JB / SSH Gurus - a technical question for you...

[LVCIFER]

Ok. Let's say that I have two Winterboard themes. I want one theme ("Theme A") to be my actual theme, but I want to rip ONLY the badges out of the other theme ("Theme B").

How would I accomplish this?

In more detail - I want to try the "Nightmare Before Christmas" theme but with the badges from the "Silent Hill" theme.

Please feel free to give me any help you can. I would love to have this info...

 

[LVCIFER]

Also, if anyone can tell me for example, how I could modify the theme to have NO wallpaper, I'd love that too.

I want to remove the "Silent Hill" themes changing wallpapers, and use my own custom ones.

 

[Mopig]

do you know how to use ssh or diskaid to transfer files from your iphone to your computer?
If so, then go to /var/stash/themes and copy the folder with your theme name (both of them, silent hill and the nightmare one.
When you have the folders on your computer, in the theme folder that you want the badges from, the badges will be in themefolder/Bundles/com.apple.springboard/
they will be labelled SSBadgeBG.png or other, you will see them. copy those into the new theme's bundles/com.apple.sprinboard/ folder. If it does not exist, make one.
After use ssh/diskaid to put overwrite the phone versions of both theme folders with the computer ones that you edited.
If you don't know how to edit files, i will point you in the direction of diskaid (for PC) or use winSCP to ssh into the phone. If you need more instruction/details, please ask

 

[LVCIFER]

Well, as far as SSH'ing into the phone, I use iPhone Browser to do that.

From your instructions, I seem to follow everything you said just fine, until you mentioned the part about putting overwrite mode on. If I am going to create a new folder, why couldn't I just rename it (to a different "theme title") and use it as a 'completely new theme', such as "Test Theme 1", etc?

 

[Mopig]

actually that would work fine. I personally just don't like having too many themes in winerboard installed. I read somewhere that it slows your phone down the more themes you have installed, not even activated, but just installed, so i just overwrite with edits because i edit quite a bit.
Tell me if it works out.

 

[LVCIFER]

Sounds good.

now you told me to ask you if I had any other questions, so I'm going to take you up on that...

Let's take my little experiment farther. Let's say for example, that I didn't necessarily want to create an entire theme, let's say I really like the badges from the "Silent Hill" theme.

Let's say I wanted to rip them out of the theme itself, and install it somehow as just a separate "badge" package for Winterboard that I could enable or disable as JUST a badge package so that it could be mixed and matched with all of Winterboards other options...

Is that possible also? And if so, how?

 

[Matt74]

Well, as far as SSH'ing into the phone, I use iPhone Browser to do that.

From your instructions, I seem to follow everything you said just fine, until you mentioned the part about putting overwrite mode on. If I am going to create a new folder, why couldn't I just rename it (to a different "theme title") and use it as a 'completely new theme', such as "Test Theme 1", etc?

iPhone browser isn't SSH. SSH stands for Secure Shell... in other words, SSH is telnet being tunneled through SSL. So technically speaking, WinSCP isn't even SSH... it's SFTP, but people call it SSH since it uses openSSH to create the encrypted tunnel for the connection.

iPhoneBrowser simply accesses your phone through the USB connection, so there would really be no reason to encrypt the connection.

I realize this is a bit of a tangent, but wanted to explain it because I think there was confusion in this thread.

 

[LVCIFER]

Actually, I do understand what you mean because truthfully, I didn't know what SSH truly is, I just assumed it was a method to get inside your iPhone's directories.

He, you learn something new every day.

 

[Mopig]

Hmm, i dunno, a guide told me not to use the sftp protocol and instead select the ssh protocol for the whole thing in winSCP. I think that counts as using SSH with GUI.
Ok, to LVCIFER, yeah i think that you probably could do it. By just putting in the the theme folder a bundles folder with the com.apple.springboard, you could do that. The thing is, that whatever the theme folder doesn't contain, just stays the same.
Also, play around with the order of the themes in winterboard.

 

[LVCIFER]

Ok, now how do I insert a bundles folder? Just add the empty "theme folder", with ONLY the badges in it, and all other directories empty?

You said that if the theme folder doesn't contain the files - for example: a wallpaper - that that theme will be applied, but I would still set my own wallpaper (if I had "User Wallpaper" checked in Winterboard) because the theme did not contain it's own?

