• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root [MetroPCS & T-Mobile] LGSystemUI MOD: Black status bar, Brightness Slider reduced, Quick Settings & QSlide removed

This is the final result of several hours of tinkering with LGSystemUI.apk by hand (editing the XML files and PNG images) over the past 2 weeks.

  • Status bar background changed to black
  • Brightness Slider reduced in size, percentage number removed, background darkened to match the Date / Settings bar beneath it.
  • Quick Settings removed (actually just hidden) in favor of Power Toggles which is far more versatile and doesn't give stupid popup messages (i.e. warning you when you boot up in airplane mode).

LGSystemUI-Screenshot.png


TO INSTALL (root required):

This is for the T-Mobile version P65910b. It doesn't work on the T-Mobile P65910a. I think it may work on the latest MetroPCS ROM, but not sure so someone will have to try it and report back.

Make a backup with CWM if you're new to this and install at your own risk. I take no responsibility if you brick your device.
  1. Download the file LGSystemUI.apk (see bottom of post) to your device
  2. Use ES File Explorer (with Root Explorer turned on) to copy the file to /system
  3. Once in /system, go into the file properties
  4. Set permissions to Owner: Read & Write, Group: Read, Other: Read
  5. Move the file from /system to /system/app
  6. Reboot your phone
  7. You wallpaper may change back to the default LG wallpaper.
  8. Optional: Install Power Toggles (or Notification Toggle if you prefer).

TO UNINSTALL: Download LGSystemUI-Original.apk, rename to LGSystemUI.apk and repeat steps 2 through 6 above.
 

Attachments

Next time make sure you label what version you can use it with, because it doesnt work with p65910a just throwing it out there :D
 
Thanks, added that bit of into to the post. Why are you still using P65910a? As far as I know the only difference with the 'b' version is security updates, and I'd think you'd want those.
 
Thanks, added that bit of into to the post. Why are you still using P65910a? As far as I know the only difference with the 'b' version is security updates, and I'd think you'd want those.

Exactly they patched a couple things on "b" one being the recovery that is why i still run it haha x), but i forgot to back it up and i had to reflash the kdz x) and i updated to "b" and i really like this mod, alot more room for notifications :D
 
Exactly they patched a couple things on "b" one being the recovery that is why i still run it haha x), but i forgot to back it up and i had to reflash the kdz x) and i updated to "b" and i really like this mod, alot more room for notifications :D

Glad you like it! Yeah, I found the original stock Quick Settings buttons and the QSlide bar to take up way too much space. Note that I did find a flaw, though you'll only discover it if you do a factory reset with the mod in place. I'll fix that in the next couple days and post a new APK here, so check in soon.
 
New APK uploaded with the flaw patched. It should retain it's look now if you do a factory reset.

Also, I'm interested in people's opinions on the brightness slider, i.e. whether you use it, or whether I should just get rid of it completely. I could make a version without it, of course.
 
Alright thanks anyway, I was just curious because using gravitybox the color never stays

Yeah, I tried GravityBox before and noticed the same problem. That's kind of what lead me to learn how to do these kinds of mods myself using apktool and editing by hand. If you're at all inclined, i.e. you know how to do basic edits of a graphic file or have learned even basic html/xml, I highly suggest you look into learning how to do such edits yourself.
 
This is very cool, but can you make one without the quick settings removed? Everything is nice, but I rather have the stock quick settings since it only takes one line and has the scroll effect. If you don't want to make it can you just tell me how to do it myself?
 
This is very cool, but can you make one without the quick settings removed? Everything is nice, but I rather have the stock quick settings since it only takes one line and has the scroll effect. If you don't want to make it can you just tell me how to do it myself?

I'm not sure when I'll have time to do it myself, and it's probably better if you learn to do such edits yourself anyway, so here goes:

Read this page on setting up APKTOOL and use this as your guide for doing everything. If you had questions, refer back to that page. That was the page I used to get started learning this stuff so it if it's good enough for me it should be good enough for you (and I didn't have the help of someone telling me exactly where to look to make the changes I wanted to make).

First you'll want to decompile my modded LGSystemUI.apk file, so copy it to your computer and decompile with:
apktool -d LGSystemUI.apk

That will make an LGSystemUI subfolder.

- In that folder go to \res\layout\ and find quicksetting.xml. Open it with Notepad++.

- On the 4th line, find this bit of code:
android:layout_height="0.0dip">
... and change it to this:
android:layout_height="wrap_content">

- Save and exit.

- Recompile with:
apktool b LGsystemUI
(note: no .apk on the end, because we're building files from the folder)

- Follow the stops from the link above about "signing the .apk"

You don't need to zipalign (or at least, I didn't do that step).

- Copy it back to your device. Then using a root explorer, copy it to the /system folder using a root explorer (i.e. ES File Explorer in root mode with r/w enabled on /system).

- Change file permissions. Go to the file properties for the file, change permission: Owner to Read and Write, Group to Read, Other to Read.

- Move the file to /system/app, overwriting the existing one.

- Reboot

Of course I'd recommend making a system backup first from recovery, in case something goes wrong and you need to revert.
 
Thanks and for Gravitybox, you have to use live wallpaper or a different home launcher for it to work properly. Don't know why live wallpaper, but hey it works!
 
Also if you don't mind can you just show me how to modify the original LGSystemUI.apk to only have the brightness bar tweak of changing its size and removing the percentage that you did? I realize thats actually the only thing I wanted. You don't have to if you don't want to, but I would appreciate it very much if you do, and I apologize if this annoys you.
 
Back
Top Bottom