[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-T989] dillym34:
The lazy man’s guide to theming​

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I get requests all the time to make simple changes to my themes that anyone with a computer can do. So I put together this quick guide on how to theme the easy way. This is how I do most of my themes minus any xml edits or battery mods. This guide is for changing images only without having to decompile and recompile the entire apk file with apktool or apk manager. Great for when you just want to make a few changes to your existing setup.

What you will need.

~ 7zip use Google search it’s easy to find

~ image editor Gimp is great and free you can Google it also. I use Fireworks and Photoshop depending on what I am trying to do.

~ Draw9Suite. Created by tommytomatoe/kakomalo Thread found here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1272513

Download here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/TaDGMjde/9patchPngSuite.html

Unzip and place contents in folder, I have mine on my desktop.

~ An existing rom or theme to modify.

With just these tools you can do a lot.

Once you have 7zip and 9patchPngSuite on your system you will need to download the rom, or already existing theme for the rom you are on so you can make the changes you want to it.

Download the rom/theme you want to make changes to and use 7zip to unpack the rom/theme you downloaded, do this by right clicking on the zip file and chose open with 7zip. Inside you will find lots of folders, the ones you are looking for will be in system/app (for apps) or system/framework (for framework files). Extract the apk’s by just dragging them out of the 7zip window, to a folder on your desktop.

Inside the folder you extracted the apk’s to create a folder for each apk’s you extracted. Now you will want to extract the folder drawable-hdpi from the res folder of each apk to its associated folder, do this with 7zip also the same way you extracted the apk file. Once the drawable-hdpi folders are extracted you will see the images inside that you can modify.

At this point I create another folder inside each of the specific apk folders and name it .9 images and I copy and paste all the .9 images I want to change into that folder (these are for reference). I then copy all of those images into the compiled folder of 9patchPngSuite. And chose option 1 to decompile them. Now look in the decompiled folder and you can now take those images and change anything inside the black lines and dots you will see on the outside edge. If you feel like it you can also create your own .9 file with your own image by choosing option 2, this will open up draw9patch. Maser&Slave made a great tutorial on this so I won’t go into it. Edit your images, but be careful if the image displays words on it (like with popup_center_dark.9 )and it has a dark background it should remain dark so the word will still be readable, and vice versa if the image has a light background it most likely will have a dark font displayed on it that will be difficult to read if you make the image a dark color. Once all your images are edited use option 3 to recompile them, now in the output folder you will find your recompiled images that you can put back into your drawable-hdpi folder. Edit any other images you want just be careful with the pixel size if an image is 70X70 and you make it 140X140 it could cause some problems, some you can change others you can’t, it’s a lot of trial and error. Once all edits are finished put them all back in the drawable-hdpi folder you extracted from the apk, use 7zip to open the apk again, navigate to the res folder and delete the existing drawable-hdpi folder and drop the one you made the changes to into it, use the back arrow in the 7zip window and it will zip it back up and you can push the apk or flash it to test if your images came out the way you wanted them to. This will work with any image you chose to edit. You can also use this method add images from other themes you like to modify your theme to the way you want it. Just copy and paste the images you want to change into the drawabel-hdpi folder of the theme you are creating.

Brief list of what each apk controls, I am still new to ICS so if anyone knows more info please post.

Framework-res.apk

This will contain most of the images you will want to make changes to. Including check boxes, popup windows, menus, tabs, general status bar images, some lockscreen clocks, and a lot more. You will recognize them as you scroll through them. Some are hard to recognize like activity_tite_bar.9 and dark_header.9 because they are small, it will take some practice and trial and error to get the look you want.

Twframework-res.apk

This contains very little in ICS it still controls the tab backgrounds for a lot of apps but that is all I have found so far.

Systemui.apk

This apk contains most of the files for your dropdown and status bar, like signal bars, 3g 4g icons, wifi strength icons ,dropdown background and more. in ICS it also contains the battery images.

Ik95-res.apk and lidroid-res.apk

These apks contain the toggle images and background In the dropdown i.e. wifi toggle, airplane mode toggle etc. for the 14 ad 15 toggle mods.

Here is a standard flashable zip file you can put your modified apk files in and flash with CWM, open with 7zip and put your apk file in the corresponding folder in the flashable zip if you pulled it from framework put it back in the system/framework folder, if you pulled it from app put it in system/app folder in the flashable zip. Then flash like any other theme.

Flashable zip : http://www.4shared.com/zip/cmn3J1yd/My_flash.html

included below is a word doc of this tutorial.