Create your own skins

Link wrote:robbiep,

Thanks for the compliments and sorry for the trouble. I have modified them again. Try again and thanks for testing.

- Link

Anytime. I love clean and simple themes. And I have plenty of time to test stuff out on the weekends.

Anyway, still no luck though on this newest GlossBlack.

robbiep wrote:

Link wrote:robbiep,

Thanks for the compliments and sorry for the trouble. I have modified them again. Try again and thanks for testing.

- Link

Anytime. I love clean and simple themes. And I have plenty of time to test stuff out on the weekends.

Anyway, still no luck though on this newest GlossBlack.

Ok, I have checked and double checked, resaved everything and made a new ZIP file. Please try again and if this doesn't work I would appreciate it if someone could take a look at my files and help me find what is wrong.

- Link

i was wondering if anyone could possibly have the time to help me make my open skin something simple and easy hopefully just your basic htc keyboard with color change. ive tried multiple times to do and just cant seem to find anything that has to do with creating a skin for the keyboard. computer iliterate i guess.... if any has the time to possibly talk me through me via skype or yahoo please email me at mikeyboi83@gmail.com thanks a bunch

Okay. So, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it still doesn't like my mdpi resolution. Still plain black skin. I wish I was a dev who could look into it and help. The most I can do is try it and report back.

The 3DKey one is good though. Not sure if that fix is related at all.

robbiep wrote:Okay. So, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it still doesn't like my mdpi resolution. Still plain black skin. I wish I was a dev who could look into it and help. The most I can do is try it and report back.

The 3DKey one is good though. Not sure if that fix is related at all.

Could you maybe take a video of the problems, and upload it to you tube, so it would be easier. This is properly a stupid idea though

That won't be necessary... There was indeed a problem in GlossyBlack skin, the file "mod.9.png" was called "mod.9 .png"!
Here is a fixed version

Link, by the way, can you create separate topic for your skins as Zen did? Thanks

Yes! Works great now. Thank you both. I love the android community.

Please make some nice skins for QVGA with 64k colours !
Thanks

Actually QVGA is not supported at the moment (well, it is, but the images are scaled), I need to add this in a next version

cyril wrote:That won't be necessary... There was indeed a problem in GlossyBlack skin, the file "mod.9.png" was called "mod.9 .png"!
Here is a fixed version

Link, by the way, can you create separate topic for your skins as Zen did? Thanks

Thanks and here are the new topics:

3DKey: http://www.dexilog.com/smartkeyboard/fo ... f=13&t=623

GlossBlack: http://www.dexilog.com/smartkeyboard/fo ... f=13&t=622

How are you guys making some of them Glossy? i cannot get mine to turn out right glossy, what are you doing?

Troubleshooting tips?

I've made the skin. Followed all directions and compared .xml files of 2 different functioning skins. They are exactly the same. I put the .zip in my skins folder on my directory (I also did the same with a downloaded zip to make sure it wasn't the directory's fault... it showed up fine).

Now it may have something to do with the fact that most of my images are blank, as it's a minimalist keyboard, there aren't really any backgrounds. But that doesn't explain why it wouldn't even show up in the list. I only have drawable in, as i'm just testing it, but best.zip (on page 1) only had drawable and the .xml and it works fine.

Help? Tips? I literally took the names of best.zip for all the files and put an M in front of them, so it can't be an issue with coding, it a looks the exact some just an M in front of all the image paths.

so frustrated...

I'll attach the zip too I guess. I'm not worrying about design at all, just want to see if I can get the damn skins to show up before I spend some time on them, so they aren't anything at all worth looking at unless you're trying to help (please help!)

irish22022 wrote:I'll attach the zip too I guess. I'm not worrying about design at all, just want to see if I can get the damn skins to show up before I spend some time on them, so they aren't anything at all worth looking at unless you're trying to help (please help!)

First, the name of the zip needs to be the same name you want the skin to be called. Second, the directories in the zip need to be drawable and drawable-hdpi and nothing else. Third, the xml needs to be names skin.xml. In the xml the name= has to match the skin name of the zip.

I didn't check your images but they need to have the draw9patch area around the image that is only 1 pixel border and is only black and transparent. No other shades or colors. HDPI images need to be 50x77 and standard images need to be 34x52 including the draw9patch border.

