Thoughts about themes - G1 Themes and Wallpapers

Since android was disponible, this community did a great job on creating theme for this platform. Although android is not defaultly skinnable, themers had to create custom updates for change icons and other graphical things.
On another side we saw many people involved in modifying google open source apps such as launcher, browser and so on.
Why don't we put the two sides together?
Consider that someone modifies, for example, launcher app to be allowet for changing icons. Themeing would be better and simpler. No compatibility problems because images would be loaded directly from the operating system, directly from the app to be skinned. Such as open home or such as every other app that is skinnable.
Don't you like the idea?

You should contact the developer of the launcher. He will be able to make the modifications to allow for this (because yes, as of currently, its not really skinnable [at least to my knowledge]).
But yes, good idea.

You wouldn't be able to change the status bar for example. .

Maybe just personal opinion but only 2 or 3 of the themes look good at all, a lot of them look terrible!
While I admire the hardwork , I wish someone would make more black/dark themes. And nothing too over the top.
Kill off the "hero" look, Make the bottom pull tab transparent.
Enoch is about the only decent theme here.

maxisma said:
You wouldn't be able to change the status bar for example. .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cannot we modify source of each apk we want to theme?

Well because each app that google owns and we can't distribute, we can't even include a custom icon which would be modifying copyrighted contend.

digitallysick said:
Maybe just personal opinion but only 2 or 3 of the themes look good at all, a lot of them look terrible!
While I admire the hardwork , I wish someone would make more black/dark themes. And nothing too over the top.
Kill off the "hero" look, Make the bottom pull tab transparent.
Enoch is about the only decent theme here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree, and also don't create anything for the community to use.

digitallysick said:
Maybe just personal opinion but only 2 or 3 of the themes look good at all, a lot of them look terrible!
While I admire the hardwork , I wish someone would make more black/dark themes. And nothing too over the top.
Kill off the "hero" look, Make the bottom pull tab transparent.
Enoch is about the only decent theme here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sine mianosm has seconded this, i will third it. Stupid themers can't create some iamges that look good. I mean it must not be hard at all since we have all of these ugly themes, so why doesn't someone make a good looking one for once. Can we get a good theme finally!!!!

digitallysick said:
Maybe just personal opinion but only 2 or 3 of the themes look good at all, a lot of them look terrible!
While I admire the hardwork , I wish someone would make more black/dark themes. And nothing too over the top.
Kill off the "hero" look, Make the bottom pull tab transparent.
Enoch is about the only decent theme here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it is the right thread for commenting themes.

Here's the reason why; you're completely forgetting about variety. Asking devs to prepare a rom a certain way is roughly equivalent to ramming a particular theme down your way, but not everybody will like it. Whichever theme it is you like, there will be 30 more people here that find it either dull or tacky (let's face it, the Theme's subforum is full with examples of both), but hey, that's their taste. When we make builds, we like putting out a known base, in this case, the default Android look. Cyanogen resisted theming his builds because of this, and if he did add variations to visuals, they were very, very minimal, and very tactful. What comes to mind is the horrible (in my mind) bootscreen for tehseano's Hero theme. Though the screen was nice, my phone is my phone, not advertisment space, so having "a theme by tehseano & Moonspoon" in there, even if it was only during boot, I felt was horribly inappropriate and tacky. Or there's the horrible rom King-something-or-other made with the stupid bootscreen. Many people don't agree, and that's great, because there's variety and diversity, and that's where themers come in.
You're asking for a reduction of choice, but choice tends to be a personal issue. Whatever it is you like, I assure you, there's going to be plenty of people that don't like it.
Let devs do instead what we do, develop, and let themers do their job, and let people have the ability to make choices.

this is actually a really good idea, however people would definitely need to coordinate thoughts and idea's better, but on that sense it would provide a much closer knit community.
would be interesting to see what develops from this.

The simplest way is for the themer to include the png's when he creates the theme and have the end user repack and sign, or use better cut if they don't care about the app drawer icon.

mianosm said:
I totally agree, and also don't create anything for the community to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL
Some people just don't get it.

