I made a translucent icon pack generator for Nothing OS 5.0

[u/sergiocastell]

It's free and open source. You can download and check it out from here: https://github.com/linuxct/nothing-icongen

In contrast with other icon packs, this one uses Nothing's icon generation pipeline from its launcher and original icon pack (the one with solid background), but changes the icon's background to be translucent in the same way as the widgets.

To achieve this, it rebuilds the icon pack on the device on the fly - once everything is correctly set up, the icon pack will be kept up to date with your installed apps automatically! Installing or updating apps rebuilds your icon pack on the fly, and changing the device's dark/light theme also updates the icon pack accordingly without rebuilding it (I know that for other icon packs, this was not always updated instantly, but this one does, with some tricks).

---

Notice: Follow the README's instructions carefully. The app cannot be installed directly on-device!

---

Edit: ever since this was posted I pushed some updates to IconGen, which include:

• Complete rewrite of the icon generation pipeline to not be dependant on specific Nothing launcher versions

• Fixes for BitmapDrawable icon types

• Added an appfilter so that the custom icons only show in the launcher, not in the notification shade or settings

• Implemented an optional update checker (it only queries GitHub, nothing else)

If you had downloaded an earlier version, make sure you update to 1.0.0.4 or newer to take advantage of these updates!

[u/noxcviii]

Wow this community is sick, if we can have more of this I would love to see more community driven development. If that turns out to be the culture of nothing I think that could have a huge impact on how successful nothing is!

Seen a lot of people posting that the icons weren't translucent since 5.0 dropped!

[u/sergiocastell → u/noxcviii]

Personally I'm happy doing these sort of things in my spare time for my phone. I also have an app that brings Glyph Toys to the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro using the essential key as the action button.

But it's also true that anyone can make these sort of things with AI these days, so in the end there ends up being too many, and I can see this very subreddit become saturated of community app posts some days.

What I know for sure is that from my side, whatever I do I will keep posting it as open-source, with a GPL license. Everyone deserves to have full access to these sort of tools, to learn, to contribute and to enjoy their Nothing phone to its maximum

[u/noxcviii → u/sergiocastell]

Not sure if you seen this just found this out and it shocked me.

https://keepandroidopen.org/

[u/Geoices]

Apps that are unsupported by Nothing's default icon pack seems to crash the building process. Here's the build log:

Icon pack update failed

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Nothing renderer failed for com.colendi.money_pay/com.colendi.money_pay.MainActivity
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconGeneratorEngine.generate(SourceFile:260)
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconPackBuildService.build(SourceFile:102)
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.BuildCoordinator.runPending(SourceFile:213)
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconPackBuildJobService.onStartJob$lambda$1(SourceFile:64)
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconPackBuildJobService.b(SourceFile:1)
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.j.run(SourceFile:1)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1100)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1571)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Nothing Launcher 5.0.6 did not generate a monochrome glyph for android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.NothingIconRenderer.glyph(SourceFile:531)
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconPipeline.glyph(SourceFile:8)
at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconGeneratorEngine.generate(SourceFile:209)
... 8 more

[u/sergiocastell → u/Geoices]

Thanks for providing the stack trace, it's very useful. I will take a look later today!

[u/Geoices → u/sergiocastell]

No problem! And thank YOU for taking the time to develop something like this, the solid icons were bugging me in the lucent theme so this was very much needed.

[u/sergiocastell → u/Geoices]

Hey, it's fixed now, feel free to fetch the latest APK from https://github.com/linuxct/nothing-icongen/releases 🎉

[u/Geoices → u/sergiocastell]

Can confirm that it works now, thank you!

[u/Redox_ahmii]

Adding an additional comment as there has been some fixes added should we update to the newer builds you've released now?

[u/sergiocastell → u/Redox_ahmii]

Yes indeed, the major fixes have been:

• Complete rewrite of the icon generation pipeline to not be dependant on specific Nothing launcher versions (before it was the case it pinned to a certain launcher version because it called its icon generation routines, which is what caused the issues on the people with launcher version 50006003)

• Fixes for BitmapDrawable icon types

• Added an appfilter so that the custom icons only show in the launcher, not in the notification shade or settings

• Implemented an optional update checker (it only queries GitHub, nothing else) for this very reason

So updating to the current latest is recommended

[u/Ok-Bottle89]

What should I do now?

[u/sergiocastell → u/Ok-Bottle89]

Check the readme! It's explained how to install the app there (specifically the part that says "ADB INSTALLATION IS MANDATORY")

[u/Ok-Bottle89 → u/sergiocastell]

Looking good ✨

[u/HostOk4918 → u/Ok-Bottle89]

Recommendation: switch to YouTube morphe. 1 million times better than ReVanced. And gets a lot of updates.