All else fails, start with a new file and you know works and start making changes until you find out what broke it.

Hope that helps.

okay, interesting.

New trial:

Renamed zip to match the name of the file within the xml "MinimalKey"
click on minimalkey directory and see three things: "drawable" "drawable-hdpi" and "skin.xml" )as per the sample skin provided.

The d9p is applied to all images, one pixel border black in some parts, transparent in others. 34x52.

I guess I'm just having a hard time because I'm literally mirroring exactly what was done in the sample and can't seem to get anything to work.

Any other ideas? Or should I just give up?

Irish22022... I followed your exact steps and my skin keeps coming up as all black (meaning there's an error). I'm pretty frustrated. I don't feel like there are good enough, solid enough directions on how to create one's own skins.

I wish there were a more detailed guide or something. I thought maybe that I was making the mistake of not keeping the .zip file name consistent with the name in the .xml file, but when I checked that they are exactly the same, I became even more frustrated. I didn't change anything on my skin except the drawable-hdpi images from having a green shift button to a blue shift button (not what I wanted in the end, but I was doing it merely for testing purposes to see if I could get the skin to work BEFORE dumping hours into editing a skin to my own liking).

Grr.

Yeah,

It's a cool feature idea, but clearly there is something short in the instructions. There aren't really even that many skins users have made (compared to better keyboard which has 100's or user skins).

All I can do is mimic the exact other xml files, and after that I'm at a loss. Guess this is for super users who know coding. LPP has a feature where you can write your own code to customize shortcuts, and it was hard, but it was really well supported so after a while I got the hang of it.

Oh well. Still a cool keyboard.

Hello, I have created a GingerBread keyboard skin (hdpi only - I am too lazy ). Is there any way I could use mod-key-background for the space and comma buttons (so every button on the lowest line would have the same background)? Without that option it looks a bit weird...

martinpelant wrote:Hello, I have created a GingerBread keyboard skin (hdpi only - I am too lazy ). Is there any way I could use mod-key-background for the space and comma buttons (so every button on the lowest line would have the same background)? Without that option it looks a bit weird...

Hi, I have added this into my skins folder many times and it doesn't show up as a skin previewer.

hello, i tried it but background is not showing

Confused how this works? Is this where u can change the color and spacing of the keys thru background. Like ultra keyboard has u can make ur own skins with color changes and spacing between keys thick or wide. Is this something that this does. I don't use ultra keyboard anymore due 88 developers unresponsiveness to fix bugs but this was a feature that was nice he u don't find any skins on via Market to use. This option also had fading for the keys and background shading. Could u look at his and copy it to use with ur app

hey cyril, when do we expect the online repo to be up?
and how do you change the size of the letters on the keys?

I need some help here.. (sorry for my english)
I had the idea to apply some effects to the images provide with the ''Android sample skin'' without change size or name.
But when I add the .zip to the skin folder I had a full black skin with white letters like the ''Black'' default one, without any of my images...
What else must change of what must do for make this skin funzional???
Thanks

Okay, I was able to get the Draw 9-patch to open up, but I am certainly lost as this is my first time using it. What I am curious about is, do I create the button or key in a normal program such as photoshop or some other image editing software and then upload it in the draw 9-patch program or how exactly do you edit and make your own type of buttons? I'm definitely interested in learning this.

If I understand the first post, draw 9-patch program is supposed to just add the extra pixels needed or whatever such as the transparent and black pixels.

Any tutorials on this would be highly appreciated, maybe something a little more in depth to editing or creating an actual button. I definitely would love to know. Thanks!

Does anyone know of a video or something that shows how to go about making a button? I would highly appreciate any information on this because I am pretty confused.

How exactly do I extract the sample skin into Eclipse?

I'm sorry. I haven't done this before

TheTehk17 wrote:How exactly do I extract the sample skin into Eclipse?
I'm sorry. I haven't done this before

You don't need Eclipse, it's just a zip file with a xml and some images...

Any news on an online repo for skins?

Hi all,

I'm encountering a small issue... When I click one of my keys, the text color is white, instead of black as I wrote in the XML file... Maybe I missed a node ?? has anyone the same problem ?

I think there should be a video made for those who don't quite understand how to make their own or design their own keyboards. I think it would help, and get the keyboard more known.