Frees iOS from its loading indicator frame count limitation. Also allows for custom image sets for the indicators(without the need of Winterboard).
Everything you need to know about customs themes:
Currently, there are 4 themeable styles - White, WhiteLarge, Gray, and StatusBar. The white style contains a white indicator, the white large style also contains a white indicator, the gray style contains a gray indicator(I found #939393 to be the color which matched the gray apple uses), and the status bar style contains a black indicator.
If you ever themed the indicators in the past via Winterboard, you would know Apple names their images like such:
UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleWhite
UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleWhiteLarge
UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleGray
UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleStatusBar
Images for the White style are 40px by 40px @2x, images for the WhiteLarge style are 74px by 74px @2x, images for the Gray style are 40px by 40px @2x, and images for the StatusBar style are 20px by 40px @2x.
Let's say we wanted to make a theme for the White style, the first image would be named [email protected] , the second would be [email protected], the third would be [email protected], and so on. Images must follow this naming convention to be used.
If you are looking for some indicators, you can find a good set from http://preloaders.net/. I would suggest using APNG with a transparent background. Then adjust the color and pixel size to match the indicator you are trying to create. For the status bar style, I would suggest using 20x by 20px then using a tool such as Photoshop to increase the canvas height to 40px(which will still keep the indicator centered).Click generate preloader to verify it looks as you wanted and then click download. Next, head over to http://animizer.net/en/gif-apng-splitter then insert the APNG you downloaded and hit continue to splitter. Then download them in PNG format. Note that the website has a white background so white indicators may not be visible. Now you have a set of image frames and you just need to rename them.
Now that we have a set of images created, what do we do with them?
FreeLoader loads its images from /Library/Application Support/FreeLoader. Places the images in a folder, we will call it 'ThemeTest', as an example. Then place this folder in the FreeLoader folder. The file structure should now look like /Library/Application Support/FreeLoader/ThemeTest/(your images inside here). Alternatively, you can create a .deb to package and install the files(will be talked about below). Inside the folder your created earlier, you can have images from each of the different styles but you can not have two of the same styles inside the same folder. Once the folder of images is on your device, you will be able to select it from the preferences.
I have a set of images created and I want to create a .deb for easy distribution and installation, what do I do?
To create the .deb, this tutorial will assume you are going to either use your device or macosx. Last resort, you can contact me @fewjative and I will help package the files up for you.
To start, create a folder with the naming convention com.XXX.YYY where XXX is your name and YYY is the theme name. For example, com.joshdoctors.windows8theme. You should check in Cydia to see if anyone has used the YYY name before, you must have a unique name. Next, create a folder called 'DEBIAN' (yes, it must be in all capitals) inside the com.joshdoctors.windows8theme folder. Also, create a folder called 'Library' inside the com.joshdoctors.windows8theme folder. Inside 'Library' , create a folder called 'Application Support'. Inside the 'Application Support' folder, create a folder called 'FreeLoader'. Inside the 'FreeLoader' folder, create a folder with the title you will give to your theme,for example 'Windows8'. Next, place all of your images into that folder.
The file structure should look like this at the moment:
com.joshdoctors.windows8theme
--DEBIAN
--Library/Application Support/FreeLoader/Windows8/(your images)
If you are at this point, you are close!
Navigate to the 'DEBIAN' folder and inside, create a file (not folder) called 'control'. This control file contains the information regarding the theme such as the package name as well as your information. You can use an editor such as TextEdit or Sublime to edit the file. An example control file is show below. As you can see, each item goes on a separate line. The package name must be unique as well as the name. This theme depends on freeloader so the freeloader package is listed as a dependency.
Package: com.joshdoctors.windows8theme
Name: Windows8 Theme
Depends: com.joshdoctors.freeloader
Version: 1.0.0
Architecture: iphoneos-arm
Description: Windows 8 theme to be used with the FreeLoader tweak.
Maintainer: Josh Doctors
Author: Josh Doctors
Section: Themes (SpringBoard)
Once you have created and saved this file, you are about ready to package it up. Invisible '.DS_STORE' files may be in your folders so if you are on a mac, you should use a tool called DS_Store Cleaner to remove them before your package the .deb.
To create the .deb
Your file structure should look like this now:
com.joshdoctors.windows8theme
--DEBIAN/control
--Library/Application Support/FreeLoader/Windows8/(your images)
Open terminal and navigate to the folder that contains com.joshdoctors.windows8theme. Enter the command 'su' (along with your password). Then enter 'dpkg -b com.joshdoctors.windows8theme'. It may give you a few warnings regarding the control file but you can ignore them. You should now see a com.joshdoctors.windows8theme.deb file. Now, when you install this .deb, it will automatically place the theme images in the correct location.