Themes for Android tablet?

[Ian]

I'm in the process of making a custom Android touch screen interface for our kitchen, so we can use it as a calendar, weather, juke box, to-do list all in one . It's a modern day take on hanging a calendar on the wall (and fun to make!).

The hardware is pretty much ready to go, I'm running Android x86 on an Intel NUC to power the touchscreen. However I'm very unfamiliar with how to skin Android. I've seen some amazing skins out there, but the limit of my knowledge is using Nova launcher for some basic tweaks.

This may be a question for @V_R, as you seem to know loads about Android phones! Is there somewhere that I can grab read-made theme packs that would mean I can have a single homescreen with beautiful looking widgets and icons? The default widgets and theme look a bit crappy and disjointed, but I've seen that it is possible to make some incredible layouts.

 

[V_R]

Hmmm, Are you looking to theme the whole OS or just the home screen? OS theming isn't really something I've looked into myself

If the former from the little I know it might be an idea to go with a custom ROM, like Cyanogen. That has a theme engine built in where you can download and install them from their own 'store'.

https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Themes


That is honestly as much as I know regarding OS theming I'm afraid Ian. I'll have a look around and see what else is popular.

If its just the homescreen, I usually just install Nova launcher and install a custom icon pack, that plus a nice background and the widgets you want/need is usually enough.

Then some widgets for whatever you like be it weather (I like Weather Timeline)

Today Calendar is a nice calendar widget, and Backdrops is fantastic for wallpapers.

Edit: Some inspiration.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidThemes

 

[Ian]

Cheers V_R . As long as the home screen is themed, I don't mind so much about the rest - I'm hoping to get most of the control via widgets. Once the touchscreen has arrived, I'll post a build thread on it.

Thanks for the widget suggestions, I particularly like the Today Calendar one so may use that. I think I can get both our calendars on there, then use a birthday app to manage birthdays separately.

Currently browsing that subreddit for inspiration .

 

[V_R]

Oh yeah, theres also Zooper and KLWP - both of which you can build widgets and fine tune them, might also be worth a look. They need more time to get right though.

Tbh theming the whole OS isn't really needed and it will be a lot more work, get a nice home screen layout on there and you won't know the difference.

Do you both use Google calendar? If so you can share your calendars with each other, and have them all in one app. Each one will be a different colour. Its what we do and it makes life much easier.

 

[Ian]

Zooper is perfect, exactly what I've been looking for! . I think you've just answered my question!

We used to use Google Calendar, but we're now using Office 365 - it's a little more complicated to get working with Android, but we can share calendars on it with some workarounds.

 

[V_R]

Nice one! I'll be interested in seeing the finished project Ian.