Editing Application Files

[Pinkzeppelincult]

I just downloaded MyHomework—a planner app for those who don't know. One of the features of this app is I can organize tasks into categories, such as quiz, test, homework, etc. One of these categories is called read, which I find very annoying because it's a verb in the middle of a bunch of nouns. I feel like I should be able to root around in tbe application's files and find the list of categories and change read to reading, but I can't find where the files are stored. Can somebody direct me to where these might be? I have root access so that's not an issue if it would be.

 

[patcooke]

You need a hexadecimal editor - something like this:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tuba.tools

But take care - first make a back up copy of the apk. Unless you want to get really complicated you can only replace the four letter word "read" with the same number of characters, if you go beyond that you are going to corrupt some other part of the binary apk file.

 

[codesplice]

A hex editor isn't the right tool for editing an APK file - an APK is really just a compressed file that contains resources and java code. You can use any decent file extraction utility to view what's inside an APK. You'll most likely be interested in the "strings.xml" file inside of there.

Of course, the trick is getting it back into the APK - tampering with an APK in any way changes its digital signature. Depending on your phone and Android OS version, you may not be able to install the "fixed" application back on your device - and you definitely won't be able download future updates for it. You're probably better off sending an email to the developer of the app to see if they could implement your suggestion:
contactus@myhomeworkapp.com

If you really want to know how to modify an APK, this older Reddit thread may be able to help get you pointed in the right direction:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/11852r/how_to_modify_an_apk