I am new here. I haven't found any solution to my problem. WHY i need that? I am building a Joomla based system for fast custom Android app creation working on php hostings having no java installed available for people to develop and install apps easily on their devices. Thus i am interested only PHP or universal-like solutions implementable in PHP too. Only CHANGING FILES UNPACKED AND NOT DECOMPILED IS AN OPTION. No apktool no whatever else like that. I am working with DEBUG packages with self generated keys. or something like that, because i am a beginning phone gap developer.
For example i would like my own icons for an app, or change the title of it in AndroidManifest.xml. And update sha1 digest hashes for cert.sf and manifest.sf for the changed files. I need human understandable procedure step by step.
PHP gives sha1 and base64 encoding and many more like that. I was trying to get the same codes like cert.sf and manifest.sf (no file was changed before) but i wasn't able to do so. I tried silly ways to sha1 files and base64 them and no outcome was as in the files mentioned.
Please there is no answer like that i need.
Let me say the anwswer to the question will help people or at least will help to build application development systems.
P.S. For Adobe Air apps i will be trying to do the same what for .apk apps. I hope it won't create the same issues. But not about it is the main question.
UPDATE: I feel from a couple topics of this kind that any practical help on this matter is unavailable and sometimes even perceived negatively. Thus what i am going to do is to use an additional server for making apps (simply command: cordova build) and send an app produced to a server which requested for it. This only because for some unknown reasons i cannot sign any files with php (debug packages). But why? It seems that the effect would be just the same as with installing running stuff with additional server using java, would it not?
Update: I don't think there will be any answer. So i do .air and .apk apps using home computer hosting java what is not the best idea - two servers one not professional. There is http://build.phonegap.com/ and it can be interesting for building apps manually or via api. For free one app can be private and more open source. IOS and Windows are supported too there.