Creating your first Android Icon Pack

Notiflux a youtube fan contacted me the other day to see if i would like some custom Icons to go with my RootJunky logo and colors. I told him, I would love it.  From there Notiflux created me some awesome icons using Gimp a photo editing program. You can also use programs like Paint.net and Adobe Photoshop which is my favorite. With these cool new icons in hand I had to take on the task of creating a Icon Pack App for them.

Creating your first Android Icon Pack can be a little challenging but I hope that this post will help you along the way. One of the first things you need to do it download and install the Android SDK which is included in Android Studio. After installing Android Studio you will need to update the Android SDK to get the latest version, check this post for help.  NOTE  I used Eclipse to build my apps as that is want i am use to but if you are just getting started it is highly recommend to use Android Studio. 

Creating your first Android Icon Pack is really easy if you use Apex Icon Pack Sample as your template. This is really helpful in getting everything to need setup and running.  Open Android Studio or Eclipse and Import the Sample app. Once done you can go ahead and make some quick edits to it and have your own icon pack app.  While editing I have found it easier to look at the XML files instead of the Graphical layout or resource views, its is much more logical this way.

A couple really good recourse to help you in editing the Apex Icon Pack Sample can be found Here and Here. The main files that you will be editing are the files in folder RES and SRC the rest of these files can me left alone for the most part. You can put your edited Icons in the drawable-xhdpi folder. Once you have make all your edits you can either run the app on a connected phone over adb or you can export the app to a APK file and then install it on any device you want to.

It you have a day or to to read through all the this information and get a Icon Pack of your own, it can really be a lot of fun. Use your imagination and there is no telling what awesome things you might create. If you would like to Check out my Icon Pack that works with a bunch of Android home launchers like Apex and Nova click here and you can download it from the Google Play Store.

Extra Credit

Link to the files i used in my app can be found here, should be a great help if you need to compare some code like i did.

RootJunkySDL.com

Thanks to Notiflux for all his help

RootJunky Out

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