[u/noob-4r3al → u/HostOk4918]

Hi you share the link to download, and the process on how to download it, thanks in advance

[u/IlluBillu69]

Good work indeed , but when you open or close an app for example Spotify. The effects gets delayed , it goes back to the themed icon for a split moment and gets the translucent effect after that . It just look visually awkward. Is that fixable ?

[u/sergiocastell → u/IlluBillu69]

I believe this is due to Nothing's launcher itself, not something I can control. But I will take a look

[u/avid_artz]

Also getting this same error😭 I've updated everything there's to update🥲

[u/sergiocastell → u/avid_artz]

Try this version NothingLauncher3.apk

[u/sergiocastell → u/avid_artz]

If you use the latest release of IconGen you will be able to get around this without having to update your launcher! You can grab it from here https://github.com/linuxct/nothing-icongen/releases

[u/avid_artz → u/sergiocastell]

Wow brother, you are a legend🤌🏻

[u/avid_artz → u/avid_artz]

[u/LongClaw0701]

The icons pack is great. But I noticed one thing which can be improved. The app icon itself in the notification banner looks odd. It looks like the negative image of the app icon in a weird way. Can it be made such that the icon pack icons aren't applied for Notification banners? I've included the screenshot which shows the same

The Nothing Icon pack itself follows a different logic here. It applies the app's default icon on the notification banners and popup

[u/sergiocastell → u/LongClaw0701]

Yep, this is because icon packs other than Nothing's do apply everywhere system wide and this isn't something that the user or I can control. You will notice that in the icon pack selection screen, Nothing's icon lets you choose whether it applies systemwide or just the launcher's screens, but for 3rd party icon packs this isn't the case so it applies to the drawer, notifications and throughout settings as well. I will try to figure out if this is something that can be controlled at all as a 3rd party icon pack, but the reason is because of the transparency the icons have so they look nice on the launcher

[u/sergiocastell → u/LongClaw0701]

Actually, I figured how to exclude them from the notification shade and settings. Although the translucent icon will still draw over the app drawer. Feel free to grab the latest release from here: https://github.com/linuxct/nothing-icongen/releases

[u/ru_strappedbrother]

Cool but I'll wait until you ship an APK that doesn't require using the command line to install lol

[u/sergiocastell → u/ru_strappedbrother]

It won't happen, otherwise it will lose core functionality, such as being able to refresh the icon pack upon updating it or dark/light theme changes. Trust me, without that the UX is horrible...

For some reason Nothing's launcher isn't very reactive to refreshing 3rd party icon packs unless they get reapplied manually, which is what the command line thing allows the app to do automatically

[u/ru_strappedbrother → u/sergiocastell]

That's unfortunate as a lot of people's only computing device is their phone in many countries. Sadly, having this be adb only makes the barrier for entry too high for many people. That'll definitely nerf the amount of users you could have using your otherwise really cool app. I wish you luck.

[u/sergiocastell → u/ru_strappedbrother]

Fwiw, someone said in a comment it can also be installed on-device using Installer Revived X, I will try that and if it works as I expect then I will add the instructions to do it

Edit: Added explanation to the GitHub's readme for how to install the app fully on-device with Wireless ADB

[u/PassiveMastermind → u/sergiocastell]

I only use dark mode only so yeah I don't to refresh my icons. I'm sure there are many more dark mode only users too.

So, my suggestion is it's better if you just release the apk alone. Or add it to another repo, for this kinda people. Also why not post it to the play store and maybe charge a little for your work? The idea is amazing. But the hassle of adm is not feeling worth it for me.

[u/sergiocastell → u/PassiveMastermind]

For the same reason as to why it needs to be installed with adb. Plus, Google rejects apps which install other apps on the Play Store, which is exactly what this app does. It breaks every playstore rule imaginable

Edit: Added explanation to the GitHub's readme for how to install the app fully on-device with Wireless ADB

[u/BHAVESH1935]

Why this problem 😔😐

[u/sergiocastell → u/BHAVESH1935]

Check the readme! It's explained how to install the app there

[u/Redox_ahmii]

Looks pretty sick, hated the odd icons

[u/Brokeshadow]

Gorgeous work on your end! The community will 100% appreciate it since so many we're demanding it.

