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Conversation Mods

Latest revision as of 19:55, 5 July 2011

The idea of modifying the way the Conversations App displays our SMS/IM conversations was initially brought up here in this thread.

Below is a comparison of the default theme and a custom theme.

Default Nokia Theme

Custom Theme

[edit] How To Mod The Conversations Theme

Ejasmudar has created a tool to automate some of the following processes, it is still early in development and is mainly aimed to help people who aren't comforted typing in multiple lines of code into the terminal. The app can be found here. For those of you who love fiddling around with your beloved N900 via X-Terminal, read on.

The location of the files that need to be modified in order to change the way our conversations look are located here /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html/.

This script has been created in order to make it easier for people to apply the theme they have picked.

The html folder contains 10 files:

• 3 files for the SMS theme

MessagingWidgetsSMSConversations.css

MessagingWidgetsSMSConversations.js

MessagingWidgetsSMSConversations.html

• 3 files for the IM theme

MessagingWidgetsChatConversations.css

MessagingWidgetsChatConversations.js

MessagingWidgetsChatConversations.html

• 3 files for the Single Message Theme

MessagingWidgetsSingleSMS.css

MessagingWidgetsSingleSMS.js

MessagingWidgetsSingleSMS.html

• 1 file which contains the image for the user's avatar

avatar.png

Here is a video tutorial with slightly modified steps as with above. Instead of using X Terminal, FileBox was used to copy/replace the files with modified themes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU8jiAG4H70

[edit] Backing up & Restore Themes

Just in case you do not want to backup the default theme.

The files for the default theme can be found here

If you have a custom theme that you would like to save then here are some instructions for you.

[edit] Backing Up

Open X-Terminal and type in the following to backup your current theme

root
cd /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html
mv MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.css MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.css.bak
mv MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.js MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.js.bak
mv MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.html MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.html.bak
mv MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.css MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.css.bak
mv MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.js MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.js.bak
mv MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.html MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.html.bak

[edit] Restoring Your Backup

Open X-Terminal and type in the following to restore your backup

root
cd /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html
mv MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.css.bak MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.css
mv MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.js.bak MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.js
mv MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.html.bak MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.html
mv MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.css.bak MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.css
mv MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.js.bak MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.js
mv MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.html.bak MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.html

[edit] Changing Your Own Avatar

You have probably noticed that if you change the avatar for someone in your Contacts, their avatar also changes when they SMS or IM you.

This is great, but Nokia seemed to leave our own avatar non customisable..

NOTE: Only certain themes will show your avatar. Please check the screenshots below. If an avatar on 'your' side of the conversation isn't shown, then it is very likely the theme does not allow you to see your own avatar

For those of you who love fiddling around with your beloved N900 via X-Terminal, here are some instructions on how to install a custom avatar:

1. Find a picture that you want to use as your avatar and make sure its a .png file
2. Resize that picture (using your favourite Photo Editing Tool) to 64 x 64 pixels
3. Copy the resized picture onto the root directory of your N900 and rename it to avatar.png
4. Now open X-Terminal and type the code shown below

root
cp -f /home/user/MyDocs/avatar.png /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html/

Voila!

NOTE: Every change you make to the files within the html folder, to get the changes to show up, you have to either reboot, or type this into X-Terminal:

root
killall rtcom-messaging-ui

[edit] Installing A Custom Theme

Ejasmudar has created a tool to automate this process, it is still early in development and is mainly aimed to help people who aren't comforted typing in multiple lines of code into the terminal. The app can be found here

For those of you who love fiddling around with your beloved N900 via X-Terminal, here are some instructions on how to install custom themes:

Firstly, create a folder in the root directory of your N900 called "html"

root
mkdir /home/user/MyDocs/html

Now follow the steps below to install a theme

1. Select a theme that you want to use from the x section at the bottom of this wiki
2. Download the zip/rar archive and unzip the contents to the html folder that you recently created
3. Now open X-Terminal and type the following

root
cp -f /home/user/MyDocs/html/* /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html/

This will copy all the files across and into the correct directory.

[edit] Creating IM Files

Most themes only contain the files for SMS and do not have the required files for IM.

Here is how to solve that problem. Seeing as the contents of both SMS and IM files are the same, you can simply created duplicates and rename them.

Here is a simple method to do this, just type the following into X-Terminal

root
cd /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html/
cp -f MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.css MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.css
cp -f MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.js MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.js
cp -f MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.html MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.html

NOTE: Every change you make to the files within the html folder, you have to type this into X-Terminal:

root
killall rtcom-messaging-ui

[edit] Themes

Some of the themes below will support portrait mode correctly, whereas others will still have a horizontal scrollbar.

This script will edit the themes below to allow them to better support portrait viewing.

Note: The themes have been repacked to make it easy to install via Conversation Modder. In case original theme file is required, please use the link in the first column.

Name	Created By	Portrait Support	Screenshot	Download
Own Avatar	b666m	No		Own_Avatar
Both Avatars On The Left	b666m	No	N/A	Download
Alternative Layout	b666m	No		Download
IM Mod	b666m	No	N/A	Download
Different Colours	b666m	No		None
Group By Sender	termi_uc	No		Download
Bubble Conversation	Reflektorfalke	No		Download
Increased Text Size Link 1 & Link 2	b666m	No	N/A	Download
Text & Avatar Bubbles	b666m	No		Download
Simple & Lightweight	Grant	No		Download
Simple	m165	No		Download
Niqbal's Theme 1	niqbal	No		Download
Niqbal's Theme 2	niqbal	No		Download
Niqbal's Theme 3	niqbal	No		Download
Niqbal's Theme 4	niqbal	No		Download
Niqbal's Theme 5	niqbal	No		Download
Niqbal's Theme 6	niqbal	No		IM SMS
Spacing Mod	byte_76	No	N/A	Download
Spacing Mod 2	Kurele	No
Minimal	Grant	No		Download
Xgrind	xgrind	No		Download
Eitama Minimal	eitama	No		Download
Compact	edanaher	No	N/A	Download
SR90's Themes	SR90	No	Multiple Themes In One. Check Thread For Screenshots!	Original 7610 Original Blue Orange
N900 Compact	TMarki	No		Download
Gsever's Theme	gsever	No		Download
Blue and Green Bubbles With Multiple Alignments	godofwar424	Yes	Multiple Themes In One. Check Thread For Screenshots!	Right Alignment Left Alignment Bubble Standard
MoonLight Style	maxximuscool	Yes		Download
Customisable Bubble Themes	Harick	Yes	Multiple Themes In One. Check Thread For Screenshots!	Too many to repack as individual themes
Apple Black & Avatar	Harick	Yes		Download
Apple Green	Harick	Yes		Apple Green Apple Green Avatar b66m portrait
Theme with Portrait Support	Excesv	Yes		Download
iphone UI	Niqbal			Download
Default theme with portrait IM and SMS	Knarf	Yes	Check Thread For Screenshots!	Modded Original look
F2thaK's Themes	F2thaK	Yup	Multiple themes, see thread for pics	<< See thread to Download

[edit] Credits

• andrewfblack
• b666m
• Reflektorfalke
• termi_uc
• qole
• Grant
• m165
• niqbal
• byte_76
• Kurele
• Xgrind
• eitama
• edanaher
• SR90
• TMarki
• gsever
• godofwar424
• Harick
• ejasmudar
• Knarf
• F2thaK