>	Notification Text

<style name="TextAppearance.StatusBar.EventContent.Title" parent="@style/TextAppearance.StatusBar.EventContent">

<item name="#ff690112</item>	Notification Text Title

DRAWABLES

progress_horizontal.xml

<item android:id="@id/progress">	color of progress bar

There is so much more, but now I`m running out of time... please also note, that you can redirect some RGB background colors by adding a png to xhdpi folder and point to that png with "android:background="@drawable/mycustombg"

Also if you only want to change a single text color occurence in a layout file, that refers to TextApearance, you can just add android:textColor="#ffffffff" to the attributes (do not replace TextAppearance, since that contains also size and other font related info).