Related

[THEME] Blackberry Storm for WAD2 by Mallman

First of all special thanks to the guys at Lakeridge Software forums for getting all the icons rounded up and laying the foundation for this. Also, this isn't an exact mock up because I personally think the storm clutters too many screens with the same icons over and over. If you want to change it then have at it
and yes, it "clicks"
go to www.swampthing.net and grab it while its hot!!!
nice !
not tried it (don't actually get my THD till next week) but the screenies look really classy - i'll be trying this - nice job.
But I suppose it saves me the time of trying to convert the one which PPC.apache put up!!
Well done!
GLOC said:
But I suppose it saves me the time of trying to convert the one which PPC.apache put up!!
Well done!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
all i did was pretty much put my twist on his with some resizing of things and such.Shoot I say you build your own as well bro. Mine isnt purely Blackberry Storm, it is blackberry storm by mallman I don't like all of the BB out of the box so if you were going to make and exact duplicate then by all means continue your work.
Thanks for the kind words though bro, didn't mean to beat you to the punch. I just like making themes.
mallman said:
all i did was pretty much put my twist on his with some resizing of things and such.Shoot I say you build your own as well bro. Mine isnt purely Blackberry Storm, it is blackberry storm by mallman I don't like all of the BB out of the box so if you were going to make and exact duplicate then by all means continue your work.
Thanks for the kind words though bro, didn't mean to beat you to the punch. I just like making themes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No worries, I am doing my tax return at the moment, so don't need the distraction, so might do it later on in the week!!
You keep up the good work, you are on a roll!
Regards
Just had a play with yours. I like the icons and I think I might change the front page around to be the calendar page with some more information as I like to have my appointments on the front page.
WAD2 is really good for stuff like this
GLOC said:
Just had a play with yours. I like the icons and I think I might change the front page around to be the calendar page with some more information as I like to have my appointments on the front page.
WAD2 is really good for stuff like this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah nothing touches WAD2 as far as the limitless customizations. I can honestly say that your imagination is the only limitation. And please do publish your BB themes for us. You may spark more ideas in my head Good luck on your tax returns. Im getting a CPA this year which is ironic since I work for INtuit (the company that makes TurboTax) and file for free. lol.
MALLMAN, loving the theme, like i mentioned over on swampthing. Since there is not alot of commenting on your forum, I decided to ask this here. Would anyone know where to find the icons for this theme? I know there are various icon packs around the forum, but i cannot find any that would go good with this theme.
redrazr7791 said:
MALLMAN, loving the theme, like i mentioned over on swampthing. Since there is not alot of commenting on your forum, I decided to ask this here. Would anyone know where to find the icons for this theme? I know there are various icon packs around the forum, but i cannot find any that would go good with this theme.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're looking for he phone one then I have bad news There isnt one int he pack. i have tons of icons for this. Here are the ones I made so you can use them and link it in.
I have ported these in like you and I talked about, i also changed the weather icon to be much more attractive. Attached those too if youre interested. I have also added a couple of notifiers for missed calls (it is positioned the phone button on a transparent icon and an appointment notifier positioned behind the calendar icon. Finally, I have cleared out the calendar icon on the front so it always displays the current day of the month.
ANd yeah, there will never be conversation on swampthing like there is here lol. I couldn't afford the bandwidth if there were.
I have updated this by making a phone icon and updating the weather icon as well as tweaking the weather page a little.
Hi Mallman
i have installed into my HTC HD your "HTC Mallmans_15_Tab_Windows_Icons" and now when I start the system exit a lot of pop-up with "Failed to load skin".
I don't use TouchFlow3d, I use simply Today with many plugin.
Where is the problem into registry ? Where can I look ?
It looks very nice but requires paypal to download the theme!

