HTC Sense (ish) themeing/"Porting" Sense to pulse

[Guest dodge-167]

I just tried to download the Htc hero tomorrow update from Htc (www.htc.com/uk/SupportDownloadList.aspx?p_id=283&act=sd&cat=2) I think its the 2.1 updated but it asks for the serial number, so I can't do anything. If someone can point me towards an unedited hero tomorrow (preferably in zip format) I will be greatful.

Thanks

Aaron

http://android.modaco.com/content/htc-hero...t-for-gsm-hero/

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

ah, yes, thats all nice but how will we port HTC Hero kernel to Pulse...

That I will need help with as I know litteraly nothing about kernels. If someone knows how to port kernels and edit them then help will be appriciated.

Thanx

Aaron

[Guest DanWilson]

I just tried to download the Htc hero tomorrow update from Htc (www.htc.com/uk/SupportDownloadList.aspx?p_id=283&act=sd&cat=2) I think its the 2.1 updated but it asks for the serial number, so I can't do anything. If someone can point me towards an unedited hero tomorrow (preferably in zip format) I will be greatful.

Thanks

Aaron

PLEASE DON'T FLASH A RADIO OR AN SPL!!! We don't want a Pulse shaped brick, do we?

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

PLEASE DON'T FLASH A RADIO OR AN SPL!!! We don't want a Pulse shaped brick, do we?

I think the link above is for stock 1.5 as released by Htc repacked as a flashable zip. I will have a look at it but I would rather have 2.1

[Guest Basher52]

Cause i didnt find an official Hero 2.1 Rom jet or wasnt able to extract it (there is a script for it, i know...) iam using this decompiler http://www.neshkov.com/archiver.html so work on some htc apps, starting with freindsteam. Will see if i got something working again :(

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

I have been looking at the Cyanogen MOD website and its says support for the hero was added as of version 6 (the version that's based on 2.2) so if we can port the hero Cyanogen MOD kernel then we can have Froyo. If we just port the Htc kernel then we will have sense. If we can create a custom mix of the two then we could have Froyo with sense of Cyanogen MOD =)

Aaron

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

Cause i didnt find an official Hero 2.1 Rom jet or wasnt able to extract it (there is a script for it, i know...) iam using this decompiler http://www.neshkov.com/archiver.html so work on some htc apps, starting with freindsteam. Will see if i got something working again :(

Is it worth emailing Paul (who obviously had an unedited 2.1 rom that can be put into a zip) and ask him for it for the purpose of porting iyt

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

Is it worth emailing Paul (who obviously had an unedited 2.1 rom that can be put into a zip) and ask him for it for the purpose of porting iyt

I have emailed him and am waiting for a reply. If he gives it to us then we can start trying to port it. I'm not entirely sure what we will have to do to port it, so I will need alot of help, especially with the kernel. Thanks in advance to anyone who helps.

Aaron

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

According to engadget htc will be rolling out 2.2 updates starting tomorrow. If this is true we could have a 2.2 rom with sense to try and port =)

If we can port this we may be able to get Cyanogen MOD aswell

Aaron

[Guest Basher52]

Yesterday evening i build a customrom with framework& Sense apk based on our Kernel.

Ended up in epic fail,Pulse wont pass Android screeen. Nandroid makes thinks fine again.

Got problems with the decompiler aswell. I can extract every picture from htc frindsteam app, even see the manifest.mf with all its checksums, but no code to edit at all.

Will keep on this, Basher

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

Yesterday evening i build a customrom with framework& Sense apk based on our Kernel.

Ended up in epic fail,Pulse wont pass Android screeen. Nandroid makes thinks fine again.

Got problems with the decompiler aswell. I can extract every picture from htc frindsteam app, even see the manifest.mf with all its checksums, but no code to edit at all.

Will keep on this, Basher

How long did you leave it on the boot screen? I have heard it can take up to 10 minutes on first boot.

When I have looked at the xmls in the apks I get the impression they were generated by something. If we can find out how they work then we can try and take it back to the original code and edit that

Aaron

[Guest Basher52]

About 20 minutes...

YOu were able to decompile a correct xml? Nice one, can you ipload them? Rapidshare, Mediafire etc? My coding skills should be enough to edit some xmls, in fact tha we knew what we got to edit.

