Custom USB charging screens

cdkr · 11-30-2011, 07:08 PM

While there already is a hack to add your own custom screensavers, this allows you change the images displayed when you connect your kindle to your computer.

I had got the usb networking hack on my kindle and was just looking around the filesystem when I noticed that the image file "USB_Charging_600x800.gif" in /opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/ is the one that is displayed when you connect your kindle to your computer.

To change it, you will need to have already needed to install the usb-networking hack or have SSH over WiFi on your kindle to access the folder.

Connect as normal and make the filesystem writeable

Quote:

root@kindle:/# mntroot rw

and navigate to /opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/

(Its a good idea before you start messing around with the files in here, to back up the folder in case you overwrite something you meant to keep.)

The files that we are interested in are:

/opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/USB_Charging_600x800.gif
/opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/USB_NotCharging_600x800.gif

(or if you have a kindle DX)

/opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/USB_Charging_824x1200.gif
/opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/USB_NotCharging_824x1200.gif

Now in your image manipulation program of choice, design your new screen,
for mine, I went for a USB logo and a electrical symbol, but it can be anything as long as you save it as a 600x800 (or 824x1200 for DX) .gif file.

Note: If you want to match the font, it appears to be bold 35pt "Tunga" with -10% charecter width, and 35pt line spacing.

Name your two new images as USB_Charging_600x800.gif and USB_NotCharging_600x800.gif, then using a sftp client (eg filezilla), overwrite the old images in /opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/ with your two new images.

Unmount and reboot your Kindle and you're all done!

Notes

There are some other interesting bits of images in /opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/ that you could experiment with replacing with your icons and designs.

PoP · 11-30-2011, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdkr

[snip]
There are some other interesting bits of images in /opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/
[snip]

Indeed. sdcard_asset.gif and transfer_sd.gif made me wonder about any Kindle model SD support ...

wiccan2 · 12-01-2011, 02:48 PM

This is an amazing find, I'm wondering if it would be possible to theme the whole UI.

On the point of the SD card images, I think they may be left over from the kindle 1. There seems to be three versions of some files which would hint at the files for kindle 1 and 2 being in the file system.

I have uploaded my custom charge screens if any one would like them.

wiccan2 · 10-21-2012, 10:29 AM

I cant seem to update my kindle to 3.4 it fails with error U006, which is a checksum error. I have tried everything and this is the only hack I haven't been able to reverse. I can only assume that my altered charging screens are whats causing the checksum to fail. Unfortunately my backups of the original files have since been lost. Does any one here have a backup of the /opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/ folder or more specifically just the originals of the three images in my last post. This is my last resort before trying the unbrick method.

knc1 · 10-21-2012, 10:32 AM

Just extract the original files from one of the recovery image files.
It is not very likely that those files changed during the lifetime of 3.x, so any image you can get should have the originals (not just 3.4).

wiccan2 · 10-21-2012, 10:41 AM

I have tried to get the recovery files to run my kindle through the unbrick method to start from fresh. The problem is I can't download any of them. It seems mediafire wont allow multipart zips to be downloaded anymore. qlob is currently trying to mirror them somewhere else in reply to my post on his thread. If you could point me in the direction of a recovery image that isn't on mediafire I would be grateful but I think I may just end up waiting for qlob to mirror the files. Once I can get them I can first attempt to restore just the gif files and if that doesn't work I guess i'm in for a long wait while my kindle gets reflashed. Guess this will teach me to back up to more than my netbook(whose hard drive died resulting in me not having my backed up gif files

). Thanks for the idea, if it works should save me 4 hours, I just hope theres not anything else I'm forgetting that could cause the update to fail.

knc1 · 10-21-2012, 11:16 AM

Just follow the de-bricking thread, the new mirror site should appear there once the files are moved.
And if we are lucky, the person(s) doing that will also upload md5sum files of the images.
Just so your first news of a bad download isn't a: E006 message.

diba · 10-21-2012, 03:17 PM

Try to get them from the "k3 localisation" post. Sir Alex has the ooriginal files somewhere at github. I have them as well, due to my german translation work, but I am actually on a business trip and have only my KFire with me.

geekmaster · 10-22-2012, 03:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knc1

Just follow the de-bricking thread, the new mirror site should appear there once the files are moved.
And if we are lucky, the person(s) doing that will also upload md5sum files of the images.
Just so your first news of a bad download isn't a: E006 message.

