I have a series of images which I want to use as nine-patches to represent the different states of a button. Is there a command line tool to copy the border pixels from one .png to the next? It could save me an hour of clicking.
Android Asset Studio by Roman Nurik is set of tools to relieve some of the tasks required by Android developers and designers. For a while parts of it was in the Eclipse ADT plug-in: http://tools.android.com/recent/assetstudiointegration
Start here:
https://github.com/romannurik/AndroidAssetStudio
For Nine Patch related content you should look at Simple Nine Patch Generator:
http://romannurik.github.io/AndroidAssetStudio/nine-patches.html
and see if it is of assistance.
Related
The Adobe Creative SDK Image Editing says that developers can customize the UI by editing xml files, but I don't see any xml files in the sdk directory. I asked for more documentation to Adobe, but haven't got any feedback. Please help.
https://creativesdk.adobe.com/docs/android/#/articles/imageediting/index.html
Customization
You can customize almost all the visual aspects of the CreativeSDKImage UI by editing the style entries in the aviary_styles.xml, aviary_colors.xml, aviary_dimens.xml and aviary_config.xml files.
Most of the custom attributes you'll find inside the aviary_theme.xml and aviary_styles.xml files are documented inside the aviary_attrs.xml file.
The aviary_config.xml file contains all the customizable behaviors of the SDK like the colors to show inside the text tool or the drawing tool, the sizes of the brush tools, the custom crop ratios for the crop tool, the default font used in the meme tool, etc..
Inside the aviary_config.xml file you'll find a detailed description of every entry.
I think I'm little late to answer you but this can be helpful to others.
As I work with Creative SDK, I just learned how to customize UI of the Aviary Editor.
By overriding xml files, you can make changes in Aviary Editor's UI.
Click on this link to find detailed explanation...
I am using the Android 9-patch tool to generate my 9-patch images. I have to support a number of different resolutions and button states. This means that for a single 9-patch button I need to generate 16 separate assets. Currently I am generating each of these separately using the Android 9-patch tool interface which is taking a lot of my time. If I was able to specify the 9-patch dot for a range of buttons which have the same properties this would save me a lot of time. Is there the equivalent of a command line tool or other approach which would help.
Thanks
Here is a nifty looking tool I just found. I cannot verify its accuracy or stability, but it claims to do what you want.
You can try to use the Android Asset Studio at http://android-ui-utils.googlecode.com/hg/asset-studio/dist/nine-patches.html.
Well, there's is no tool as you like afair, but you could easily craft small script (PHP, Perl whatever) that would combine two images (main image + 9-patch dots) together. Or you can save dots separately and then load it into GIMP or Photoshop as layers and export as single final 9patch PNG.
I am investing some time doing drawables for an Android project and I am looking for alternatives.
Currently I do them on Adobe Illustrator and with some drawables I can use Android Asset Studio (e.g. drawables for the action menu). The problem with Android Asset Studio is the lack of possibilities to use my own color (we can only use white/black colors).
I wanted something like Android Asset Studio where I can give him a HD image and he creates all drawable sizes. Is that possible?
Another option could be a program/script that could allow me to say "I want to scale to these resolutions" and he does it for all images.
What you're looking for is called a batch resizer, but without knowing what you're working with, it's hard to give a recommendation. For instance, you can use both Photoshop and Gimp for it. I believe Gimp will require a plugin, while Photoshop has the script built-in.
Does anyone know where to download a vector file of Google's green android robot?
The Android Brand Guidelines page does not have a link to it!
Thankyou, Mel
http://www.android.com/media/wallpaper/eps/android_logo.ps
more: http://www.android.com/media/
This question is rather old, but I had the same question.
The vectors I found weren't up to my standards (overlapping shapes, ungrouped paths, etc.) and they were mostly postscripts. You probably need an Illustrator file or SVG. I made a new one from a postscript version on the Android site. You can download the updated .ai or .svg here:
http://bit.ly/android_vector
Android NinePatch images seem to be standard .png files with extra information. Is there a spec for the format anywhere, as I'd like to be able to implement this on other platforms?
This is the most straightforward link I've found on the subject.
Just take a look at a 9 patch image in an image viewer. It's simply just a 1px border with black pixels flanking the stretchable areas and transparent marking the static parts.
If you zoom into this image you can see the black border marking the stretchable area:
example http://web6.twitpic.com/img/91916457-a53b6866db73378bda07c039151c69aa.4bd6119a-full.png
I would strongly suggest that you not implement the 9patch system on other platforms, for several reasons.
I have been using Android's developer tools for a year and have made extensive use of 9patch files.
They are a nightmare. PNG is not a data format, it is an image format. Mixing the two in the .9.png file is asking for trouble.
9patch files are a poor idea because they combine image and data formats into a single file that is neither fully manageable by a designer nor a developer.
Nine patch files: you will regret your involvement at some point during maintenance, support and updates phase.
Perhaps if at some future date support for 9patch files is added to a number of quality tools (for example, PS CS4 doesn't understand 9patch files as a specific format, nor does it honor the rules of valid nine patch formats.)
The existing tools for nine patch files are awful -- essentially unusable in the opinion of most designers who I have hired.
This Link is very useful for nine patch image in android.
It is very useful example in android. Only use .9 patch PNG file.
http://blogingtutorials.blogspot.com/2010/12/android-nine-patch-example.html
Modern browsers support CSS 9-path based backgrounds:
http://www.css3.info/preview/border-image/
I found this link to be very useful: link to blog post. It uses some examples for the different borders defined when a 9 patch is created. It shows how the extra information is used in scaling the images' dimensions (x,y).
There is even a nice comment by a Richard L. at the end which says how you can add regions to be protected from scaling the image by including breaks in the borders; eg. not scaling sections in the image.
Took me a while to understand that the Extension of the 9 patch file should be xxxx.9
and not xxx.9.png