Today ill take a view on init.rc, shouldgive us some more info.

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

About 20 minutes...

YOu were able to decompile a correct xml? Nice one, can you ipload them? Rapidshare, Mediafire etc? My coding skills should be enough to edit some xmls, in fact tha we knew what we got to edit.

Today ill take a view on init.rc, shouldgive us some more info.

I didn't really decompile it I just opened it in note pad and tried to make sense of it. When I get onto a pc this afternoon I will look at trying to decompile it properly.

Aaron

Edit: i've just found this on xda - forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6890075

Dno if it helps

Edited July 29, 2010 by Epic-Emodude

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

I just decompiled Rosie.apk (This is the apk that installs sense) using the peice of software I mentioned in my last post.

Im not sure if it did it correctly as I only got a res folder and Android Manifest.

I have found out that the to edit xmls your just meant to open them in notepad or word.

You can also use the software to recompile and test it. I dont know what all the xmls do so I cant really do much more at the moment.

If we want to port the whole Hero ROM, BigBear said he will help us with it once he gets more free time. This might be a better option, especially if the Hero gets froyo as it then allows us Froyo, Cyanogen Mod, and a load of other stuff so we can then make froyo sense ROM things for the Pulse.

Aaron

EDIT: I just decompiled Launcher Pro aswell and that seems to have worked. Having tried Sense again I think there may be some kind of protection stopping it from being decompiled properly. Ill have a fiddle with them and then repack them and see what happens

Edited July 29, 2010 by Epic-Emodude

[Guest rulerofkaos]

At this thread they ported the htc Desire camera app to Nexus One: http://android.modaco.com/content/google-n...cr-cm-enomther/

The ZIP patches the boot.img and adds some framework files, too. I tried to flash it, but my Pulse didn't boot. But it is possible to port htc sense apps!

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

At this thread they ported the htc Desire camera app to Nexus One: http://android.modaco.com/content/google-n...cr-cm-enomther/

The ZIP patches the boot.img and adds some framework files, too. I tried to flash it, but my Pulse didn't boot. But it is possible to port htc sense apps!

That looks promising although we will have to find out how he did it and then edit it for the pulse and do it for all the apps. We may find its easier to port a whole rom than all the individual apps. At least that way we know it will all work.

[Guest tabor56]

has sense been ported to any other non-HTC devices? wasn't this attempted before?

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

has sense been ported to any other non-HTC devices? wasn't this attempted before?

I know that big bear tried to port the hero kernel about 6 months ago but that was on 1.5 so its worth another go with 2.1 and maybe even Froyo. With regards to porting sense i don't know if it's been done before but it's probably worth a go. I would rather port a whole rom as it will give us more possibilities but both will be good.

Edit : just found this on xda forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=577663&page=2. They said that htc sense is heavily reliant on the framework. It might be possible to make it work, although they made it sound like it's easier to port the rom

Edited July 29, 2010 by Epic-Emodude

[Guest Basher52]

has sense been ported to any other non-HTC devices? wasn't this attempted before?

Its running on Nexus One and G1, but both are Google Dev Phones, and all specs are clear.

Ill try something around alter with Aarons Decompiler, will see if we will be lucky soon :(

[Guest BigBearMDC]

Its running on Nexus One and G1, but both are Google Dev Phones, and all specs are clear.

Ill try something around alter with Aarons Decompiler, will see if we will be lucky soon :(

Google Nexus One > HTC Passion

Google G1 > HTC Dream

Sorry :(

Furthermore Sense depends on the HTC frameworks, which every HTC device is using.

Regards,

BB

[Guest Basher52]

Google Nexus One > HTC Passion

Google G1 > HTC Dream

Sorry blush.gif

I knew about this, but didnt knew that those devices use the same HTC Kernel.

Furthermore Sense depends on the HTC frameworks, which every HTC device is using.

I tried to copy edit and paste them, but i thnik that wasnt real clever, they are embedded in kernel, so we got to change more.

BigBear, does your answer mean youre with us? Would be pleased about this :(

[Guest BigBearMDC]

I knew about this, but didnt knew that those devices use the same HTC Kernel.

I tried to copy edit and paste them, but i thnik that wasnt real clever, they are embedded in kernel, so we got to change more.

