Customizing Maemo

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 this thread.

Editing home
Through the Edit mode of the Home screen it is possible to: 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.
 * 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)

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 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 Prismic wallpaper manager

Also see http://wiki.maemo.org/Customizing_Maemo#Wallpapers_2

Shortcut to 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 here. Examples: "Open source. Open heart. Open future.", "The Power of Open."

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

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 Maemo Theme Maker HOWTO

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.

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 N900 MODs

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

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!

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.

Slide to Unlock Screen
You can edit the "Slide to Unlock" screen that appears upon pressing the power button while the phone is locked. You can do this by editing the png files found in /usr/share/themes/alpha/backgrounds/

Reordering The Status Icons
You can reorder the status icons that display on top of your desktop by editing /ect/hildon-desktop/status-menu.plugins

Resources & Links
Advanced Tweaks: Collection of Low-Level Config-Files / Tools

Powatool

Personalizing your Maemo 5 device presentation (slides) at Maemo Summit 2009.