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Increase GAF with alien icons

ebisudave

Lurker
Sep 16, 2010
8
0
My girlfriend recently bought a Sony Ericsson Xperia Android phone. For the most part, she loves it.

Except that Sony Ericsson has changed the emoticons in the chat application.

On my phone, an HTC-03A (aka HTC Magic), the emoticons look like little aliens. (Yes, I know they are supposed to be robots, like the Android logo, but my girlfriend thinks of them as "aliens" because they have antennae and are green).

On her phone, the Xperia, they changed the icons to use regular rounded yellow happy faces and so on.

She is miffed. She likes the aliens, and considers the phone somewhat "broken" without them.

So... suddenly it's a task in my life to see if I can change the Sony Ericsson emoticons to Android "alien" icons.

I had hoped it was a matter of simply changing some image files... however, from what I see on the web, it looks like I need to:


  1. Gain access to a file on the phone called framework-res.apk
  2. Copy that file to a computer.
  3. Edit the file to put in the right icons.
  4. Put it back on the phone

I am unclear on how exactly to do these steps. The discussions I've seen were among people who seemed to have a better understanding than me, and did not explain some aspects. For example, they took it for granted that the necessary files were accessible, however I can't see where framework-res.apk is.

I have not "rooted" an Android phone before, and I'm hoping I don't have to go to truly deep levels of phone software configuration that carries the risk of destabilizing either her phone or mine.

I'm assuming I can get the correct "alien" icons off of my phone to put on hers. (I notice they have those very same icons on this forum... is there a place I can download them as a set?)

Can someone give me clear instructions on how to accomplish this?

Thank you for your time.

(PS: Just in case... "GAF" = Girlfriend Acceptance Factor")
 
Well if her phone is NOT rooted, it sounds like someone changed her "THEME". The themes can change EVERYTHING, as that is what they are designed to do. Is she by chance using a LAUNCHER, maybe ADW, or one of the others? If so that is the problem. If not, have her install a launcher, ADW is what I use, go into the settings for ADW and choose the THEME selection and here she can download tons of various types, both FREE and $$$. The problem is easy to fix and I would not root a phone to solve this one... Good Luck!
 
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The Android smiles are not standard on the X10, you need to root the phone using the 3 step process on dew and then you can edit the veal icons Sony used to Droid.

It's something to do as you said with editing the .apk res file, I have a pm explaining how to do it in detail and once you clock it you will find it easy to write complete new themes for your gf.
 
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The Android smiles are not standard on the X10, you need to root the phone using the 3 step process on dew and then you can edit the veal icons Sony used to Droid.

It's something to do as you said with editing the .apk res file, I have a pm explaining how to do it in detail and once you clock it you will find it easy to write complete new themes for your gf.

Can you forward/send me this pm? I would appreciate it. :)
 
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I have an HTC Inspire, and somehow my emoticons changed from the little green aliens to standard yellow faces. I want the little green guys back. Can anyone help me?

Please create a new thread in your HTC Inspire forum and ask for help on changing the emoticons back.

Like it says above. It is a lot of work.

Or just search the Market for emoticon apps or change your messaging app to something like Handcent, and download an emoticon pluggin for it to change the default emoticons to something else.

Either way, this is the forum for Sony Xperia's, so there will be differences.
 
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