Question

OK the header says it.

I want to be able to create my own controls such as buttons, textviews, edittext boxes, spinners, and so on. I can create the images in CS5 but how do I turn those images into functional GUI components? Thanks

Answer 1

You mean you want to create a custom looking version of those controls right?

You could make an ImageButton component for any custom button you made, and use the attribute android:src, like

android:src="@drawable/your_image"

Similarly for EditText you can use the attribute android:background.

Edit:
The android controls are not stored as standard image files anywhere accessible. The standard designs that you mentioned are the default look of the elements.

To change it, you would have to create the background yourself and store it as a .png file in the drawable folder of your project. Make sure you name this file only in lower case and with no special characters like spaces etc.. Copy this file into all the drawable folders(drawable-hdpi,ldpi etc).

Then you have to refer to this file within your box as

<EditText
    android:background="@drawable/your_edit_text_graphic_file_name"
    android:text="@string/sample_text"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    -- all other attribute declarations --
</EditText>

Similarly, for other elements you would have to use android:src like is mentioned earlier to refer to your own graphic!

Hope this helps!