 

[Mopig]

Just make a folder called Bundles, in that make a folder called "com.apple.springboard" and put the badge called "SSBadgeBG.png" along with other variant names in case you wanted to switch later.
when you do this on your computer, just put it back in your phone in the themes folder.
And the thing about the user wallpaper sounds right.

 

[LVCIFER]

And where would I create the root "Bundles" folder, on my desktop or located at a specific directory on the iPhone?

 

[Mopig]

oh sorry,
You would just make a folder with the theme name, ex. [Badges.theme]
Make a folder in that called [Bundles], in there called [com.apple.springboard], and in there put the badge. Then copy the entire [Badges.theme] folder into the \var\stash\theme directory in your iphone. When you load up winterboard, you should see your Badgess theme which you can select.

 

[LVCIFER]

Dude, wow.

I actually tried it using this method:

-I copied the entire theme folder to the HDD.
-I located the badge file you told me to look for in the folder I just put in my HDD.
-I deleted everything else. Literally.
-I renamed the original folder from "Silent Hill" to "Silent Hill Badges".
-I dragged the file from my CPU into iPhone Browser. It refreshed the list and everything is where it was supposed to be.
-I enabled my new "Silent Hill Badges" option in Winterboard, and everything works beautifully!

Thank you for your help though, seriously. I didn't realize that it would be as simple as it was, all it basically was, in its simplest forms, was structure duplication and directory duplication and deletion.

This is awesome, because I'm damned good with Photoshop, and now you've created a monster.

 

[LVCIFER]

The reason I'm psyched is because I've had so many ideas on what to do to make my own PERSONAL theme (which would be PERFECT to and for me and my tastes), and now that I saw how the directories are set up and which files belong to what, I have a feeling I'm going to go crazy in the design field. *chuckle*

 

[Mopig]

lolol, i was going to say you should just delete everything else in the folder, but i was like nah, he won't want to delete everything.
Haha, good luck with all your theming! I figured this out when i was customizing my Picnic theme (best theme ever!).

 

[LVCIFER]

Are you kidding? I've already discovered on my own how to modify and create custom SMS/TXT Message Notifiers using iPhone Browser and iTunes only.

Now, I have the CTU Ringer from "24" everytime I get a TXT message.

NOW, my NEXT QUESTION - (*lol*)

To update the SMS sounds, I had to go to the UI Sounds Directory and create my own *.caf file for the ringer to work.

Where do I go to find the UI TEXT that names the files?

For example, if you go to Settings > Sounds > New Text Message, you see options like "None", Tri-tone", "Chime", etc...

Where would I go to change the text of that UI field, do you know? So that way, instead of it saying "Tri-tone", I could just rename it to "CTU" or something like that....

 

[Mopig]

um, i have no idea. I have never tried to change the sms tones and have no clue what .caf is haha. How do you do it, if you don't mind me asking

 

[LVCIFER]

Ok, no problem.

-First, you find the audio file that you want to be as your new TXT notifier, try to find it as any of the following file formats:

wav, mp3, aiff, m4a

-Then, load it into iTunes. Click on Edit > Preferences > Import Settings > Advanced, and set the conversion encoder to AIFF.

-Go back into your library inside iTunes, locate the file you just added, right click on the sound file you imported, and select "Convert to AIFF".

-Let it convert.

-Once it's done, right-click the file, and go to info. Follow the path to that file, and then simply rename it to *.caf.

-Open up iPhone Browser.
-Click on Goto Location > UISounds on the top bar.
-Locate the files named "sms-received1.caf", "sms-received2.caf", "sms-received3.caf", "sms-received4.caf", "sms-received5.caf", "sms-received6.caf". Decide which one you don't like, and delete it.
-Lets use the first one, "sms-received1.caf" as an example. Delete that ba$tard from the original directory.
-RENAME your NEW ringtone to "sms-received1.caf", and drag it into that iPhone Browser directory.
-Go to your iPhone, select "Tri-tone" as your message, and that will be your new SMS/TXT/MMS Ringtone.

Voila, thats all it is. it sounds like a lot of steps, but once you do it once or twice, its really second nature.

 

[Mopig]

Woww! I'm going to try that! I didn't even know you could do that! XD
Super thanks for the tip!