[Theme] I.R.M.A. jf 1.42 rc33 only

Theme:
I.R.M.A.
I Ripped My Android
Ask How to get theme
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3442348&postcount=22
I lol'd when I saw the little tapes holding everything together..nice job as usual.
RandumAccess said:
not responsible for any damage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO!
Great concept.
@RandumAccess
Will you ever finish any of your themes? This is a good idea but will you do more than the basic stuff?.
Lol, he's released like 5 themes in the past 24 hours it seems, the concept of his work is nice, there is a lot more that can be done to make it better though. Either way I could care less, I make my own personal, as well as public, use themes.
Eh, as a theme maker its good to see someone doing variety of themes like this. Like it or not, most people don't want to see overblown full themes and are happy with something like any of the the past 3-4 themes RandumAccess has done. Kudos for doing the work, it'll probably save others from getting requests like those.
Its a community, share and create alike. Thanks for making them I say.
manup456 said:
@RandumAccess
Will you ever finish any of your themes? This is a good idea but will you do more than the basic stuff?.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well as I have said in previous posts, i like "simple" cosmetic themes... its not that i cant do them but in my opinion I like them cause the icons arent so different from each other and i like to push out themes as i think of them...
I prefer basic... most themes are overcooked...lol
to me... they are complete...lol
prash said:
most people don't want to see overblown full themes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree and I am one of those people... I do not like the Overcooked themes myself... which is why i use mainly my own themes on my phone.
There is a point where the theme can make the G1 ugly... especially if not done right... I find flaws in most of the overcooked themes and would rather not deal with that and just push out simple themes.
The more themes the better.
The more the merrier, keep 'em coming!
i think it's at, you spend a few minutes replacing a couple of simple things while the rest of us spend days or weeks perfecting all the awesomeness of the "overcooked" as you say themes and i think that the perfection lies somewhere in the middle. hopefully we have some really great well-done, and some medium rare themes, that come out of this contest we are having. just a few days left for competitors to perfect the themes
I have to throw in my .02 in favor of the undercooked theme. I've downloaded a few of the amazing looking themes and then, 20 minutes later I realized that half the icons on the home pages aren't themed and it just looks... off. I rather themes that don't touch the icons or don't radically change them so when I install a new program it doesn't look like ass when I put it on the home page. Not to say I don't appreciate all the work themers put into them, but I think it's nixed the moment you place a non-themed icon on the desktop.
crys|s said:
Lol, he's released like 5 themes in the past 24 hours it seems, the concept of his work is nice, there is a lot more that can be done to make it better though. Either way I could care less, I make my own personal, as well as public, use themes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like a bit of Envy...
@RandumAccess
Sorry for clogging up your theme thread just wanted to know.
Well a theme that has just been altered is a Theme MOD and what you call overcooked is considered complete.
I seen this in another thread about this section being broken up,I really think it would be a great idea maybe add some sub forums. Complete themes,Mod Themes and a section for all the other threads.
"hey i just wanted to say thanks
ive been looking four hrs for a theme for my newly rooted g1
and while i like most of em i dont like when most of the icons are changed but then most arent
i hate a mix like that
thats why i love your themes
i just installed your green theme (sorry dont remember the name right now lol...know it begins with a g)
just looks tacky when some icons are themed and others arent
id rather have em all themed or none...with some exceptions
but thanks again i love your work"
-dtperea - one of my fans...lol
I get numerous emails like this almost daily... and This is who I theme for.
I love you guys and you motivate me to do my style of themes...
I say keep the themes coming Randum!!! I actually really like that you don't change the icons... I love a lot of these themes but the icons always kept me from using them. You sir have changed that for me!
Yeah, I think that we should make themes just like these and then use utilities like BetterCut to change the icons to ones that match.
That's what I do anyways.
Maybe the devs can post their icons in separate packs, too (as if they don't have too much on their plate already with the RC9, RC33 and ADP1.1 builds to theme... =P)
Beast84 said:
I say keep the themes coming Randum!!! I actually really like that you don't change the icons... I love a lot of these themes but the icons always kept me from using them. You sir have changed that for me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
amgupt01 said:
Yeah, I think that we should make themes just like these and then use utilities like BetterCut to change the icons to ones that match.
That's what I do anyways.
Maybe the devs can post their icons in separate packs, too (as if they don't have too much on their plate already with the RC9, RC33 and ADP1.1 builds to theme... =P)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Guys!
Im not even doing the competition, I have created Overcooked themes and I really did not like them as much as my "Simple" concept.
This popularity about my themes has created so much more positive email and posts.. I LOVE IT!
RandumAccess said:
Thanks Guys!
Im not even doing the competition, I have created Overcooked themes and I really did not like them as much as my "Simple" concept.
This popularity about my themes has created so much more positive email and posts.. I LOVE IT!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is the mediafire link in your signiture up to date with all these "simple" themes?
I'm sorry and i know I'm not a senior member like most but honestly an artist telling another artist to change up his style is just retarded. if you don't like someone else's work keep making your "overcooked" or "completed" themes and accept that maybe there are some people out there that don't like your themes as much as the simple ones.
you both make sick themes and this is no way to treat one another like your themes are better than someone else's because you are only looking at it in your own point of view.
Keep up the good work guys and one day i look forward to be as good as you guys.
Beast84 said:
Is the mediafire link in your signiture up to date with all these "simple" themes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes sirree...

[Theme] xda-developers.com Group Theme Idea.. Please READ!

