Customizing Maemo

2010-11-20T12:39:30Z

76.173.9.27: /* Reordering The Status Icons */

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This article will someday describe how everybody can customize Maemo 5 to make it as personal as possible. Discussion on t.m.o concerning customization in [http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32845 this thread].

== Editing home ==

Through the Edit mode of the Home screen it is possible to:
* Add/move/delete widgets/shortcuts/contacts/bookmarks on the desktop
* Change the the number of desktop home views (1-4 views are available)
* Change background of the home (either for individual view or for all home views simultaneously through wallpaper sets)
* Change active theme of the device (out of the themes available/installed on the device)
Entering the edit mode happens by long tapping the home screen or by tapping the home screen background once and then tapping the Edit mode button which slides down at the top right corner of the home screen.

== Themes ==

Available themes can be installed straight from Application Manager. If you want to make your own theme, see below. See also article [[Themes]].

== Wallpapers ==

There is already [http://www.n900wallpapers.com/ n900wallpapers.com] for wallpapers. Unfortunately, you need a .desktop-file if you want to configure panoramic wallpapers for now.

There will be an application for wallpaper handling to be released (hopefully) soon. See [http://www.iolitetech.com/products/prismic-wallpaper-manager Prismic wallpaper manager]

Also see [[Customizing_Maemo#Wallpapers_2]]

== Advanced customization ==
'''DISCLAIMER: Following instructions are only for [[:Category:Power_users|Power users]], and operations are potentially dangerous. Please see [[General precautions]] for further information.'''

=== Same Shortcut on multiple desktops ===

Use the same shortcut twice on the desktops can be useful. In order to do it, you have to manually modify appropiate .desktop file by adding the "X-Multiple=true" entry into the file. See [[Desktop file format]] for further information.

=== Welcome screen ===

It is possible to edit hildon-welcome. A howto is available [http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=347925&postcount=9 here]. Examples: [http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=347794&postcount=1 "Open source. Open heart. Open future."], [http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=350710&postcount=1 "The Power of Open."]

To insert your own video follow these instructions (from the link above thanks to VDVsx):

# Copy the video you want to play to /usr/share/hildon-welcome/media
# Go to /etc/hildon-welcome.d/ and edit the default.conf file or create a similar one (the videos will play by the alphabetic order of the .conf files)

=== LED notifications ===

Detailed description for modifying LED -notifications can be found in [[LED patterns]] -article.

=== Themes ===

There is an application for making themes to Maemo OS2008. This will be updated as soon as possible to cover also N900 and Maemo5. See article [[Making themes]].

=== Wallpapers ===

If you want to make panoramic wallpapers of your own, you need to create a .desktop -file and put it to same directory where your pictures are.

Example of a .desktop -file:
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Background Image
Name=Deers
Hidden=true

X-File1=/home/user/MyDocs/.images/deer1.png
X-File2=/home/user/MyDocs/.images/deer2.png
X-File3=/home/user/MyDocs/.images/deer3.png
X-File4=/home/user/MyDocs/.images/deer4.png

X-Order=01

====How to change a certain wall paper in terminal?====
gconftool -s --type string /apps/osso/hildon-desktop/views/1/bg-image $PATHTOIMAGE

Replace number "1" with the number of the desktop that you'd like change.<ref>http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=483028&postcount=2</ref>

====Where are the slider screen files located?====
====Slide to Unlock Screen====

You can edit the "Slide to Unlock" / "slider" screen that appears upon
pressing the power button while the phone is
locked<ref>http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=491060&postcount=403</ref>
. You can do this by editing the lockslider.png file found in:

/usr/share/themes/alpha/backgrounds/

(note that /usr/share/themes is now a symlink to /opt/usr/share/themes
, so the above path and /opt/usr/share/themes/alpha/backgrounds/ both
refer to the same on-disk location)

The other images (LockSliderTop.png, LockSliderThumbPortrait.png,
LockSliderThumb.png, LockSliderRight.png, LockSliderLeft.png,
LockSliderBottom.png) are in /usr/share/themes/alpha/images (same
symlink note as before applies).

===Using the same widget on multiple desktops===

The folder /usr/share/applications/hildon contains files that contain info about installed programs. Duplicating these files will result in duplicating them in the shortcut list. However, this will result in a side effect causing the program to show multiple times the programs in the "More.." folder.

