Android is known for its
customizability and freedom, therefore it's not a surprise that it supports a
variety of theming methods. Theming is a time consuming task but it can make
your android phone look decent. In this article, I will provide a step by step
tutorial on how to theme an android device.
Requirements
An Android device which
is rooted (google: “<your android device> root” to search how to root
your phone) and has CWM recovery installed. More information about Rooting
here.
Apkmultitool Get it here
Photoshop, GIMP 2 or any other Image editing software you
are accustomed to
7zip
Notepad ++
Basics
Almost all android themes are based upon modding the framework-res.apk file in your android
phone’s system/framework directory.
This framework-res.apk contains all
the necessary .pngs as well as the code for the user interface of the android
system.
APK Multi-tool is an apk decompiling utility with a huge
number of other features. Whether you're doing basic image editing or editing
the smali or xml files, on average you have to use awesome tool to extract the
apk, edit it, then sign the apk and then adb push/install it. This process is
quite tiresome if you are testing a method that needs fine tweaking. This
script should make the process a LOT smoother.
There’s an option of compiling/signing/installing all in one step.
Warning: It is very important
that your phone has CWM recovery installed. In case, the phone is bricked it
will be easier to restore your phone from a nandroid backup.
In the next section, I will
provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to change the status-bar color of your
device.
