[HowDoI?]Make 3rd Party Launcher Icon Theme Packs - Android Software Development

Hello, I am wondering how I can make 3rd party launcher icon packs that I can compile into an application for launchers such as Nova Launcher? I know HTML, CSS, JavaScript basics and want to make icon packs for myself and others. I've never made an app before, but love technology and am going to get a degree in Mobile App Development. I am self motivated and spend lots of time on the computer. I know a bit of coding from CodeAcademy and I know how to root, unlock , and S-off Android devices & am good at finding out how. So let me get to the point. Can someone point me in the right direction to make an Application for 3rd Party Launcher icon pack themes?
Everyone's help is appreciated I am too into tech and can't do everything all @ once. Plus it is hard to figure out how to do these things without help. I am not sure if this is okay, but please check out my blog at www.ThingyTech.com & my Twitter which is a source for tech based facts follow me at [email protected]
All help is really appreciated. Also, I hope this is the right section to post this.
- Zach AKA Techinstein AKA 8BitBacon

Try decompiling an icon pack apk and using it as a base.remove existing images and put your own images..look through all the xml to get a better understanding of how an iconpack.apk work.then you can probably make one from scrarch.i know nothing about coding.ive just done alot of apk modding.so I know cheats.lol but its a start anyways.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

Building Launcher Like Nova
creating a launcher is not that easy process it takes a lot of effort and time to build a successful launchers like Nova which is quite bit more popular. As you have knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript so should try cross platform mobile app development tools such as React Native and Flutter. Hope you got it.

Related

WM6.5 Widgets.

The folks over at "Fuze Mobility" have put up a post about windows mobile 6.5's ability to use 'WIDGETS' which seem to be easy ways of showing info from different web services/sites.
They have made available 50!, yes 50 widgets for different mobile based sites along with a .cab to enable widgets. They have done this to introduce the idea of widgets to the masses, or more specifically the ones who could further develop widgets.
Here is the link for their selection of widgets: Clicky
The download link is at the bottom of the page, which is very long.
Others appear to be enjoying these widgets. Sadly I have not been successful in installing one yet, as it complains about not finding a component or a missing certificate
I hope to find a fix for this somehow.
So, please go and try out these widgets and report back with your experience.
PLUS: any developers out there who fancy looking more into widgets:
please make a xda-devs widget where you can browse the forums through a widget, or specify some sections (like a certain phone you like) so you can browse through the threads. This would be a temporary fix for the many people who dream of having a dedicated app for viewing this amazing site.
That message indicates that your ROM does not have the widgets engine installed- check your ROM package...you can install it separately if you look for it.
We are working on the widgets in the next few days and intend to re-release the package with added functionality (hopefully). there's no 'back' button to those widgets so we need to address that and I think it's something we can map but we're playing around with it now.
Thanks, Ive already put in a request on the ROMs thread for a cab for my device.
Plus, as I said, a widget for xda-developers would be a great thing

[Q] Enabling or duplicating Samsung TW Widgets to work on other launchers?

After having read through ADB, deodexing, and a couple scripting/theming guides. I was wondering if there was any way to port/duplicate/enable Samsumg Tw widgets on other launchers either as a seperate framework(?)/entity that does not need the whole TW framework in order to run or maybe doing it from deodexing?
I'm not sure, but the idea seems capable and plausible just the issue would be how to pursue and accomplish it... Sorta like porting or modding the multitouch keyboard to work on other devives. And if TW Launcher was needed, wouldnt that just be a snippet of code or switch that would require the launcher which means you should be able to switch or disable it by either switching the launcher requirements with another or say having whats necessary for the widget to work off of the tw launcher and than switching the launcher requirements?
About deodexing you should be able to edit the files to set permission for other launcher uses right? :/
**I have read other threads but they just dont seem to quite answer the specific questions I have about the ability to port/mod/duplicte/adjusting system files through deodexing/permission rights.
Im new to the community and this is my first android phone but ive jailbroken/modded many things before and have coded c++ and a lil javascript before. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
Try talking to the devs at the irc channel, samsung-fascinate on freenode.
Ok thanks.