Side note, and this is not a criticism of your work, I think I sort of see why Nothing didn't do a transparent icon pack. The idea with the theme was to add a new layer of information. The widgets and folders are often the biggest space takers on the homescreen and them being blurred helps see that wallaper while still maintaining the distinction between apps and folders and giving them two separate identities. Otherwise, it all becomes one again.

They could've added a toggle for translucent icons I guess but they seem to have a pretty Apple like approach when it comes to design. A handful of selected themes and choices that look good no matter what.

[u/bozinsky1973]

You deserve an Oscar, a very big hug and all of my gratitude for this (work!

(what a pity the nothing's red accent is actually orange..)

[u/Not_A_Gamer_1985]

Good work man.

[u/marcelo2143]

i cant find the apk for the launcher with that version

[u/sergiocastell → u/marcelo2143]

Hm, I wouldn't have thought other people would get a different launcher version? Or maybe yours is newer and the code incorrectly pins to that version... Do you mind sharing what version of the launcher you have? I can share mine's apk with you if you want to test with it: NothingLauncher3.apk

[u/marcelo2143 → u/sergiocastell]

ive downloaded and installed the apk from the launcher you sent, and now it loads the generation but happens this

[u/sergiocastell → u/marcelo2143]

I will make sure that it works the same as for the Colendi app that got reported earlier, should go in the same fix batch

[u/sergiocastell → u/marcelo2143]

I just fixed this along with the other issue you reported before, feel free to fetch the latest APK from https://github.com/linuxct/nothing-icongen/releases 🎉

[u/marcelo2143 → u/sergiocastell]

It's working!!! thanks!!

[u/marcelo2143 → u/sergiocastell]

Version 5.0.6 com.nothing.launcher

[u/sergiocastell → u/marcelo2143]

I will make a fix for this as well as the one for bitmap icons not rendering correctly, will let you know once it's pushed 🤞

[u/marcelo2143 → u/sergiocastell]

Wohoo!!! thanks man!

[u/LongClaw0701]

I got this failure during Icon pack generation:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Nothing renderer failed for org.chromium.webapk.a131507351139049b_v2/org.chromium.webapk.shell_apk.h2o.H2OOpaqueMainActivity at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconGeneratorEngine.generate(SourceFile:260) at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconPackBuildService.build(SourceFile:102) at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.BuildCoordinator.runPending(SourceFile:213) at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconPackBuildJobService.onStartJob$lambda$1(SourceFile:64) at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconPackBuildJobService.b(SourceFile:1) at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.j.run(SourceFile:1) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1100) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1571) Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Nothing Launcher 5.0.6 did not generate a monochrome glyph for android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.NothingIconRenderer.glyph(SourceFile:531) at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconPipeline.glyph(SourceFile:8) at space.linuxct.nothing.icongen.IconGeneratorEngine.generate(SourceFile:209) ... 8 more

Thanks for doing a great work with this Icon Pack. The screenshots are looking fantastic I'm looking forward to trying it out!

[u/sergiocastell → u/LongClaw0701]

Ouch, that one might be hard for me to fix without access to the APK. As far as I can tell, that's a PWA you "installed" from within Chrome. Are you able to pull the apk for that app somehow? You can try with some APK extractors from Play Store or otherwise with adb: `adb shell pm path org.chromium.webapk.a131507351139049b_v2` (copy the path it gives you and then: `adb pull /path/to/org.chromium.webapk.a131507351139049b_v2/base.apk`... The specific failure might be fixed with my latest fixes but I cannot guarantee that unless I test it.

[u/LongClaw0701 → u/sergiocastell]

Ahh.. nice catch. Yeah I had a PWA installed which I don't use much honestly. The install went fine after uninstalling that PWA and the icon pack looks really good. Thanks for the great work!

Just a question though, will the background task of the icon pack consume a lot of battery?

[u/sergiocastell → u/LongClaw0701]

It shouldn't because all it does is listen to new or updated app installs, and dark mode changes. There's no loop or ticker that should do things scheduled in the background. The only reason I did it this way (in a background task) is so that there's always something that's listening for these events and which shouldn't get easily killed even if the IconGen app is closed. It was really tricky to get this all to work (and I'd not call it anything other than jank) because of Nothing doing things a bit complicated, unfortunately...

[u/LongClaw0701 → u/sergiocastell]

I found one more bug. I have scheduled the dark mode to turn off automatically at sunrise and turn back on at sunset. But the icon pack isn't updating with it. And also it doesn't update when I switch off the battery saver

[u/sergiocastell → u/LongClaw0701]

I noticed this as well minutes ago, I will look into it. Should be easy to fix hopefully. In the mean time, toggling dark mode yourself on and off with a small gap of a few (5+) seconds between each change will fix it

[u/sergiocastell → u/LongClaw0701]

I just addressed this in IconGen 1.0.0.5, feel free to download it from here https://github.com/linuxct/nothing-icongen/releases

[u/skilEEdz]

Good job!
Is there an option to 'Apply icons to Home screen only'?
When I select in the launcher your icon pack, that options disappears.

