Whether you are a seasoned Android user or a new one, you must have felt the lack of a native theme engine on your device. For most Android users custom mods, ROMs, 3rd party launchers, and icon packs are major means to theme their device the way they want. It’s not that all Android devices of bereft of a native theme support.
Some OEMs now seem to understand the wish of users. LG, HTC and Sony devices support color based themes and recently Samsung introduced an inbuilt theme engine in some of its phones. The newly launched Galaxy S6, along with a plethora of hardware and software improvements, also brings a default theme engine. The Galaxy S6 houses a powerful theming system that allows users to do heavy customization on the TouchWiz UI.
The S6 theme engine is quite different from the theming system found on LG, HTC or Sony devices and closer to CM Theme Engine. Applying a new theme on the Galaxy S6 changes things like the home screen wallpaper, fonts, settings and notification pop-ups, dialer, messaging and dialog boxes and so on.
Samsung’s new theming system is currently exclusive to the Galaxy S6 only but in the world of Android, such kinds of exclusivities stay intact just for a few days. Thanks to our smart developer community and the open source attribute of Android! Yesterday, we shared the all new HTC One M9’s camera port for all devices running AOSP and CM based ROMs and today we got another port from the Galaxy S6.
If you own a rooted Samsung Galaxy S5, S4 or Galaxy Note 4, Albe95 has a big surprise for you! Yes, he has found an easy way to enable Galaxy S6 Theme Engine on these devices. Getting the Galaxy S6’s theming system on your phone is as easy as copying some files to your phone’s system partition and doing a little modification in the features.xml using a root browser.
Instructions to Enable Galaxy S6 Theme Engine
- Make sure you have a rooted Galaxy S4, S5 and Note4. You can also try the mod on the Galaxy Note 3.
- Your device must have stock TouchWiz based Lollipop ROM.
- Make sure you have a root file browser app installed on your device. If not, install it now:
- Also install BusyBox on your phone. When the app is installed open it and install the BusyBox script.
- Download the Lollipop theme enabler files in a single zip and unzip the file: Lollipop_Themes_Enabler.zip
- Now copy the Lollipop_Themes_Enabler folder to your device.
- Open Root Browser app, navigate to Lollipop_Themes_Enabler folder open it. You would find two sub-folders inside, namely app and CSC.
- Open the app folder and copy its contents to System/app directory on your phone. Do not forget to set file permissions for each of the copied Apk files to rw-r–r– (0644). For detailed instructions on fixing file permission, read this tutorial.
- Now open the csc folder, copy the theme_app_list.xml and paste it to System/csc. Do not forget to fix file permissions for this file too.
- Using Root Browser, now go to system/etc/, tap and hold floating_feature.xml and select open/edit option.
- Now find the following string:
<SEC_FLOATING_FEATURE_COMMON_CONFIG_CHANGEABLE_UI></SEC_FLOATING_FEATURE_COMMON_CONFIG_CHANGEABLE_UI>
- And add ‘theme v2″ in the middle of the code as shown below:
<SEC_FLOATING_FEATURE_COMMON_CONFIG_CHANGEABLE_UI>themev2</SEC_FLOATING_FEATURE_COMMON_CONFIG_CHANGEABLE_UI> - Save your changes and exit Root Browser.
Make sure you have done everything correctly and then reboot your phone. When your device boots up, tap and hold and empty space on the home screen and along with Wallpaper, Widgets and Home screen Setting, you’ll find an extra option called Themes. Just tap it and start playing with the 4 themes available there. Cheers!
Give more themes bro pls
They will be available via theme engine.
How do I access the theme engine once I have it installed?
You can access it from Settings> Themes or just tap and hold the homescreen and select Themes.
Is there anyway to add more themes, I only have 4 and when I click Samsung apps is says no apps
my bad. sorted it. i changed the file permissions also, changed them back and worked
Glad to know you made it work! 🙂
hi
I followed the instructions but as i open themes i get a force close message
do i set all the permissions to 0644? thats what ive done.
s5+ g901f running touchwiz 5.02
hi
plz plz make galaxy s6 launcher for galaxy s5 with lolipop rom without root
look like another launcher can i install on my phone wihtout root for example go launcher . nova launcher and etc plz plz make
Nice information. I am using Samsung galaxy S5. The Samsung phone has proven to be a must have for the Android users. I’ll also enable the same. For more detailed features of latest mobile you can visit Samsung India site.