A lot of people have asked me what the theme I'm using is and where they can get the main menu / status bar icons.

I've bundled the resource folder together with the theme so everyone can download it. Both are free (I don't really want to pay for my themes).

The theme is Ash Vista and the icons are part of a iPhone pack.

You can get the stuff here

The picture on the left shows a P990 with modded icons. Looks great eh?

Since Sony Ericsson's currently supported smartphone series (P990, M600, W950, P1i) all run UIQ 3.0, this main menu icon mod can apply to the entire line.

Right, down to the instructions. Firstly, take a look at my previous post on custom status icons on the phone. You will require MBMTools again.

Most of the instructions are the same; however, instead of editing the file "ZSBLIB.mbm", you have to make a copy of "ALaunchIcon.mbm" and edit it using MBMTools. After you finish the edit, copy the file to your M2 stick. Make a new folder on your memory stick X:\resource\apps\ and place the file there.

Enjoy!

So this post will be on changing the "quick launch" shortcut icons in your standby screen (I'll leave changing the main menu icons for another day).

Firstly, to change the shortcut icon, all that is required is to scroll to the icon you wish to change, click on more --> edit. When prompted, click on "Shortcut Icon" and choose "Browse". Now all that is left is to browse to your icon file and select it. Finally, choose "Save" and your icon will be changed to the new one.

Now, all that you need next are icons. Here's a bunch to get you started (looked high and low over the internet for these). Includes Microsoft icons, iPhone icons, and many more. Enjoy :)

Looking for more themes? The colours and your wallpaper on your new phone looking slightly dull?

Look no further than this post. Apart from the Sony Ericsson Fun & Downloads page, you can get quality (and free!) themes for your M600/W950/P1 from sites such as Mobile9 and SE-UIQ (French).

Personally, I recommend "Ash Vista" and the "iPhoney" theme. Both are brilliantly well designed themes.

Stay tuned - the next post will be on acquiring and changing the shortcut icons. If you are looking trying to change the status bar battery/3G/Bluetooth/GSM signal icon, take a look at this post.

See those icons on the status bar at the bottom of the screen? Although this is the P990i with modded status bar icons, the hack is confirmed to work with other SE smart phones as well (namely, the M600 and the W950).

This trick involves having files with the same file names in your memory stick as the ones in the phone ROM.

The instructions are from Ryan Cullen's Blog and were originally meant for P990 modding. However, owing to the fact that the P990, M600, W950, P1i and the upcoming W960 all run the Symbian UIQ 3.0 platform, the mod does work for all these phones.

The first step in modding the status bar is to get the original files from your phone. You will need Swiss Manager Pro or X-Plore to copy the files from \resource\ from your P1 to your M2 stick.

After getting them on your PC, download MBMTools (which happens to Windows only, so Mac users will not be able to mod the status bar) to open one of the files. Highlight all the numbers on the left, and select "Copy image(s) to directory". In the directory you have selected, a list of BMP files should have appeared. Change the picture using any photo editing software you want.

Finish the edit, then start MBMTools again. Delete the old picture, then click on "Add image(s) to list". Select the file you edited; you will need to ensure with the green arrows that the file is in the same place as the original. Highlight the file and click on “Change colour” and select the colour to be 16bpp.

Now you will need to create a mask file. The mask file is just a black and white file that is similar to the image you’ve just replaced, and normally has +1 in the filename.

• Every pixel which is black makes the image transparent
• Every pixel which is white will show the solid colour of your icon
• Any grey colour in between will be a mix of the background and the image.

Then delete the old mask file and follow the same procedure as replacing the image with the new ones you have created, except to "Change colour" to monochrome 8bpp.

Repeat for all the icons you wish to change, before saving the file.

The final step is to copy the file structure on your M2 stick. Copy the file to \resource\ZSBLIB\ and the filename should be ZSBLIB.mbm

Reboot and enjoy!

Some mbm files can be found here if you are too lazy to mod them yourself, or if you happen to use a Mac :)