Assistance with final year college project

Hi all!
I'm in my final year and we're supposed to do a project which is worth 200 marks overall. Most of us in our field have chosen to develop either android or iphone applications. My group and I have chosen adnroid.
Now, I'm in need of simple ideas for the apps. We have absolutely no idea on how to go about with the process. I've seen lots of people here develop stunning applications here! We're in need of ideas for developing simple apps.. which can be completed in a max of 2-3 months (considering the fact that we don't have any background knowledge on android development/programming. All we know is Java)
I'd initially suggested an automatic mobile credit recharge system, where in the app monitors you prepaid account balance from time to time and recharges the account once the credit falls below a user set value.
Although this seemed interesting at first, it can only be simulated with 2 databases (one for the mobile credit and another for the bank account)
After going through the type of apps here, I really want to develop something much better than this.
I'm open to all ideas, in fact, we don't mind developing an app that is already existing (for instance a profile manager or a data wallet etc) All we want is to have a fully complete app at the end of 2 months.
Please assist.
Thanks!
Secret Santa?
That's something that I thought up over winter break and whipped it up over a few days in the App Inventor. If you guys take your time, you can probably learn Android programming and design/code it in a month or so.
There are some "special" features that I added to make the app more useful but I'll leave that for you to think up.
I'll post back if I come up with anything else. I also need some app ideas, but just for recreational programming.
Thanks! I'm currently checking out appInventer.. I somehow find it hard to come up with ideas which is why I'm trying to find help from here :|
I think the credit recharger is a pretty cool idea, personally. But I understand that you might want something with more "impact"
I think part of the key to this would be figuring out what has not already been done to death. There are so many apps with 5, 6, 7, etc versions of the basically the same thing. I would try to find something to develop with less competition, even if it's more of a niche product. I'm trying to think of the things I've previously thought "I wish I had an app for ____" but I'm drawing a blank right now.
If I think of anything I'll be sure to post it back in here
DrDubzz said:
I think the credit recharger is a pretty cool idea, personally. But I understand that you might want something with more "impact"
I think part of the key to this would be figuring out what has not already been done to death. There are so many apps with 5, 6, 7, etc versions of the basically the same thing. I would try to find something to develop with less competition, even if it's more of a niche product. I'm trying to think of the things I've previously thought "I wish I had an app for ____" but I'm drawing a blank right now.
If I think of anything I'll be sure to post it back in here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I checked out google appInventer tutorials.. theres one which says "no text while driving" -- basically sends back an sms to the sender that ur driving.. It seems interesting so I'm gonna see how best i can use it and pack some more useful stuff along with it.. and see how it all works out.
The reason why I'm giving the auto recharge a back seat is because it can't be implemented in real time.. it can only be simulated in a virtual environment.
You might want to think about doing something that takes advantage of the maps api. It's easy to do but it looks impressive and might help you get high marks.
A great idea?!
Graphics artist here,
Something I just thought of and just started searching for (literally) when I came across your thread, would be: Using the phone as a touch sensitive.. control for editing software, ie photoshop or paint.net. Basically turn the phone into a touchpad control for a computer.
Just an idea!
mirrorhelix said:
Graphics artist here,
Something I just thought of and just started searching for (literally) when I came across your thread, would be: Using the phone as a touch sensitive.. control for editing software, ie photoshop or paint.net. Basically turn the phone into a touchpad control for a computer.
Just an idea!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would be great! I'd definitely pay a couple/few dollars for something along these lines if it was user-friendly
Thats a really awesome idea!! Converting the touchscreen into a tablet input for PS or any other photo manipulation software.. But the problem is that I don't know where to begin! :|
This is a college project so the idea isn't to make a unique and sell-able application... it's to demonstrate that you can work as part of a team to make an application from design to completion.