I know theres a theme suggestion thread sticked up on the forums, but I think this should posted here so it could get noticed more and get more feed back from everyone, because personally I dont think that thread get much attention base on the fact that I posted up my "Got Wood?" theme 2 days ago and it already has just as much views as the request thread. If not, then move it, its understood.
Ok, here is my "xda-dev" theme idea. (Nabzilla1990, this is no way of me trying to step over your theme, as seen as you already have a "community hero mix".
The whole purpose of this project/theme is to expand the selection of themes, but most importantly is to have fun with this project. Id like to see how a theme would come out looking if all theme developers joined together and created one theme from scratch. The way it would start is like this: (and this is just an example)
Let's say I started off, and I designed the application launcher tab. Once I'm done designing that, I'd post it up here on xda and someone else would call "next" and design lets say a wallpaper. Then once the wallpaper is done, the theme gets updated and posted again, and then someone else would call "next" and design the notification bar or whatever they want to do next. We'd keep doing this until we get a decent looking theme and we're all happy with it and then release itto the public.
I personally think this can turn out to be a great project/theme if everyone contributes. If anyone has any more ideas, suggestions on how we can improve the whole process of this project ,feel free to post up your reply.
i think this would actually be a great idea and a fun project, but who ever starts it should do the wallpaper so it can be easier to design everything else around it.
let me know what i can do and i will happily help out with this. if nothing else i am good for progress circles and bars colors
As long as every element works together it should be great. Especially if lets say someone could touch up pieces that someone else designed, and the community would then decide wether they like the changes.
Just some suggestions.
Im down! Count me in
Let me know if you guys need help with .xml edits.
im down to help too!
I'm not the best at making these things from scratch, but I think a great place to start with be to ask manup is he can make an XDA wallpaper similar to his xROM; and have one in white and one black (maybe even a bronze). That'll give users and devs options.
Maybe I can find some icons later on in the project or something.

iPhone Theme with cyanogen 4.0.4

I know its probably a sin to talk about this, however... Has anyone come up with a bootable theme (meaning not with a 3rd party program ie: ahome, open home etc.)
I LOVE LOVE androids functionality and the Cyanogenmod rom layout, however I love the layout and design of the iPhones face.
Is anyone interested or even thinking about wanting to do something like this? If not i understand (as I said its probably a sin to talk about let alone do)
I just think it would be the best of both worlds... I love androids layout design too, dont get me wrong, just a simple question... (please don't flame)
I'm actually in the process of learning to do themes and what not so i'm hoping if this hasn't been done yet, to put out the first and it will obviously be on the "LOVE IT" / "HATE IT" scale where it will be a hit or miss.
anyways thanks for reading and again (don't flame me, this was a question for those who were thinking it and didn't necisarily say it due to people flaming over it )
javolin13 said:
I know its probably a sin to talk about this, however... Has anyone come up with a bootable theme (meaning not with a 3rd party program ie: ahome, open home etc.)
I LOVE LOVE androids functionality and the Cyanogenmod rom layout, however I love the layout and design of the iPhones face.
Is anyone interested or even thinking about wanting to do something like this? If not i understand (as I said its probably a sin to talk about let alone do)
I just think it would be the best of both worlds... I love androids layout design too, dont get me wrong, just a simple question... (please don't flame)
I'm actually in the process of learning to do themes and what not so i'm hoping if this hasn't been done yet, to put out the first and it will obviously be on the "LOVE IT" / "HATE IT" scale where it will be a hit or miss.
anyways thanks for reading and again (don't flame me, this was a question for those who were thinking it and didn't necisarily say it due to people flaming over it )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think one of the best ways to achieve the iphone look you're going for without having to go thru the trouble of making a whole new theme is just installing better cut, and then just bring your icons to the home screen and using one of the icon packs, such as tenious icon pack, to give that iphone look. Hope that helps. Just a suggestion
eessel said:
I think one of the best ways to achieve the iphone look you're going for without having to go thru the trouble of making a whole new theme is just installing better cut, and then just bring your icons to the home screen and using one of the icon packs, such as tenious icon pack, to give that iphone look. Hope that helps. Just a suggestion
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, thanks for your input (and not flaming )
That's a great idea and i've seen it done, however putting all those programs onto the phone really lags the g1 down...unfortunatly Cyan's rom is fast but start packing on the programs and it boggs a great rom down lol.
What i'm trying to accomplish is the entire "feel" if you will of the iPhone;
When you click on "Phone" you will see Favorites, Contacts, Dialer, and Voicemail all at the bottom like the iphone,
also when you click on lets say Alarm clock, you will see the layout of the iphones alarm clock setup.
also the browser setup... androids browser is great functionally however, the layout of the iPhones is much cleaner.
So hopefully if it CAN be accomplished I would like to change all of these things to fit the android with the iphone "feel" almost as if you were using the actual phone itself with a few android goodies
javolin13 said:
When you click on "Phone" you will see Favorites, Contacts, Dialer, and Voicemail all at the bottom like the iphone,
also when you click on lets say Alarm clock, you will see the layout of the iphones alarm clock setup.
also the browser setup... androids browser is great functionally however, the layout of the iPhones is much cleaner.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No nothing out there right now with that much customized. I dont think some of the things you mentioned are easy at all to pull off, but Id have to assume if anyone could, it would be the devs here at XDA.
It would be much more than just a theme. All of the things you mentioned would require replacement apps.
javolin13 said:
Hey, thanks for your input (and not flaming )
That's a great idea and i've seen it done, however putting all those programs onto the phone really lags the g1 down...unfortunatly Cyan's rom is fast but start packing on the programs and it boggs a great rom down lol.
What i'm trying to accomplish is the entire "feel" if you will of the iPhone;
When you click on "Phone" you will see Favorites, Contacts, Dialer, and Voicemail all at the bottom like the iphone,
also when you click on lets say Alarm clock, you will see the layout of the iphones alarm clock setup.
also the browser setup... androids browser is great functionally however, the layout of the iPhones is much cleaner.
So hopefully if it CAN be accomplished I would like to change all of these things to fit the android with the iphone "feel" almost as if you were using the actual phone itself with a few android goodies
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a theme maker I can tell you that what you're talking about (replicating phone/browser/alarm clock layouts) is not an easy task without having to edit the actual code of the apps. This is more of a developer territory, you'd be recreating a new app basically. So...no on what you want to do. You can however use one of many iphone skins available on home replacement apps out there.

