[HD2 Windows Mobile 6.5 Themes and Apps] Doodkapje:
First, I have to credit and thank the creators of CHT 1.8.5. Hands down for the masters and thank you for making the HD2 much more enjoyable. Thanks to brent372 for the tip on Total Commander.

Inspirational support (does that exist? Yah, from today on it does) came from snowblindman2142, conantroutman and Paten from the today screen topic.

We are going to tweak this white background and the text:

Prior to editing I would advise you to copy all your manila files from your \window root and save it in a folder in which you do not edit your files. If you mess up or are fed up with your adapted manila files, you can alwas revert to the old ones.

Things we’re going to do:

Extract stuff

Edit stuff

Upload stuff

Programs we’ll need:

Image editing software

CFC GUI (to extract/convert manila files; can also do this with m9editor)

M9editor (to adapt XML-parameters)

Total Commander CE (to place manila files back into your \windows root of your HD2)

These programs are part of the Manila Kitchen http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=528548.

Total Commander CE is freeware and can be found at http://www.ghisler.com/ce.htm

Extract stuff:

-Backing up files and make a work-file

So let’s say you make a backup file called D:\OML\ and D:\AML\ (original manila list and adapted manila list, respectively). Copy all the manila files from your device you can find :). You don’t touch the OML-file

EVER

unless you want the old file. Instead we are going to use the AML-file in CFC GUI and m9editor. Make an additional folder D:\AML\PNG\ for the edited images.

-Load work list in CFC GUI

Start CFC GUI and click File > Select folder. Select D:\AML\

The program now displays a list of manila files on the left side and scroll down till you find 32820efc_manila. Select and then click on “Save as…” in the lower right corner. Now, save this as 32820efc_manila.png in the D:\AML\PNG\ folder.

Edit stuff:

-Edit your mail background

Basically you need the plain ‘white note’ with the two lines as a template for the upper box (name of the sender, date and subject), body text, and lower box (account name and mailcount). For simplicity’s sake, we just let the position of the text in these boxes in the same place. If you want to, you can change the positions using mode9, but this takes a higher level of extreme geeking.

In this case we use Photoshop CS2 and I use a simple three-bubble layout. I won’t go into much detail about designing your lay-out, just a way to keep the correct boundaries for the texts in those three areas.

Open D:\AML\PNG\32820efc_manila.png and you will see the white note. Let’s put up some horizontal guides:

1. make a new guide and tick horizontal and place them at, say, 2 cm

2 and 3. use the selector tool to move the guides over the lines

Now go frenzy on your design; mine is just dark blue for the top and bottom bubble and a light background for the body text in the middle big bubble.

Save your file with the same name (you can always get the old one from the back-up file) and go back to CFC GUI. Select again 32820efc_manila in the list on the left and now click on “Replace with…” Select your adapted file in the D:\AML\PNG\ folder and you’ll see the background has changed. Hoorah… Now click on “Pad”

Copy this new 32820efc_manila from your D:\AML\ folder to your SD-card of your HD2. Startup Total Commander and copy it to your \windows root folder. Restart your device and you should end up with this:

…but the black characters on a dark background are hard to read, so let’s change the font color.

-Edit your mail font color

To change these parameters we use m9editor. Open it and probably you’ll get an error. Just click “Ok” and when asked for work paths fill in D:\AML\

You’ll see it resembles CFC GUI, but in here you can also edit mode9 files. The parameters we have to change are in 3da9711b_manila so double click on it in the list.

You will see a tree opening in the upper panel. Now expand D:\AML\3da9711b_manila > movie > library manager > library and expand the fifth <character…>

Now take a look in the picture below what we have to change:

If you’re a bit of a programmer the Instance Names give away what object controls which text line so for instance <Property> Name=Instance Name Value=“SenderText” controls the parameters for the name of the sender (selected in picture above). We also have to repeat this for the other four lines (date, subject, account name and mail count)

So let’s change the RGB values for this one to make it more visible. Let’s change this in white and the RGB codes are 255,255,255 for white (look it up on the internet or in Photoshop).

Once you’ve clicked ok, you can move to the next line. When finished editing, save your manila file (you might need to remove your old manila file, since it’s read-only).

As mentioned earlier, copy the D:\AML\3da9711b_manila to your SD card and with Total Commander to your \windows root. Reboot device and your mail now should look like this:

Happy editing!

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UPDATE August 23rd, 2010

You can edit the landscape view by adapting 0656d327_manila the same way (Thanks to mickael91210!)

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=7759297&postcount=38