I'd try and think of a fun app (i wouldnt care if it's been done 100 times before) that everyone on your team wants to contribute to. If it's unique, brilliant, if not nevermind you've got some good experience working as a team and making an android app.
I do like the sound of the phone touchpad app, it's been done on iPhone by Logitech but i've not seen something for android. If it helps, http://blog.logitech.com/2010/01/29...-touch-into-a-wireless-trackpad-and-keyboard/ .
There are a ton of them on the market: Gmote, MyRemote, UnifiedRemote, etc.
It might be a good idea to email this developers to get a better picture of what to do.
Problem is that all of those tools rely heavily on WiFi so you'll have to understand networking.
biggler said:
This is a college project so the idea isn't to make a unique and sell-able application... it's to demonstrate that you can work as part of a team to make an application from design to completion.
I'd try and think of a fun app (i wouldnt care if it's been done 100 times before) that everyone on your team wants to contribute to. If it's unique, brilliant, if not nevermind you've got some good experience working as a team and making an android app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bingo!! Which is exactly what my instructor said. I tried out the tutorials on appInventer.. I was toying with the idea of integrating more features into those itself. Is that a good idea? Although the concept is from Google, would it be ok to build on it? i'm particularly interested in "No texting while driving" and "Broadcast Hub" -- both these apps are awesome! Are there any notable features that I can add to make them better.
How about an app for the quick oil change places. It could show your last service and what was done. Show any upcoming maintenance and when your next oil change is due.
Maybe integrate Google Maps to show locations of service centers. Maybe offer a "e-coupon" if they use the app. Pretend they offer online scheduling and maybe show them "2 customers in bay, one waiting" - Estimated wait time 20 minutes" yada, yada
As an "older" programmer with 2 degrees, it's nice to see your college offering the mobile platform as a programming choice. Hell, all we got to write were COBOL and CICS mainframe applications and some semi-cool C++ projects.
Good Luck and Congratulations on getting your degree!!
What about a bluetooth hack to where u would be able to hack into someones phone and use their service for texting and calling. I heard of something like that when i was on my blackberry and was really into it. But it would be nice to get something like that on my Incredible
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
I think it would be a good idea to make an app that uses an existing web api for a popular website, could be facebook, ebay(do they have an api?) etc etc.
It's a good way to learn a lot of aspects of android development, with a useful product as the outcome.
It doesn't matter if there is already an app for that site, think of a different way of using the site on the mobile, and go from there.
I would like to see a program that reads the weather API and reflects the current weather and location on the wallpaper. This app would require graphics design, code to parse the weather feed, writing to the OS. When I was on Windows Mobile there was a skin for Weather Panel that did this but with Android's live walpaper it could be really cool.
Thanks for the ideas you guys! I really appreciate it. Everything seems interesting.. but the problem is we don't know where to begin or how to go about it.
I did the broadcast hub tutorial present in the app inventer page. It turned out good. Is there any way I can add functionality to this itself?
blueren said:
Thanks for the ideas you guys! I really appreciate it. Everything seems interesting.. but the problem is we don't know where to begin or how to go about it.
I did the broadcast hub tutorial present in the app inventer page. It turned out good. Is there any way I can add functionality to this itself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do all the tutorials and learn the blocks, you can create lots of stuff. There is a app in the market that adds more features to the app inventor, app inventor extender
XDA App
A couple of suggestions:
- A chess PGN editor
- A simple picture/document management app where you take a photo using the camera, add some tags or other info, and save all details in a database. You can also provide search functionality and a viewer to retrieve pictures using the index you've built.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
I did some homework on topics and came across this.. A multilingual speech translator.
Talk in a language, it converts the speech to text, translates that text to a target language, and reads the translated text aloud.
Is this feasible? What is the difficulty level?
Also, is it possible to develop a call blocker app? I looked around but wherever I search, I only find fully built apps but not pointers on how to go about creating one by yourself.
Please assist.

