Help a stuck n00b

[slantyshanty]

I say stuck for many reasons but mostly because I just had surgery and am stuck in bed for days. So, since I have been reading post after post on here and XDA I decided I wanted to learn to theme. I WANTED to do what I thought would be a simple task first and then go from there but I am not having much luck. I know it's a lot to ask but I happen to have some time on my hands here.

First off I have an EVO_Shift, temp rooted with visionary, stock sprint 2.2.

I have/downloaded/installed: XP, PS-CS3, Notepadd++, Eclipse, ADB, Android Commander, Android SDK Manager, APK Manager 4.9, 7zip, MetaMorph, AndExplorer, Astro, ConnectBot, ShootMe, EditiX, and signing.zip.

(most of this in the past day, on sat internet in the middle of the desert with an average of 90ksec... yes k)

I started by just wanting to change the font color. I understand that I need to look in the framework-res.apk for a lot of this. All of the XML's I open have mostly boxes. I think I need a better XML editor than EditiX (it was free)

I would like to change the font color on the lock screen, the bottom 3 tabs (all apps, phone, and +) and words under icons first, to match the red in the calendar/appointment widgets. I know the lock screen slider and 3 tabs are part of sense so that would be more difficult than the words under the icons. I would like to change the fints in the widgets to match some day...

So I tried to edit the htcclockwidget. The only thing I wanted to do to that was change the black background box transparancy. I can pull apk's to my computer and decompile/unzip them, edit the png's with CS3, back to apk and resign. I can't replace the system files because I don't have r/w access? I'm assuming because I only have temp with visionary?

I have installed but haven't used MetaMorph yet because not only do I want to learn this stuff, but I like the stock stuff (so far) I may end up going that way or Desktop Visualizer one day but not yet. That seems too easy and like cheating?

Anyone feel like walking me through it?