Theming : Basics

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.