Ok, I just spent the last day and a half of my life, trying to change the system font on my MIUI XJ GB ROM (HTC Desire) to that of the iPhone (Helvetica Neue Condensed, if you care). At first, I went into a mild state of panic, when the first attempt (using Font Installer from Android market) froze the phone at the splash screen, and it wouldn't go past that no matter how many battery pulls, nor would it get into the bootloader. Even restoring from nandroid backup did not work! If this is you, read on.
I figured out I was able to get to into the bootloader, if I attempted to from a cold start, not from splash scrn (Vol. Down + Power). Wiping everything from there, did nothing. Only re-flashing the ROM got me back into the phone. Since I already lost everything!, I tried this again. And again. And again.... And so on. Sometimes with "Font Changer/Custom Font Switcher" app, sometimes with Font Installer, sometimes directly with adb, sometimes I used another technique. Sometimes I used the fonts that came with the apps I tried, sometimes they were fonts I downloaded that were converted for android, sometimes fonts that I converted myself (to ttf). No matter, almost EVERY attempt borked the phone! In the rare cases it didn't, the font never seemed to have changed!
I was getting tired of having to reinstall the ROM, so I figured out a better way (which could have saved me from losing a lot of work, had I figured it out sooner!): First, make sure you have a backup copy of the system fonts (in MIUI, this includes Arial fonts as well as Droid, etc). If you didn't make a copy, then you have to try to find if someone uploaded the fonts you need, somewhere. Then, in adb shell, you remove the font files you added (pull from /system/fonts), and you add the stock files (push to /system/fonts). I learned you don't need to be in Clockwork (or any bootloader) for this to work. At one point, I did all the pushing and pulling from my custom splash screen! (With the USB connected to the computer). In fact, while it was stuck in the splash screen for a long time, once I had replaced the Arial.ttf font with a stock font (DroidSans, since I didn't have a backup of Arial!), the phone unstuck itself, and booted straight into MIUI!
I had problems with the commands at first, though. I figured out that getting into the system from clockwork or from the computer, requires different commands, else error msg results.
Mounting the system from the computer: adb shell mount -o remount,rw system
Mounting the system from recovery:
adb devices
adb shell
# mount /system
# mount /data
# mount /sdcard
There's a lot more involved of course, such as deleting the bad font from your adb directory (once copied) and placing the stock font there, to transfer it to your phone. But all that's information repeated many times elsewhere.
I'm sure this should all help, because I've read many examples of people messing their system trying to apply fonts!
(Ok, I think I'm done trying to install system fonts! I'm just going to do it through MIUI, via their font themes!!)
I figured out I was able to get to into the bootloader, if I attempted to from a cold start, not from splash scrn (Vol. Down + Power). Wiping everything from there, did nothing. Only re-flashing the ROM got me back into the phone. Since I already lost everything!, I tried this again. And again. And again.... And so on. Sometimes with "Font Changer/Custom Font Switcher" app, sometimes with Font Installer, sometimes directly with adb, sometimes I used another technique. Sometimes I used the fonts that came with the apps I tried, sometimes they were fonts I downloaded that were converted for android, sometimes fonts that I converted myself (to ttf). No matter, almost EVERY attempt borked the phone! In the rare cases it didn't, the font never seemed to have changed!
I was getting tired of having to reinstall the ROM, so I figured out a better way (which could have saved me from losing a lot of work, had I figured it out sooner!): First, make sure you have a backup copy of the system fonts (in MIUI, this includes Arial fonts as well as Droid, etc). If you didn't make a copy, then you have to try to find if someone uploaded the fonts you need, somewhere. Then, in adb shell, you remove the font files you added (pull from /system/fonts), and you add the stock files (push to /system/fonts). I learned you don't need to be in Clockwork (or any bootloader) for this to work. At one point, I did all the pushing and pulling from my custom splash screen! (With the USB connected to the computer). In fact, while it was stuck in the splash screen for a long time, once I had replaced the Arial.ttf font with a stock font (DroidSans, since I didn't have a backup of Arial!), the phone unstuck itself, and booted straight into MIUI!
I had problems with the commands at first, though. I figured out that getting into the system from clockwork or from the computer, requires different commands, else error msg results.
Mounting the system from the computer: adb shell mount -o remount,rw system
Mounting the system from recovery:
adb devices
adb shell
# mount /system
# mount /data
# mount /sdcard
There's a lot more involved of course, such as deleting the bad font from your adb directory (once copied) and placing the stock font there, to transfer it to your phone. But all that's information repeated many times elsewhere.
I'm sure this should all help, because I've read many examples of people messing their system trying to apply fonts!
(Ok, I think I'm done trying to install system fonts! I'm just going to do it through MIUI, via their font themes!!)