Step 1: Jailbreak your iPhone

Jailbreaking is actually super quick and easy thanks to QuickPwn, it took me no longer than 10 minutes in total. Here’s a QuickPwn Guide that will help you get the job done.

Step 2: Install Winterboard using Cydia

Ok, once you have a jailbroken iPhone, you should see 1 or 2 new icons (depending on whether you chose to add Installer as well). Open up Cydia and using the search page, search for ‘WinterBoard’ and install it.

Step 3: Install OpenSSH using Cydia

Fire up Cydia again, and this time search for OpenSSH and install it. Make sure you switch off and switch on your iPhone at this point as OpenSSH will only work after a restart.

Step 4: Install WinSCP on your Windows PC

Grab the latest version of WinSCP from here and install it on your PC. WinSCP is the SFTP client that we will use later to transfer files to and from the iPhone.

Step 5: SSH into your iPhone

If you have a wireless network available to you, use this guide to SSH into your iPhone. If, however, you don’t have wifi, follow the steps in this guide.

Step 6: Navigate into your WinterBoard themes directory

Using WinSCP navigate to the root of your iPhone’s filesystem. There you should see a folder titled ‘Library’ and in that folder will be a folder called ‘Themes’. Enter the ‘Themes’ directory.

Step 7: Download a Theme and SFTP it across to your iPhone

There are many themes out there, my two favourite can be seen in the screenshots on the left and can both be downloaded from the MacThemes iPhone releases Forum. You can also click on my screenshots to directly access their threads. Once you’ve downloaded the theme, extract it and SFTP it across to your ‘Themes’ directory using WinSCP.

Step 8: Use WinterBoard to activate the theme

Once you’ve SFTP’d your theme across, open up WinterBoard and your theme should appear in the list. Tap your theme so that a tick appears next to it and exit WinterBoard. Upon exiting WinterBoard you should see a little loading animation while your theme is applied.

Consider the following piece of PL/SQL:

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SELECT
query.EMAIL_ID,
apex_item.checkbox(1,query.EMAIL_ID) sel,
DECODE(query.READ_FLAG,'N','<span class="unread_email">'||query.SENDER||'</span>',query.SENDER) SDR,
DECODE(query.READ_FLAG,'N','<span class="unread_email"><a href="f?p='||:APP_ID||':40:'||:APP_SESSION||'::'||:DEBUG||'::P40_EMAIL_ID,P40_BRANCH:'||query.EMAIL_ID||'%2C4">'||query.SUBJECT||'</a></span><a href="f?p='||:APP_ID||':40:'||:APP_SESSION||'::'||:DEBUG||'::P40_EMAIL_ID,P40_BRANCH:'||query.EMAIL_ID||'%2C4">'||query.SUBJECT||'</a>') SUB,
DECODE(query.READ_FLAG,'N','<span class="unread_email">'||to_char(query.CREATED_ON, 'DD/MM/YYYY')||'</span>',TO_CHAR(query.CREATED_ON, 'DD/MM/YYYY')) E_DATE,
DECODE(query.READ_FLAG,'N','<span class="unread_email">'||query.EMAIL_SIZE||'</span>',query.EMAIL_SIZE) E_SIZE
FROM
EPS_EMAIL query
WHERE
EMAIL_OWNER = :APP_USER AND
EMAIL_LOCATION_ID = 1
ORDER BY CREATED_ON DESC

In the PL/SQL above, I’m using a decode to change the appearance of the results of the report, essentially making the text bold if the column READ_FLAG = ‘N’. This is accomplished by appending a span element with the class of ‘unread_email’ around the report data I am outputting. The corresponding CSS is shown below.

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.unread_email {
    font-weight:bold;
}

I also wanted to make the subject column (aliased as ‘SUB’) link to another page in my APEX application. At first I tried doing it through APEX and adding in a link the easy way. That worked but it removed the styling I was trying to apply with my decode. The only solution was to insert the link directly into the PL/SQL which you can see in the PL/SQL above. It’s not the most elegant code but it works well and preserves formatting.

It’s been quite some time since this site has seen any action, this was due to the fact that I simply didn’t have the time for it – university kept me busy as well as working full-time last year.

Anyways, I hope to make a better effort this time around and publish some useful articles and release some cool stuff although depending on how much work I have to get through and other commitments, this may prove tricky.