Help with App Inventor!

I'm a complete noob with this stuff, but I tend to learn quickly, so please bear with me. I have a nice app idea but I need the help of somebody who knows more than me.
I want to make a button in App Inventor that will result in an Ongoing notification when pressed, and another button that will then stop that notification. I need to know how to set the icon for the notification and how to actually MAKE the notification happen when the button is pressed.
PS: If it would be possible to make the notification only have an image, and seem invisible to the actual pulldown bar (no text/image), that would be better. If you don't understand what I mean by this, just let me know.
not familiar with how app inventor handles this, but can you insert code?
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/notifiers/notifications.html
look at this link to tell you how to make notifications with java
I looked at that entire site but I have no clue how to insert code anywhere. Maybe this would be easier if I built the app using some other method? What I wanna do isn't the complex. I dunno, I just wanna get to business with this thing haha
Damn, nobody can help?
I have never used app Inventor but a quick search for Notifications in App Inventor found this bit of information
" Take a look at the Notifier component in the "Other stuff" section of the palette in the designer. It has methods for logging, which you can see if you run "adb logcat". It also has methods for showing alert messages on the phone itself."
http://groups.google.com/group/appinventor/browse_thread/thread/956e78cf0a135dcd
From something awesome
Don't use App Inventor. It's so limited and does NOT give you access to code or using Java. It is simply a user-friendly interface for developing apps in a much simplified way.
Try going to developer.android.com and reading up on how to get Eclipse SDK going. There is an Android ADT plugin for developing Android apps and that site has plenty of documentation and tutorials to read up on.
wildcatswr5 said:
Don't use App Inventor. It's so limited and does NOT give you access to code or using Java. It is simply a user-friendly interface for developing apps in a much simplified way.
Try going to developer.android.com and reading up on how to get Eclipse SDK going. There is an Android ADT plugin for developing Android apps and that site has plenty of documentation and tutorials to read up on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just downloaded all of that SDK stuff and I'm so lost. I'm reading as much as I can understand on that site but I'm getting nowhere. I just wanna make a simple app lol. This is so frustrating.
Trust me, I'm in the same boat. I'm interested in learning how to make simple apps for now. The advantage is that later I'll be able to expand my knowledge base by reading more and more.
My advice is to start with tutorials and simple apps in the resource section to see if you learn enough to make your app.
Sent from my Shooter. Pew pew
wildcatswr5 said:
Trust me, I'm in the same boat. I'm interested in learning how to make simple apps for now. The advantage is that later I'll be able to expand my knowledge base by reading more and more.
My advice is to start with tutorials and simple apps in the resource section to see if you learn enough to make your app.
Sent from my Shooter. Pew pew
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read somewhere that App Inventor can't create notifications :/
wildcatswr5 said:
Don't use App Inventor. It's so limited and does NOT give you access to code or using Java. It is simply a user-friendly interface for developing apps in a much simplified way.
Try going to developer.android.com and reading up on how to get Eclipse SDK going. There is an Android ADT plugin for developing Android apps and that site has plenty of documentation and tutorials to read up on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using eclipse to build temp conversion app. So far I learned how to create splash screens with it. It's cool that I started to learn how to use it. The sdk not too difficult to get it up and running.
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Bounty for Homescreen Customization

Hello. I'm new to Android. I recently bought an S4 after 5.5 years with various iPhones. The ability to customize my phone is awesome, but daunting given all of the different apps and rooting knowledge that are required. Unfortunately, after having my phone for months, I've made little progress in learning how to do what I want to do with it because I work a ton of hours. Thus, I will pay someone to set up my phone the way I want. I live in Los Angeles, so I prefer someone who can do this in person. But I am happy to do this over Skype or the phone if possible. I have no idea how much to pay for this, so I'm open to bids.
I have an S4 on AT&T. It's not rooted. Let me know what other phone information you need. I would like the following from you:
(1) my phone rooted, and an explanation of which ROMs are available so I can pick the best one for me
(2) customized lockscreen setup, including the ability to run various apps/widgets with a numerical lock code, but not having to unlock my phone first (as I understand it, I need a customized ROM to do this because certain widgets run only without a lock code being used on the phone)
(3) customized home screens. Not just one though. I am envisioning a different theme for each page (maybe around 5 pages total). Thus, I want to be able to use a different picture on each home screen and potentially use different size icons and text on each home screen.
(4) some tasker automation (I already have a few ideas myself, but am open to suggestions from you to automate my phone)
I am not asking you to come up with the design ideas for my lockscreens and homescreens. I already have most of what I want in my head, and have downloaded the appropriate pictures. I'm going for a minimalist design. I just need someone to help me execute my ideas (which may include some photo editing), though if you have any design suggestions I would like to hear them.
Please send me a private message, including how much you'd charge for your help, and we'll go from there. Thank you very much.
Paul
Before you ask, what firmware are you running? The newest firmware blocked root access and is impossible to downgrade or root
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda app-developers app
You should look into SSLauncher. It's not what I use, but I played around with it for a few days. It is definitely the most customizable launcher on the Play Store.
This is not what a bounty is. You are looking to pay for work. This is not allowed on XDA and violated the free sharing spirit of XDA.
I am sorry for an inconvenience
Friendly Neighborhood Moderator

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