HOW TO - Remove Wallpaper Icon Shadows

When replacing an icon on an iDevice, if one decides to use a non-uniform icon, there is a residual 'Shadow' where the old icon used to be. This can be unsightly if the new icon is not the same shape as the original icon in question (the default rounded square shape).

Luckily there is a simple solution! It involves replacing the stock 'Shadow' PNGs with tiny transparent PNGs that do not interfere with the new icon.

A couple of themes available on Cydia include their version of a transparent PNG that overrides the stock image when placed in the correct 'Bundles' folder. However, these PNGs are not usually optimized. For example: the theme 'GinoAwsome' utilizes a PNG file that is, while being completely transparent, 1x960 pixels. That means that for every icon on your screen, there is a tiny 960 pixel bar running across your display that you can't see, and yet it is taking up that much more space on your limited RAM. Today, I offer a solution. Rather than have a 1x960 transparent image, why not use a 1x1 transparent file that takes up 28 times less space! (2.74kB ÷ 95 bytes = 28.84)

Following are instructions and links to a downloadable 1x1 transparent PNG.

1. Connect to your iPad using your favorite file directory program. (e.g. WinSCP, iFile, etc.)
2. Download 1x1 transparent PNG image here.
3. Using your file directory program, navigate to your theme's 'Bundles/com.apple.springboard' folder found at: /private/var/stash/Themes.xxxxx/xxxxx.theme/Bundles/com.apple.springboard and paste the following images:
   WallpaperIconShadow~ipad.png and WallpaperIconDockShadow~ipad.png.
   • When this theme('xxxxx') is selected in Winterboard, it will automatically take precedence of these files over the stock PNGs found in the CoreServices directory.
4. Open WinterBoard, select your new theme and Respring!

If you are so inclined, at the end of this post there will be a more in-depth explanation of where and why these files have these names and what exactly they do.



Before the fix you'll have something that looks like this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27491166/iPa...s/IMG_0128.PNG

After the fix you'll have something that looks like this!:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27491166/iPa...s/IMG_0129.PNG

If you use a plain white 1x1 PNG you'll have something that looks like this (oops!):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27491166/iPa...s/IMG_0127.PNG




Explanation(s):

Step 3:
The reason that we must use the file names: 'WallpaperIconShadow~ipad.png' and 'WallpaperIconDockShadow~ipad.png'. has a lot to do with the way that the iOS was written. There is a directory(CoreServices) on the iPad that holds a majority of the stock images that the iOS uses to give it's UI such a unique experience. For example: The shadows that you see behind/below your icons on your SpringBoard are governed by a local PNG image that is masked into the grid layout. If we wanted to change one of these files permanently (which we DON'T want to do) we would simply navigate to this directory and replace these files with something user-created that effectively cancels out whatever was there previous. A nicer way of doing this (a.k.a. non-permanent) would be to use a program such as WinterBoard which allows us to trick the iPad into thinking that the stock image directory is in a user-defined environment. Voila, 'Bundles/com.apple.springboard'.
The location of the Stock Image files may be found here: /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app
But a word of warning! If you do delete/overwrite one of these files without backing them up beforehand, you will be in for a nasty shock when your iPad starts behaving erratically or not at all.