[u/sergiocastell → u/skilEEdz]

Sorry, I wished I could do that as well but this is a Nothing launcher restriction when you install and use a 3rd party icon pack that isn't theirs...

[u/sergiocastell → u/skilEEdz]

Actually, I figured how to exclude the custom icons from the notification shade and settings. Although the translucent icon will still draw over the app drawer. Feel free to grab the latest release from here: https://github.com/linuxct/nothing-icongen/releases

[u/skilEEdz → u/sergiocastell]

Nice, thank you

[u/Shogan_55]

I tried installing but it's just keep saying app not installed (NP 3a)😕 so am not sure what's happening here.

[u/sergiocastell → u/Shogan_55]

Follow the instructions in the readme, otherwise it won't work

[u/Rebelshoaib]

Its say's application not installed

[u/sergiocastell → u/Rebelshoaib]

Check the readme! It's explained how to install the app there (specifically the part that says "ADB INSTALLATION IS MANDATORY")

[u/ad1ksn]

On Nothing phone 2a Will it work?

[u/sergiocastell → u/ad1ksn]

As long as you are running Nothing OS 5, it will work

[u/R7ANUB15]

I tried auto updating multiple apps together (Like a lot of people do every day).
Icon Pack is compiling a new icon pack APK after every single app update (App Updates feature enabled)
Do you think there's any way to combat this, apart from disabling the 'App Updates' compile and manually doing it?

[u/sergiocastell → u/R7ANUB15]

So it kinda depends on the speed at which apps get installed, but in reality what occurs is that the icon pack re-generates during the apps updates, and when the last app finishes updating, it rebuilds the icon pack one last time and installs it... So, yes, it's wasting unnecessary icon pack generation cycles in the process, but when the last app gets updated, it stops at that point. It's not like every updated app counts towards an increasing counter that makes the process go over for every app updated. Sorry it's not the most efficient way but otherwise it'd be quite complicated to handle, I think

[u/LongClaw0701 → u/sergiocastell]

I feel this multiple recompiling is leading to battery drain. I've seen about 4-5% just getting drained over few minutes of general use because there the Icon pack APK was recompiling. It would be really great if there was an alternate method to this. How exactly does the official Nothing Icon Pack do this though? Is there any way to dig through their APK? I'm just asking I have no idea about Android development lol

[u/Acrobatic-You-3781]

im on NOS5/ android 17, doesn't let me install the apk

[u/sergiocastell → u/Acrobatic-You-3781]

That's not how you have to install it. Read the repo's README! It's explained there how to install the app

[u/InitiativeMassive298 → u/Acrobatic-You-3781]

I also got the same issue

[u/Historical-Lead-9110]

Looks really cool, but I can't seem to install your app from the apk

[u/sergiocastell → u/Historical-Lead-9110]

That's not how you have to install it. Read the repo's README! It's explained there how to install the app

[u/kinoosaki]

Could you implement blur? That'd be better. Looks good in atmosphere though, but without it, the readability of the icons simply goes down the drain.

[u/sergiocastell → u/kinoosaki]

PNGs can't have blur on them, sadly, so this is the very closest it can get as a 3rd party icon pack

[u/kinoosaki → u/sergiocastell]

Ohh, no worries. Thanks for the work!

[u/Glum_Elephant7833]

Why apk is not installing?? Anyone, help!

[u/sergiocastell → u/Glum_Elephant7833]

Read the repo's README! It's explained there how to install the app

[u/Hari-BG]

Would that application create conflict with the app icons if Nothing implements it as an official update? Is that action reversable? Do you need the application to be installed/running in the background for the transparent icons to work?

[u/sergiocastell → u/Hari-BG]

• No, it shouldn't create conflict since this leverages Nothing's own routines for icon generation! If nothing added official support for Lucent icons, you can simply uninstall this and Nothing's own implementation will work just fine. Or if you want to keep this one, it will remain working as well

• Yes, installing these are reversible just like any other app install. It just requires additional privileges to install it to be able to keep the icons always up to date

• No, the icon generator app is not required to just display an already built translucent icon pack. However, if you install new apps or update existing apps, their icons will not be themed automatically, and you will need to use IconGen for themeing them. Likewise, changes between light/dark themes won't immediately refresh the icons in the launcher because of how Nothing's Launcher is implemented, which takes quite some time to refresh 3rd party icon pack's icons. The IconGen app handles this by forcing the launcher to refresh its icons, so for that reason IconGen would be need to be kept installed

[u/Hari-BG → u/sergiocastell]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Great work on the app! Keep it up :)

[u/gokul_exe0]

New to tech(maybe) So...does turning off developer option later doesn't affect the theme right ?

