Create your own skins

[conspirisize]

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

[irish22022]

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...

[irish22022]

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!)

[Link]

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.

[irish22022]

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?

[JFDroid]

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.

[irish22022]

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.

[martinpelant]

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...

[dsf]

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.

[alberto823]

hello, i tried it but background is not showing