[Hero CDMA Themes and Apps] wtphoto:
well since there have been ALOT of threads asking how to theme a hero I figured I would go ahead and make a quick guide. I am sure that I will miss stuff so if anyone else sees what I miss let me know and I will add it to the post.

ok first things first there are a few programs that you are going to need. The first is some kind of archive program such as 7zip or winrar. I personaly use winrar but 7zip is free you can download it here.

http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

next you will need a image editing program the favorites are Photoshop and gimp. if you dont have photoshope already and dont want to buy it then download gimp. it just as good and once again its free. You can download gimp here.

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Now that you have those programs it is now time to start making your theme.

1. download the ROM of your choice that you want to use since not all files are the same across all ROM's

2. I have 2 folders on my desktop one named "theme apks" and one named "working apks"

3. Use 7zip to unzip the rom you downloaded.

4. in the newly unziped ROM find and open the "system" folder, you will see a list of several sub-directories. The two that we are mainly concerned with are "app" and "framework".

5. Open the "app" folder and move any of the apps that you want to change to the "theme apks" folder that you created earlier in a sub-directory named "app" then open the "framework" folder in the unziped Rom and find and move the "com.htc.resources.apk" and the "framework-res.apk" to your "theme apks" folder into a sub-directory name "framework".

6. now that you have your files seperated out into your "theme apks" folder choose an apk that you want to edit and use 7zip to unzip the .apk into the "working apks" folder you created.

7. now in your "working apks" folder you should have a folder named "res" in this folder there will several other folders. the main ones we need are "drawable", "drawable-mdip" in the 2.1 builds and "drawable", drawable 480x320" in the 1.5 builds" there maybe others depending on what you are trying to change.

8. open the proper drawable folder and find the image you want to edit and open it with your image editor (gimp, photoshop) and make your changes then save it using the same name into the "working apk" folder.

9. now that you have your images edited there are a few ways to add them to your apk the process described here is how I do it since I find it to be the easiest way. go back into your "theme apks" folder and find the apk that you edited. Use 7zip to open NOT unzip the apk. Inside 7zip open the "res" folder and then the proper "drawable" folder now pull up you "working apks" folder and select the edited images and drag them into the 7zip window. A dialog should pop up asking if you want to add and replace existing files and just choose yes. you can now close 7zip.

you have now themed your apk. just repeat steps 6-9 for the rest of the apks you want to theme. then just push the files back to your phone using ADB. I push them back after I am done editing each one before I clear my "working apks" folder so that I can make sure that it looks the way it should that way if I need to make changes then I dont have to go through all the steps again.

after you have created and tested your theme if you want to share it you will want to make an update zip. there are a few ways to do this. by far the easiest way is to use the fresh pre-kitchen to sign it. for this process you will need to follow these steps. download the pre-kitchen here

http://geekfor.me/android15/fresh-pre-kitchen-02/

1. if you followed the steps above then this will be a snap. just open your "theme apks" folder and create a folder named "system"

2. then select either the app folder or the "framework" folder or both depending on what you changed and move them into the "system" folder you just created.

3. now use 7zip to zip the system folder and name it whatever you like.

4. now open fresh pre-kitchen and go to the tools section and choose the sign a zip option. Follow all the prompts and you should have a signed update zip that anyone can flash.

a few side notes

the process above works great for regular images such as png, jpeg and the like now you will find that to change some things they will be in the dreaded ".9.png" format. these images need extra steps to edit them. that I am not going to go into in this guide but they can be found here

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=5206698

also there is another method to making an update zip that I am not going to go into in this guide but all the tools and how to do it can be found in this thread here. in the first post 4th section.

http://htcpedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1404

if you are completely new to themeing I would suggest trying a 1.5 ROM first as they are a little more straight forward because in 2.1 they spread the images for some of the more popular mods over several different apk's.

I want to give a few quick thanks to the great devs here that give us these ROM's to work Flipz, Toast, Damage, Obalisk, Zenulator, and any that I missed thank you. Also to some of the people that have helped me out emensly in my quest to learn how to theme. Noj you have been such a help, Godzson, Chubbzlou and the others that have helped thank you as well.

I hope that this helps some people on their way to customizing their Heros.

if there is anything that someone sees that I missed let me know and I will add it to the post.