[Touch Pro, Fuze Themes and Apps] eidolen:
Procedure To Edit The Internet Globe Button Manila Files

(No more solid white blank buttons)

7d3f1247_manila - Globe Unselected

3f00cd2f_manila - Globe Selected

What:

With this procedure you will be able to select any graphics or highlight color you want to use for both the selected and non selected states of the Internet globe button.

How:

There are no special tools required other than Manila Editor 0.2 and a graphics program that can work with png files. You will need to know how to use both of these programs though.

Advantages:

The biggest advantage over editing either 27c65cbd_manila or InternetPortal-en-US.xml would have to be speed. When I tried that way on my Fuze it would take well over 5 seconds to load every time I scrolled to the Internet tab. Sometimes almost double that on a fresh boot. Second advantage would be that this *should* work on any device that uses those 2 files, where the xml edits are different files for different devices. Which leads to the third advantage of not needing special install instructions for theme makers. Edit the manilas and drop them in with the rest.

Other Info:

(Just skip this part if you don't care about the why and scroll down to the instructions.)

I have literally scoured these forums and the Internet for days trying to find information on editing not only the Internet globe manila files, but the other 7+ files that just don't work right with Manila Editor. Most theme makers know of these files. Mostly what I found was a lack of information and more questions than answers. The only other procedure I could find at all for converting manila files gives better results than using Manila Editor but it's very complex for the average user requiring command line tools. Even so the author, (Chainfire) has written a damn near fool proof tutorial so if anyone is interested you can find the thread HERE. Unfortunately even that procedure would not handle the problem manila files properly and quits with the following message.

Reading file: 5c01b59c_manila

Error: file is not QTC format

For reference, this is the list of files that I know of at the moment with this problem, and all return the same error except for 7d3f1247_manila. (More on this file to come.)

7d3f1247_manila - Globe_Unselected (512x256) 28.5k

3f00cd2f_manila - Globe_Selected_D (512x256) 64.5k

40ec2415_manila - Small Avatar_D (64x64) 2.5k

2f411611_manila - Exclamation Point_D (256x256) 32.5k

4d97cac6_manila - Add Contact_D (256x256) 32.5k

54e0759d_manila - Contact Avatar_D (256x256) 32.5k

400b663e_manila - You Tube_D (64x64) 2.5k

55cc771a_manila - Selection Highlight Bar (512x256)64.5k

5c01b59c_manila - Contact Avatar2_D (256x256) 32.5k

The first oddity I noticed when using Manila Editor on the Globe file (3f00cd2f_manila) is no mater what size my graphic was before running it through, it always came out to be approximately 125k. Since the stock file was roughly half that size I knew something was really wrong. The other glaring anomly with most of the files is they show up as duplicated (side by side) images when viewed with M.E. so I figured that somehow all of this must be connected.

I am not a programmer by any stretch but I know just enough to get me into trouble most of the time. Anyway I loaded both files into Notepad++ and turned on hex view to see what was so different. The header of both files were similar but not exactly the same so I copied chunks of the problem file from below its header and pasted it into the good manila at the same address location. What it produced was a repeating pattern on the top left corner of the stock green button but every other row was white. I don't know why but the fact that the image repeats in M.E. as well and the file being double the size made me think to cut the image in half and try to see if M.E. would accept it. It did and I was elated to finally see an image on my phone other than than the big white rectangle.

I had an image that was really distorted but it wasn't difficult at this point to see what was going on by the way it was distorted. I was able to get a perfect button on my next try by creating my image on a 256x128 canvas and then scaling it to 512x128. It looks really bad and stretched out at this point but after processing with M.E., the phone will compress back to it's original aspect and it looks just perfect. I use The Gimp as my image editor and just save as a png file with the default settings.

Now that I Finally had a working selected globe image I wanted to change the static globe as well. (7d3f1247_manila) This was a whole new battle but at least I had something to work from this time. There are some significant differences in this file compared to the selected globe. First, it looks perfect when you extract it using M.E. which led me to believe that this would be easy. I couldn't find much info on this particular manila and I think I know the reason why. Either people are replacing both images via the xml workaround, or they are just concerned with getting the highlight the right color on the selected image. Either way, when I tried to do a 1:1 replace in M.E I got to see the wonderful white rectangle again. At this point I had finally gotten all the tools working from the post I mentioned before and decided to try this file using that procedure as it should return better results if it did work. It worked perfectly but I still wanted to get it to work using M.E as most people are not going bother with a long drawn out procedure.

After playing around some I found that if I scaled the 512x256 image to 256x256 it worked perfectly. The up side is the file size is half of the stock image. The down side is the resolution is obviously cut in half. It's really not a show stopper but using the other method does produce perfect results. Not completely satisfied yet I tried some more images at different resolutions to see what happened. The 480x240 image I had from one of the globe mods that are floating around produced a white rectangle. I then decided to try another unscaled image that was almost completely transparent and it worked without a hitch. Now that I was completely confused I went back and tried the original 512x256 that produced the white and it did so again. It wasn't until I switched to another tab and back again that it finally showed up correctly.

So what does it all mean? Hell if I know but at least the scaled 256x256 method seems to work every time without any problems and its fast to boot. The long procedure would be the best method of them all but probably not worth the effort for most. As far as the other problem files go I guess I'll try and work them out too unless someone else more capable picks up the ball and runs with it. The selected globe was the particular image that stuck in my craw and got me started on this.

Instructions for 3f00cd2f_manila - Globe Selected:

1. Create your image at a size of 256 x 128 exactly how you want it to look on your device.

2. Scale it to a size of 512 x 128 and save it. You will have to "unlock" the aspect ratio lock in most graphics programs. This will distort your image badly but do not fret. Yet.

3. Fire up Manila Editor as usual and use your new image. Now you can fret as you wait to see if this works or not.

4.:D <-- I hope

Instructions for 7d3f1247_manila - Globe Unselected:

1. Create your image at a size of 512 x 256 exactly how you want it to look on your device.

2. Scale it to a size of 256 x 256 and save it. You will have to "unlock" the aspect ratio lock in most graphics programs.

3. Fire up Manila Editor as usual and use your new image.

General Notes:

If you don't want to mess with any of this and like what's in the screen-shots attached, you can install the cab or just unpack the zip into your windows directory on your device. As always, please back up your files before adding new software.

Notes concerning 7d3f1247_manila:

This procedure *should* work if done as stated. If you use the alternate method I linked to in the info section above you don't have to scale the image and will get a higher resolution image. I have successfully used a non scaled image before with Manila Editor but it goes white on first load after a reboot then somehow clears up. With the scaling method I've yet to see the dreaded white rectangle. Read the info section for more information.

More Information:

Manila Editor 0.2.0

Editing Manila

Manila 3D Porting

Pixel Perfect TF3D ***

Manila Fine Details

Cheers,

Eidolen

*Disclaimer*:

Obviously I can't test this on every device but I can't think of any reason why this wouldn't work on any TF3D enabled device. If this doesn't work for you, feel free to post here or contact your congressman. (Where applicable) If this helps anyone please be sure to drop in and say hi.:)