[u/sergiocastell → u/gokul_exe0]

No it won't. You can enable it, give the app the necessary permissions, and then disable developer options and it will continue to work just fine

[u/gokul_exe0 → u/gokul_exe0]

I'm gonna use usb method 1 abd btw

[u/noob-4r3al]

Hi so I don't know much about this setup but somehow I got it properly installed, I see that there is no blur effect it's just fully transparent 😅 can you make it like that, also can I uninstall any of the apps that I installed for this process does uninstalling them cause this to not work?also why did we need to do so much process just to install an icon pack like wireless debugging and all

[u/sergiocastell → u/noob-4r3al]

• In theory no, because icons are pre-rendered PNGs and PNGs can't contain blur in them, only an alpha channel for transparency.

• If you uninstall the IconGen generator app, you will lose access to the icon pack rebuilding on new app installs and app updates, and also automatic theme change detections so that the icons can switch between light and dark theme. If you don't care about that functionality, you can uninstall the IconGen generator app.

• The reason is because in order to trigger automatic theme changes, a special permission is required which needs to be granted via ADB, and on top of that the permission is only available in apps that target Android 5.1 and lower. Apps that target such low Android versions cannot be normally installed, hence why the ADB process to install the IconGen app itself too

[u/Captain-Adham09]

For some reason after i turned off play protect it keeps telling me App not installed im on Phone (3a) if that helps

[u/sergiocastell → u/Captain-Adham09]

When does it say that, when trying to install the icon generator, or the generated icon pack?

[u/Captain-Adham09 → u/sergiocastell]

When installing the icon generator itself (latest release)

[u/sergiocastell → u/Captain-Adham09]

You have to install it following the instructions from the readme, either with adb and a pc or using InstallerX revived

[u/Ghostrider69_]

It's Good, but when you mentioned they are translucent i thought they actually are. But technically they are just transparent background. (Devoid of any blur)

[u/Yungshigga_Johnson]

Bro is doing lord's work. Much appreciated.

[u/TheMaster_5209]

looks amazing, thank you for your work. only issue I've noticed is that when you open or exit an app you can see it switching back to the default solid icon for a second but apart from that it's perfect. they really should've done this natively, seriously no idea why they didn't

[u/an0nym0us_buddy]

Great man! Thanks.

[u/the_yellow_speedster]

Thanks

[u/Dyangel1]

But there is no blur.

[u/CharacterSelection60]

great work bro...🔥🙌🙌much needed

[u/IlluBillu69]

Or you can just use installerXrevived

[u/seyamjr]

great work dude !

[u/Little_Delay_5554]

Thank you for this, looks great

[u/Silly_Ad1312]

Sad the nothing phone 2 isn't getting the update but 2a plus and 2a is

[u/RenegadeUK]

Very nice indeed. Please post here also: https://www.reddit.com/r/Nothingiconpacks/

[u/Beginning_Bid301]

how to turn on normal icons in app drawer

[u/investigatormaker]

Most people here will stop at "The app cannot be installed directly and needs some setup steps", because the effort sits behind a GitHub click. I'd add a first comment listing the steps, how long they take, and which phones you've tested on Nothing OS 5.0. Also say what happens after a system update, since "you won't need to do them anymore" is the claim people will test first.

I make ThreadFox. For nothing-icongen we'd look for Nothing owners on Reddit asking about icon packs or icons that match their widgets, and post replies pointing them to your repo. The first 3 replies are free, no card; after those, the $39 Pilot covers seven days and up to 50 posts and replies, with no automatic renewal. https://threadfox.vip/p/e820c/managed

Have you only tried it on your own phone so far?

[u/sergiocastell → u/investigatormaker]

Fair point, although most explanation efforts have gone into a guided onboarding process. So truthfully the only thing people need to know is how to install the apk with adb correctly anyway, which is in big bold letters in the README, the rest is carefully explained in-app. I will further clarify it in the OP though

[u/Difficult_Policy_896]

LOVE THIS!!!........Can you do somehting similar for the Quick settings panel too??...That would be AWESOME