This post is designed to clear up the confusion that is going on in several threads and I hope this can be made a sticky for all to see and understand the issues we are facing.
In FW 2.x, we were able to skin keyboards by replacing Apple's bitmapped keyboard images with our own. These bitmapped keyboards and some additional images were packed in Keyboard-Common.artwork and Keyboard-Latin.artwork files. We had two options to skin them:
1. unpack and repack images into .artwork files and replace those artwork files on the device.
2. place all keyboard images into a WinterBoard theme.
Both options no longer work, since as of FW 3.0, Apple has essentially abandoned bitmapped keyboards in favor of a programmatic approach that uses vector instructions. For details on this see
networkpx Project Blog: Text input on 3.0, Part 4 — UIKBKeylistReference
Let me restate that neither .artwork mods nor WinterBoard themes will skin keyboards in FW 3.0.
So what about these various keyboard hacks that can be enabled through alternative keyboards when tapping on the globe key?
Currently I am aware of two solutions that will change the keyboard appearance using alternate bitmapped keyboards (both require commercial licenses and both have issues):
1.
iAccess: this solution relies on a Chinese system modification. It uses bitmapped keyboards that are located inside the application bundle. There are QWERTY keyboards included both in portrait and landscape format. One option is to replace these bitmaps in the iAcces application. It is also possible to skin iAcces in WinterBoard, enabling the use of various WinterBoard themes. This is one example of the iAcces keyboard that was skinned through WinterBoard:
For details on how to install iAcces and additional keyboards, see the following thread:
http://modmyi.com/forums/skinning-th...ard-3-0-a.html
Note, however, that several users have reported significant problems after installing iAccess. One problem appears to be that after installation of iAcces, Cydia simply hangs and you need to reboot. You may have to keep home and power buttons pressed for very long times to actually cause the reboot, but after that iAcces is functional. Unfortunately, the UI of this application is in Chinese, so make sure to follow the instructions in the above thread if you want to try this. The major problem with this solution is that you will lose your dictionary and auto-correction.
2.
iTypeFastR: this solution uses a similar strategy and includes several keyboards that can be skinned. The problem with this is that you will have to stick to the particular keyboard layouts provided by the app. These are non-standard in that more frequently used character keys have larger shapes (this is intentional and the selling point of the app). This is what the iTypeFastr keyboard looks like when installed:
So if you like that layout, you can skin away. Unfortunately, the app will not replace all keyboards (search fields and mail to fields will revert to default keyboards). There are also reports that auto-correct is lost (I have not verified this). For more info on iTypeFastR see
iTypeFastR - type faster and with less typos on your iPhone
As it turns out (and pointed out by bandit_kaine in this thread), iTypeFastR and iAcces use the same approach to define keyboards. The keyboard layouts of iAcces and iTypeFastR are both stored in the ini folders in 4 files: kb_define_base.dat, kb_define_base.ini, kb_define_base_landscape.dat, and kb_define_base_landscape.ini. Therefore, you can change the iTypeFastR keyboard layout by replacing the above 4 files in iTypefastR with those of iAcces and the iTypeFastR keyboard layout will revert to the standard layout.
There is an emerging third solution:
3.
iKeyEx: This solution is in its infancy and currently not a viable option for full keyboard skinning. If and when implement fully, this will enable skinning of the vector keyboards. To illustrate the possibilities (and limitations) of this approach, check the following image (note that this image is not within the capabilities of the released iKeyEx versions, but may be possible in future versions):
As you can see, pretty much all aspects of the keys and labels can theoretically be styled (rectangle roundness, gradient, text style/color). While this will not give us fancy bitmapped keyboards, at least one might be able to alter the appearance somewhat. This feature was introduced with iKeyEx 0.1-99g.
Note, however, that at present, only the text styles of the key labels are theme-able, but hopefully the key shapes and colors will be in future updates of iKeyEx. You can follow the progress of iKeyEx at
http://networkpx.blogspot.com and at the projects code wiki at
http://code.google.com/p/networkpx/
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I will try and update this first post with new information. Please leave your comments or alternative approaches and I will try and gather them if they are useful for this initial post.
08-26-2009, 05:45 PM
Linear Mode