=== Contents of power key menu ===

Information on how to add reboot button to power key menu, add new keyboard shortcuts [http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=39565 N900 MODs]

Instructions on how to add the reboot key (from the link above thanks to f2thak):

# Open xterm and type sudo gainroot to enable root access
# Navigate to /etc/systemui
# Create a backup copy of the systemui file by typing cp systemui.xml systemui.xml.bak
# Edit the systemui file by typing vi systemui.xml
# At the bottom of the file you will notice that part of it (consisting of three ... entries) is disabled within the "comment" marks
# Move the "comment" marks mentioned above "<! --" without the space between ! and - (e.g. by deleting and re-typing them in other place) so that the two remaining entries ("Soft poweroff" and "Top in XTerm") are still within them but the "Reboot" entry gets outside of them. To do this, hit the key "i" to begin editing and the Esc button in xterm to stop (once you are done editing "dd" will delete any line you created by accident). Type :wq to save and edit after being done editing
# Close X-Terminal and reboot the device. After the N900 reboots, you should see the new "Reboot" option in the Menu

=== Transitions ===

Transition Control is an application which allows you to change various transition effects of the phone. Another approach is to edit the
/usr/share/hildon-desktop/transitions.ini file (root access is needed)

===Keyboard characters===

[[Remapping keyboard]]

[[Special_characters_view]]

====Keyboard Sym on auto hold====
PR1.2 brought a change in behaviour where holding a key will now result in the SYM for that key being inserted.

Maemo Bug 5421 details this change.
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5421

to re-enable the old autorepeat behaviour:

gconftool-2 -s /apps/osso/inputmethod/ext_kb_repeat_enabled --type boolean true

===Application Menu===

[[Application Menu]]

===Camera Sound===

In /usr/share/sounds the files camera_snd_title_1, 2 and 3 (1 is the camera shutter sound, 2 is the video recording sound and 3 is the focus sound) just replace them with any working wav sound file OR for a SILENT CAMERA just rename or delete these files! <ref name="camsnd">[http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=462484 Silent Camera Hack ]</ref>
Silent profile also quiets camera :-D

===Editing SMS and Chat templates===
You can change the way you read SMS and chat conversations by editing the html files in /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html.<ref>http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=36618</ref>

=== Icons ===

Icons tend to live in /usr/share/icons/hicolor/x/x/x, where x will vary according to the sort of icon in question. <ref>http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=481662&postcount=252</ref>

*/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/hildon
**Signal images
**Battery1 images
<pre>
statusarea_battery_full13.png
statusarea_battery_full25.png
statusarea_battery_full38.png
statusarea_battery_full50.png
statusarea_battery_full63.png
statusarea_battery_full75.png
statusarea_battery_full88.png
statusarea_battery_full100.png
</pre>
**Bootup icons
<pre>
indicator_update1.png
indicator_update2.png
indicator_update3.png
indicator_update4.png
indicator_update5.png
indicator_update6.png
indicator_update7.png
indicator_update8.png
</pre>

*/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/hildon/
** Battery2 images
** Availability images

*/usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/hildon
** Availability (Small) images

In many cases icons saved to ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/x/x/x will override the system icons, but leave them in place. This has the added advantage that it will survive OTA firmware updates. Deleting or movnig the icons in~/.local/... will revert to the orignal system icons. [Does this apply to all icons and images??]

====Reordering The Status Icons====
You can reorder the status icons that display on top of your desktop by editing /etc/hildon-desktop/status-menu.plugins<ref>http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=485678&postcount=334</ref>

Change the number(s) for the "X-Status-Menu-Position" section. The higher number, the lower the priority.

===Sound Effects===
You can edit the UI sound effects by editing the sound files found in /usr/share/sounds <ref>http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=486875&postcount=346</ref>

===Disabling Auto Updates Check===
You may want to disable the automatic software updates checks that occur upon internet connection, in order to consume less bandwidth when using 2G/3G connections. You can do so by editing the gconf file found in /var/lib/gconf/apps/hildon/update-notifier and changing the check interval from 1440(24 hours) to a much larger value. The value must not exceed 2,147,483,647:
gconftool -s --type int /apps/hildon/update-notifier/check_interval NEW_VALUE

== Resources & Links ==

Advanced Tweaks: [http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=39948 Collection of Low-Level Config-Files / Tools]

[https://garage.maemo.org/projects/powatool/ Powatool]

[http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Summit_2009/Day_2#Personalizing_your_Maemo_5_device Personalizing your Maemo 5 device] presentation ([http://www.slideshare.net/hartti/n900-personalization slides]) at Maemo Summit 2009.

==References==

<references />

[[Category:Power_users]]
[[Category:N900]]

Maemo Wiki Mirror - User contributions [en]

Customizing Maemo