How to enable on screen ics soft keys on any ics rom?

So guys i know many of you are there who just got into love with the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich….Hmm many of you were addicted to the on screen ics keys or the soft keys as seen on nexus prime…well they were removed on the existing phones due to presence of physical buttons.

So i know many of you would like it back. Firstly a big thanks to evilisto for the tutorial..Well i decided to re write the tutorial cuz the orginal thread was really very tough for noobs….so i decided to make it more simpler…Well IT DOES NOT WORK ON STOCK OR WITH ANY ROM WITH TW LAUNCHER….OR STOCK ROMS LIKE THE HTC SENSE

So lets get started:

Requirements:

1: Android SDK with sdk tools

2: Apk tool package (press ctrl+s if no download link)

3: Android phone with ics custom rom(duh!)

4: Java SE run time environment

The Pulling Process:

So first comes the part where you need to extract the framework-res.apk file from your phone. So firstly on your phone go to settings–>developer options–>and then tick the usb debugging box….

Open up cmd and navigate to the android sdk\platform-tools directory.Type in

adb devices

adb pull system/framework/framework-res.apk

When you type in the first command and if you see the number of devices to blank or 0, re install the phone’s usb drivers or you have not enabled usb debugging.

The Decompilation Process-:

So now comes the part where we decompile the framwork-res.apk file. So for this download and extract the apktool package(mentioned in requirements) in a folder. Open up cmd again and navigate to this folder.

Type in

apktool d framework-res.apk

There should be no errors in this process, if any then you don’t have administrator privileges or you don’t have java runtime environment installed.

Redo the steps and you will be good to go.

The Editing Process: 

 So now comes the editing part. Download and install your favorite hex editor (notepad++ recommended), you may use notepad but it may cause problems..navigate to the newly created framework folder in the same directory of the apktool and open res\values\bools.xml.

Open it with notepad++ and find config_showNavigationBar. It will be set to false, set it to true.

Now open dimens.xml in the same directory and find navigation_bar_height. It will be set to 48 or any other value according to your phone, set it to 34, i recommend using 37 for bigger screen phones like the galaxy note and SGS2.

Save and exit.

 The Recompilation-:

So now the comes the most important part the re compilation part. Well many can receive errors in this part..even i did but just leave your queries in the comments, i will fix them. So again open up cmd as admin and navigate to the extracted folder.

In cmd type in:

apktool b framework

Its not at all over yet…in the framework folder, open build\apk and delete AndroidManifest.xml….leave the other two files intact.

Now open framework-res.apk in the dist folder using 7 zip. Now drag and drop resources.arsc and res folder from the build/apk folder  to the opened .apk file.

Now copy it to your sd card and replace it  with root explorer and reboot. Enjoy….

Note:::!!!!!!!!!!

If you guys are having problem with the recompilation you can follow the tutorial for it over here. It is easier and more efficient….