Skin edit trick - preview screen

Skin edit trick Customize phonebook/picture preview screen

First thank Patuno for telling me this idea. I found that we can edit the skin .SKI file to customize the preview screen of phonebook entries and pictures. We can customize the number of entries shown in one screen and the coordinates of the picture and text of each entry. Please note that this trick actually affects both phonebook and picture.

Tools you need:
TextWrangler for Mac or UltraEdit for PC (or Skinner4moto)

Steps

1. download the .ski file (i.e. moto.ski) from your phone to your computer.

2. make a backup of the file, then open it using the text editor (TextWrangler or UltraEdit).

3. in the ski file, look for the 4 blocks of text similar to the followings.
0 14 3
1 0 39 168 90
1 0 92 168 143
1 0 145 168 196
0 15 3
1 2 41 49 88
1 2 94 49 141
1 2 147 49 194
...

0 20 3
1 52 46 167 64
1 52 99 167 117
1 52 151 167 169
0 21 3
1 52 66 167 84
1 52 119 167 137
1 52 171 167 189

explanation
- you can see there are 4 blocks of text. each one consists of one header row and three detail rows.
- The second column of the header row (i.e. 14, 15, 20 and 21) are the IDs of the items, so you must not change them. The 3rd column defines the number of entries to be shown in the preview screen. The number of detail rows must match with this number. each detail row defines the coordinates of each preview entry.
- The 2nd to 5th columns of detail rows define the coordinate of each item. 2nd & 3rd define the top-left corner of the rectangle, while 4th & 5th define the bottom-right corner.
- ID (0 14) defines the coordinates of the background of highlighted item
- ID (0 15) defines the coordinates of the picture thumbnail of each item
- ID (0 20) defines the coordinates of the phonebook name or picture filename of each item
- ID (0 21) defines the coordinates of the phonebook number or picture date/time of each item

4. you can adjust the number of items and their coordinates to whatever you want. The following setting is just for your reference. These settings are used in the skins of my YuetMod MPs. Try it to see the difference. You may need to adjust them to fit your skin.

example 1: show full screen preview of one entry
0 14 1
1 0 178 170 196
0 15 1
1 0 0 176 220
...
0 20 1
1 4 178 90 196
0 21 1
1 92 178 168 196

example 2: show 2 entries
0 14 2
1 91 56 170 104
1 91 130 170 178
0 15 2
1 1 46 90 114
1 1 120 90 188
...
0 20 2
1 92 56 170 79
1 92 130 170 153
0 21 2
1 92 79 170 102
1 92 153 170 176

5. after you made the changes, save the ski file and upload it back to your phone. It is done!

PS: You can actually do this with skinner4moto, if you prefer graphic interface. Here is a screen of skinner4moto. Open the skin in skinner4moto and select "Structure", you will see the item IDs (14, 15, 20 & 21). Basically you will need to do is add/delete elements in these 4 items, and then adjust the coordinates of each element.

screenshot of skinner4moto:

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