Light theme for CM9?

Hi, searching for a light theme for CM9.
By that I dont mean just the text and icons changed to white or something else, dont even know how that can be called another theme.
Searching for something looking more like HTC sense. By that I mean the colors and such.
Sick of the black and boring colors in samsungs ICS/CM9
Have you tried the big button at the top labelled "SEARCH", try entering "CM9" into it and see what happens.
There it's a sticky in the Android themes section called "CM9 themes".
There's also the play store where if you search for "CM9 theme", it will return a large amount of results.
You can even use a search like Google.
Falling that create your own, there's many guides.
Or are you just lazy and want people to do the work for you?
I could have posted links to all these within the time it's taken to write this, but hey, where's the fun in that!
See here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=25846541
And here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=26564871
Regards.
Boo
Shame on you buzzboy for being helpful, haha.:;
dully79 said:
Have you tried the big button at the top labelled "SEARCH", try entering "CM9" into it and see what happens.
There it's a sticky in the Android themes section called "CM9 themes".
There's also the play store where if you search for "CM9 theme", it will return a large amount of results.
You can even use a search like Google.
Falling that create your own, there's many guides.
Or are you just lazy and want people to do the work for you?
I could have posted links to all these within the time it's taken to write this, but hey, where's the fun in that!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is your problem? I only asked a question just if there is. I have been already going through that thread and almost all of those are all dark and have only changed color of the text. Some have made the black background colors a bit lighter.
But if there's none theme that meets my criteries I guess there's nothing to do about it if not making my own. But I am no developer, so Ill have to stick with orig. cm9.
Wat you talkin bout?
I've just given you a lot of options to try and find a theme for your liking.
That's gratitude for ya.
The reason there is no light themes is because it requires editing the manifest to change the default theme from dark to light. But there will always be apps that use the dark theme and need editing so it becomes like quick sand.
I've only seen 2 white status bar themes for CM9. Frost by Sonny in the play store and another called Ghost in the Galaxy Nexus themes and apps forum.
Sent from my GT-I9100
Finally a proper answer to my question.
Thank you!
Oh look, it's a thread from page 5 in these forums on 31/5/12
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1683788&highlight=cm9+theme
Try using the round things in your head, just above your nose called eyes.
They're amazing pieces of tech, they give you the magical ability of sight.
But dont tell everyone or they will all want some and then were will that leave us??.
dully79 said:
Oh look, it's a thread from page 5 in these forums on 31/5/12
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1683788&highlight=cm9+theme
Try using the round things in your head, just above your nose called eyes.
They're amazing pieces of tech, they give you the magical ability of sight.
But dont tell everyone or they will all want some and then were will that leave us??.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
aww poor you.

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