Mix & Match apps & widgets??

[Guest ArtyW]

Hi! I have found a custom ROM for my fone that I really like but would also like other apps & widgets that are on the standard firmware, so as the post asks, how and can I add bits to the new ROM that I would like?

I tried to copy the widgets & apps that I need and want to the custom ROM and saved the ZIP file, but obviously it didnt work, and I was able to get back to restoring the backup of my fone before I tried to install this!

I dont have any spare money right now so I cant (unfortunately) get access to that infamous 'online kitchen' to bake my own ROM, is there anything else I could do?

Thanks in advance :-)

[Guest ArtyW]

Can anybody help a willing-to-learn noobie please?

[Guest squrl]

It's simple, really. All you have to do is extract the ZIP file which contains your ROM and then add apks to corresponding folders.

Apps you put into system/app will reside on your phone's /system partition and analogically, everything you put into /data/app folder will be on phone's /data partition and therefore uninstallable under the application management menu.

When you're done tweaking your ROM, just re-pack it in WinZip, or your preferred archive software which is able to genereate ZIP archives. The structure of the archive must be following:

-------zip file-------

| data			   |

| META-INF		   |

| system			 |

| boot.img		   |

----------------------

If you repack the ROM however, it will not be signed so it depends on what recovery you are using. For example, Koush's clockworkmod recovery allows you to flash unsigned ROMs so you can immediatelly flash the ZIP you just created. If your recovery needs the ZIP files to be signed, then you must resign your ROM using testsign. If you don'y know how to do it, check out this HOWTO, by user jdouce :(

Edited July 26, 2010 by squrl

[Guest ArtyW]

Thanks for your reply squrl!

I at first tried this, but 1 of a few things happened, 1) they all didnt show up in the All Apps menu, or 2) I couldnt add them as a few of the add-ons have their own META-INF & Data folders, and Im not sure if it was OK to replace the original META-INF & Data folders for the new apps...

Also, is it possible to use android 2.1 apps & widgets on Froyo 2.2 as there are a few of my widgets & apps from 2.1 that I use everyday that are not present in 2.2 ie, friend stream, peep, the weather app & widget and the most important, the lil widgets for Airplane, GPS, Mobile & Sync All, all of which are found in Add Widget>Settings. I have tried to find these from the 2.1 ROM I am using, but cant seem to find them at all :(