Substratum's Per App Theming Is About To Get Better

One of the advantages which Substratum has had over CMTE is that it has support for running different overlays for different apps. To simplify this further, if I'm using a Substratum supported ROM on my device, then I can avail the services of different themes for customising the looks of different apps. So say if I have set a particular theme's overlay installed for configuring the look of WhatsApp, I can use an overlay from another theme to customise the looks of the Gmail app.

Substratum developer Nicholas Chum recently shared some snaps of his latest work. The above screenshots depict the same. Per app theming was initially made popular by the theming engine in CyanogenOS. Although CMTE (theme engine in CyanogenMod) did not allow users to set different themes for different apps, CyanogenMod's commercial variant of CyanogenOS did give users access to this functionality. Cyanogen had however extended the same functionality to the users of CyanogenMod through the C-Apps package though.

Taking inspiration from CyanogenOS, the Substratum team are working on incorporating a similarly designed per app themer icon. As mentioned earlier, Substratum already has had per app theming. The newer user interface will however make using the functionality a lot easier. It is however still unclear as to how a user will navigate across different overlays offered by a theme for a particular app. Several Substratum themes offer users the choice of choosing different accent colours for theming the apps. 

This functionality will most probably not work on the Legacy version of Substratum, which requires a reboot for a theme overlay to be applied. For those of you who are not aware of this, Substratum comes in two different versions - OMS and Legacy. The Legacy version of Substratum is mostly used by users who prefer to run a rooted variant of stock Android. The Legacy version of Substratum can also be used by users on ROMs which lack support for OMS. On the other hand, ROMs which come with native support for Substratum utilise the OMS variant of Substratum. To apply an overlay on the Legacy version, the device has to be rebooted once, while a reboot is not required in the case of OMS.

Krittin Kalra

Krittin Kalra is a 20 year old Android freak. Striving for passions, chasing down his dreams and living a life without regrets is his sole mantra. A bit moody, he also does custom ROM reviews for AndroGuider. Currently pursuing his B.Tech, he aspires to follow his heart.