BigBear, does your answer mean youre with us? Would be pleased about this :(

I don't think they use the same kernel.

Well, maybe the same structure, but at least the drivers are different.

As far as I can tell all HTC kernel are pretty much stock Android kernels, without much modifications. But I don't think that the frameworks depend on the kernel too much. The kernel is pretty similar on all devices - it does the same in a different way. The bigger problem is that - at least I think so - the HTC frameworks depend on the HTC kernel's driver functions, which are just missing in our kernel. So yeah I think it would possible be a job consisting of 2 parts: porting the necessary kernel bits and the framework bits. We could also be lucky and find out that the frameworks don't depend on the kernel, which would be good. But I think at least the framebuffer is a bit modified to work correctly with Sense.

And yeah, sure, I'm always with you guys :(

Best regards,

BB

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

I don't think they use the same kernel.

Well, maybe the same structure, but at least the drivers are different.

As far as I can tell all HTC kernel are pretty much stock Android kernels, without much modifications. But I don't think that the frameworks depend on the kernel too much. The kernel is pretty similar on all devices - it does the same in a different way. The bigger problem is that - at least I think so - the HTC frameworks depend on the HTC kernel's driver functions, which are just missing in our kernel. So yeah I think it would possible be a job consisting of 2 parts: porting the necessary kernel bits and the framework bits. We could also be lucky and find out that the frameworks don't depend on the kernel, which would be good. But I think at least the framebuffer is a bit modified to work correctly with Sense.

And yeah, sure, I'm always with you guys :(

Best regards,

BB

So if we ported the parts of the kernel we could have sense, and if we ported the whole kernel we could then put any rom that works on the hero on our pulses? If this is the case would it be better to port the whole thing so we could have Froyo and the such? Correct me if I'm wrong, but i'm a little confused as to what exactly the kernel does and what porting it would involve and allow us.

Aaron

[Guest BigBearMDC]

So if we ported the parts of the kernel we could have sense, and if we ported the whole kernel we could then put any rom that works on the hero on our pulses? If this is the case would it be better to port the whole thing so we could have Froyo and the such? Correct me if I'm wrong, but i'm a little confused as to what exactly the kernel does and what porting it would involve and allow us.

Aaron

Hmm porting the whole kernel would be a possibility, yes. If we manage to make our kernel look like the Hero kernel to Android, we could maybe run every HTC ROM on our Pulse. The problem is that the hardware and thus the drivers are different. I saw many of Huawei's drivers and many of HTC's drivers and they look totally different although they should do the same things. So it is possible that the frameworks are modified and are not interchangeable, although they are doing exactly the same thing. Another problem is that we would have to "hide" the real architecture of our Pulse and make it look like a HTC, what is maybe not possible. Special frameworks might depend on hardware functions our device does not even have and vice - versa. So porting the kernel might be not worth the effort. I think it would be easier to port the CM etc. directly to our Pulse, without hiding it behind a virtual hardware architecture. But I don't want to be too pessimistic, so we may only have to cop the needed frameworks and change them only a bit to get Sense working on our lovely HTC Pulse :(

Best regards,

BB

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

Hmm porting the whole kernel would be a possibility, yes. If we manage to make our kernel look like the Hero kernel to Android, we could maybe run every HTC ROM on our Pulse. The problem is that the hardware and thus the drivers are different. I saw many of Huawei's drivers and many of HTC's drivers and they look totally different although they should do the same things. So it is possible that the frameworks are modified and are not interchangeable, although they are doing exactly the same thing. Another problem is that we would have to "hide" the real architecture of our Pulse and make it look like a HTC, what is maybe not possible. Special frameworks might depend on hardware functions our device does not even have and vice - versa. So porting the kernel might be not worth the effort. I think it would be easier to port the CM etc. directly to our Pulse, without hiding it behind a virtual hardware architecture. But I don't want to be too pessimistic, so we may only have to cop the needed frameworks and change them only a bit to get Sense working on our lovely HTC Pulse :(

Best regards,

BB

So if we had the hero kernel then our phones would be a hero from androids point of view?

I assume that rewriting the pulses drivers in htc style is not an option? And I'm getting the impression that there's more to the framework than the things that we flash to change the look of the notification bar etc. Would porting the whole thing also have the advantage of multitouch and flash and stuff rather than just sense.

Aaron