[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mybook4:
All,

Here's a guide on how to enable the on-screen Nav Bar buttons. It may be a good idea to take this info and append it to the OP, adding the guide marker to the title of the thread.

Thanks:

Sheffy007 for his nav bar zips and showing me the ropes!

MonstaX and HolySmokesBatty for their work in this Sprint GS3 thread (a lot of useful info).

Awais Imran who wrote this tutorial.

ldrifta at Androidforums.com for writing this tutorial.

iBotPeaches for this utility.

Disclaimer:

-As with all XDA community provided mods, try at your own risk.

-The community is happy to help, but that doesn't mean you should expect a warrantee.

-Most issues you'll encounter can be resolved (XDA is one of the few places that you can find a plethora of "soft bricks").

-You can get out of most jams with a Nandroid backup. It's always important to perform a backup before attempting a new mod.

-I've tested this method with Beans R3.1 (I know, I know, I need to flash more often). The button mapping portion (provided by Sheffy) may not work with AOSP based roms.

-Note, I am linux guy, but you can perform this on linux, windows, and mac os x. Just grab the appropriate aapt executable (see below) and adapt the zipping to your platform.

-It is important to note that those who wish to adjust this guide to a device other than the Verizon Galaxy S III will need to adjust the updater-script in the final CWM zip in order to prevent a brick (possibly hard brick). The Verizon Galaxy S III system partition is mmcblk0p14.

Some quick reading and familiarization:

apktool tutorial

This tutorial on enabling the on-screen navigation buttons.

What you'll need:

-7zip (if you don't already have it).

-apktool 1.49 with aapt (you can find it here)

-The Java JRE from Oracle here (if you don't already have it)

-The original ROM zip for the ROM to which you would like to add the nav bar or a copy of framework-res.apk and twframework-res.apk (touchwiz only) from your phone.

-One of Sheffy's Nav Bar zips. I recommend the one most similar to the ROM you are using. For example, I'm on Beans R3.1, so I chose the Beans zip.

High level overview of the process:

-We'll be copying two Android Packages (framework-res.apk and twframework-res.apk (touchwiz only) ) from your ROM's zip (or from your phone).

-Using apktool and the two apks as input, we'll "decompile" the framework-res package to a group of folders.

-In this group of folders, we'll be making some changes to some xml files.

-After the necessary changes are made, we'll be "re-compile" the framework-res.apk file.

-Finally, we'll be packaging the the framework-res.apk in a CWM zip so we can flash it on the phone (and not have to worry about permissions)

Step-by-step:

1) Install 7zip.

2) Make a new folder called "NavBar" (or whatever floats your boat) and place the the apktool_1.4.9.jar and aapt files inside. If on linux or os x, ensure the files have execute permissions by opening the folder in a terminal and running the commands "chmod 755 apktool_1.4.9.jar" and "chmod 755 aapt".

3) Copy framework-res.apk and twframework-res.apk (if on touchwiz rom) to the NavBar folder. You can obtain these files from the system/framework/ folder in your ROM's CWM zip or from your phone (using a file manager with root permissions, copy the files to your sdcard and transfer to your computer to the NavBar folder).

4) Open the windows command line (search for CMD from the start menu) or open a terminal (linux and osx) and open the NavBar folder on the command line.

5) Install your existing framework files in apktool by running "java -jar apktool_1.4.9.jar if framework-res.apk" and "java -jar apktool_1.4.9.jar if twframework-res.apk".

6) "decompile" your framework-res.apk file by running "java -jar apktool_1.4.9.jar d framework-res.apk frameworkNB".

7) Rename the framework-res.apk file to framework-res.apk.orig.

8) Open bools.xml from /res/values/bools.xml using a text editor such as Notepad. Find config_showNavigationBar and set its value to true (step 3 from Awais Imran's tutorial)

9) If you prefer, resize the nav bar by opening up /res/values/dimens.xml, find navigation_bar_height and navigation_bar_width, and edit their values to something which suits you best (step 5 from Awais Imran's tutorial)

10) "recompile" your framework-res.apk by running "java -jar apktool_1.4.9.jar b frameworkNB framework-res.apk" (you'll get quite a few default translation warnings. This is ok).

11) Make a copy of the nav bar zip file that you chose previously (provided by Sheffy) and rename it to navbar.zip. Open the zip file in 7zip.

12) Replace the framework-res.apk file in navbar.zip with the new framework-res.apk file you just created (with your fancy new Nav Bar).

13) Create your own UNDO CWM zip by creating another copy of the nav bar zip file you originally chose, renaming it to navbarUNDO.zip, and copying your original framework-res.apk (which you'll have to rename from framework-res.apk.orig back to framework-res.apk in a different folder) over the framework-res.apk in the navbarUNDO.zip file.

14) Transfer navbar.zip and navbarUNDO.zip to your SDCard, perform a nandroid backup, and flash your navbar.zip file in CWM Recovery. If you have any problems, flash navbarUNDO.zip. If you still have problems, restore your nandroid backup.

Hope this helps!