Phone.apk & Contacts.apk Question

[slider112]

Hi all,
Have a question I was hoping I could get answered here.

I have a D1 running 2.2 on Sapphire 1.0, Black Bar theme, overclocked to 1ghz... nothing fancy. I would like to change the look of both my dialer and contacts, phone.apk and contacts.apk respectively I'm assuming, and replace them with the phone.apk and contacts.apk from another ROM. Specifically, I like the look of those two things in PE 4.2.

Here's my question: Can I just simply pull the apk's for both things out of the PE 4.2 ROM zip and replace the corresponding files I have in the /system/app directory via ROM Manager, setting permissions to match as well? Or, do I need to do this through an update.zip file via clockwork? I've read some things around here about this being a bit tricky, just wanted to check beforehand. Full nandroid before proceeding of course

Any and all input welcome, thanks very much!

 

[sonicfreak360]

You can pull the files no problem, but you can't just paste them in, you need to install them with am update.zip

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[slider112]

Thanks for the response, appreciate it.

Ok, can I use any update.zip file that I have as a "shell", remove the existing items, and just add those two apk's to the system/app directory and run through clockwork? Is that how that would work?

If that's not the case, if I were to post those files here would somebody be able to create one for me if it wasn't too much trouble?

Again, thanks in advance!




** Here is a zip with the two apk's. If someone could create an update.zip using them I'd greatly appreciate it! **

 

[slider112]

Can anyone help me out here?

 

[brock.overcash]

If you can stand to wait until the end of the day (school sucks) I will try to do this for you, but if you don't mind doing it yourself, here are the instructions I found.

http://www.londatiga.net/it/how-to-create-android-update-zip-package/

Hope this helps!

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums App

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Here's an update.zip file that TP76 created for me so I could use the phone apk from a UD 2.5 nightly build. In the apps folder in this file are two files; one is the phone apk and the other is the phone config apk. Both are required. You can replace these two with the same two from your rom and that will work for the dialer/phone. The contacts I am not sure about. But from taking a quick glance it may be that you need the contacts apk and the contacts provider apk? Anyway you can play around with it and see. Just put them in the app folder of the update.zip and see what happens.

It is my understanding that if you use 7zip to open the file and swap out the two apk's you do not then have to rezip it.

Good luck.

Here's some notes about the process (mostly from TP76 and furbearinganimal):

"I only use 7zip for .apk files - this zip you can just double click on (if you have winzip) and it opens and you can navigate around - look in the system/app folder and you will see the two .apk's I added

the only thing I have noticed is that if you don't unzip it you have to add the files two at a time or it will try to create a new .zip - so just drag your .apk and any other file and then delete the unwanted file after they both get added"

"Flash via Recovery - afterwards you can empty this update.zip and add other .apk's or framework-res.apk and use it again and again just make sure the files go in their according folders"

" You could just swap the .apk's in the full ROM.zip, reflashed, if you want to do this with another nightly."

 

[slider112]

Thanks for the responses guys, appreciate it!

Brock, thanks for that link! I've been wondering how to create zips from scratch for a while now, very informative... If i can't get this thing going here I may take you up on your offer to create the zip later on...

Bayou, I took the zip file you posted and swapped out the Phone.apk and PhoneConfig.apk from PE 4.2 with the ones that were in there. I also added the Contacts.apk and ContactsProvider.apk from PE 4.2, all the files now reside in the system/app folder of the zip file. I didn't touch anything else.

Just so I have this right: it's my understanding that the phone.apk controls all of the "in call" screens and the contacts.apk controls the dialer/call log/contacts/favorites screen when preparing to make a call, but not actually in a call. Is this correct?

Before I go flashing this thing, can someone confirm that this process looks right? Do I need any other files included in this zip? I essentially want my dialer and contacts to look like the attached files below. I've included the zip file I've created as well.

As always, thanks for all the help!

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Thanks for the responses guys, appreciate it!

Brock, thanks for that link! I've been wondering how to create zips from scratch for a while now, very informative... If i can't get this thing going here I may take you up on your offer to create the zip later on...

Bayou, I took the zip file you posted and swapped out the Phone.apk and PhoneConfig.apk from PE 4.2 with the ones that were in there. I also added the Contacts.apk and ContactsProvider.apk from PE 4.2, all the files now reside in the system/app folder of the zip file. I didn't touch anything else.

Just so I have this right: it's my understanding that the phone.apk controls all of the "in call" screens and the contacts.apk controls the dialer/call log/contacts/favorites screen when preparing to make a call, but not actually in a call. Is this correct?

Before I go flashing this thing, can someone confirm that this process looks right? Do I need any other files included in this zip? I essentially want my dialer and contacts to look like the attached files below. I've included the zip file I've created as well.

As always, thanks for all the help!

Just be sure to do a backup prior to flashing the new update.zip. I never fooled with the contacts apk so I can't answer that question for you, but it sounds logical. With a good backup you can easily restore if the update.zip doesn't do the contacts the way you want them. I used the update.zip on my phone for about two months. Every time I flashed a new rom (and I do that very, very frequently), I would reflash the phone update.zip. It worked every time and with every rom.


Good luck.

 

[brock.overcash]

Like BayouFlyFisher said, backups are your best friend. Also, if you really want to learn, take a look at the script in the update.zip he provided. You can see what a finished one looks like if you want to make your own. Good luck!

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums App

 

[slider112]

Made a backup this morning... agreed, can't be too careful.

After a little digging I'm not so sure I need the ContactsProvider.apk in the zip file... Just these three:

Phone.apk
PhoneConfig.apk
Contacts.apk


Can anyone verify if the ContactsProvider.apk is needed, or if I'm good to go with just those three listed?

Thanks very much.

 

[brock.overcash]

I mean you could just slide it in there to be safe, or try it without and see what happens. I honestly don't have any idea whether its neede or not but my guess would be that it is needed.

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums App

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Made a backup this morning... agreed, can't be too careful.

After a little digging I'm not so sure I need the ContactsProvider.apk in the zip file... Just these three:

Phone.apk
PhoneConfig.apk
Contacts.apk


Can anyone verify if the ContactsProvider.apk is needed, or if I'm good to go with just those three listed?

Thanks very much.

I googled it and found a number of folks trying to make custom contacts.apk and they all had references to contactsprovider.apk in their threads.

 

[Tallica]

I'm pretty positive that you don't need the ContactsProvider.apk. I've swapped out the Contacts.apk tons of times and never replaced that one.

And yes, the Phone.apk does the in-call dialer and the Contacts.apk does the Contact/Favorite/Call Log/Dialer screens.

 

[slider112]

Just a quick update:

I flashed the zip file I made and it worked flawlessly. I ended up leaving the ContactsProvider.apk out and just using the other three (Phone.apk, PhoneConfig.apk and Contacts.apk)... no issues at all.

Really digging my new dialer/contacts look... also saw to my surprise that there were many more options and settings available under the call settings menu as part of this package... nice work by the PE Team on this particular mod!

Many thanks to brock, Bayou and Tallica for walking me through things, really appreciate it!

 

[brock.overcash]

yeah man, glad it worked out for ya