There is a 3.0.2 mirror in the pastebin from the simple debricking first post. It is a single zip file, so you do not need to deal with multi-part zips imposed by the mediafire maximum file size limit.

H644b · 06-19-2024, 12:17 PM

Anyone know how to change the text displayed on the system screens such as the usb screen? I was able to change files with *_bg.png but I cant find the words themselves.

12-01-2011, 02:48 PM	#3
wiccan2 Connoisseur Posts: 57 Karma: 10288 Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: West Sussex Device: Kindle 3 - 3g, Samsung Galaxy Note	This is an amazing find, I'm wondering if it would be possible to theme the whole UI. On the point of the SD card images, I think they may be left over from the kindle 1. There seems to be three versions of some files which would hint at the files for kindle 1 and 2 being in the file system. I have uploaded my custom charge screens if any one would like them. Attached Thumbnails

10-21-2012, 11:16 AM	#7
knc1 Going Viral Posts: 17,212 Karma: 18210809 Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Central Texas Device: No K1, PW2, KV, KOA	Just follow the de-bricking thread, the new mirror site should appear there once the files are moved. And if we are lucky, the person(s) doing that will also upload md5sum files of the images. Just so your first news of a bad download isn't a: E006 message. Last edited by knc1; 10-21-2012 at 11:18 AM.

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10-21-2012, 10:29 AM	#4
wiccan2 Connoisseur Posts: 57 Karma: 10288 Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: West Sussex Device: Kindle 3 - 3g, Samsung Galaxy Note	I cant seem to update my kindle to 3.4 it fails with error U006, which is a checksum error. I have tried everything and this is the only hack I haven't been able to reverse. I can only assume that my altered charging screens are whats causing the checksum to fail. Unfortunately my backups of the original files have since been lost. Does any one here have a backup of the /opt/amazon/ebook/img/ui/ folder or more specifically just the originals of the three images in my last post. This is my last resort before trying the unbrick method.

10-21-2012, 10:32 AM	#5
knc1 Going Viral Posts: 17,212 Karma: 18210809 Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Central Texas Device: No K1, PW2, KV, KOA	Just extract the original files from one of the recovery image files. It is not very likely that those files changed during the lifetime of 3.x, so any image you can get should have the originals (not just 3.4).

10-21-2012, 10:41 AM	#6
wiccan2 Connoisseur Posts: 57 Karma: 10288 Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: West Sussex Device: Kindle 3 - 3g, Samsung Galaxy Note	I have tried to get the recovery files to run my kindle through the unbrick method to start from fresh. The problem is I can't download any of them. It seems mediafire wont allow multipart zips to be downloaded anymore. qlob is currently trying to mirror them somewhere else in reply to my post on his thread. If you could point me in the direction of a recovery image that isn't on mediafire I would be grateful but I think I may just end up waiting for qlob to mirror the files. Once I can get them I can first attempt to restore just the gif files and if that doesn't work I guess i'm in for a long wait while my kindle gets reflashed. Guess this will teach me to back up to more than my netbook(whose hard drive died resulting in me not having my backed up gif files ). Thanks for the idea, if it works should save me 4 hours, I just hope theres not anything else I'm forgetting that could cause the update to fail.

10-21-2012, 03:17 PM	#8
diba Addict Posts: 396 Karma: 33660 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: Kindle 3, Kindle 4, Kindle PW, Nexus7 3G	Try to get them from the "k3 localisation" post. Sir Alex has the ooriginal files somewhere at github. I have them as well, due to my german translation work, but I am actually on a business trip and have only my KFire with me.

06-19-2024, 12:17 PM	#10
H644b Member Posts: 13 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2023 Device: Kindle Paperwhite 11th Gen	Anyone know how to change the text displayed on the system screens such as the usb screen? I was able to change files with *_bg.png but I cant find the words themselves.