Flash menus

It is important that you read the whole text when you're doing this for the first time. Or you will end up e-mailing a question that is already answered here.

Video version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-jPvHyPldQ&fmt=22 (Starts at 5:00)

Introduction

To use a Flash menu on your phone you have to "hack into" it's FS (File System) which is not normally accessible to an end-user. For that you will need a tool called a2uploader. Flash menus are Flash Lite 2.0 animations programmed to behave as menus. These are SWF files. Once the menu is on the phone you will have to slightly modify a theme so that it loads that menu when applied on the phone. To do that you will have to use Sony Ericsson Themes Creator. At last you will copy that theme and set it on your phone. Before we begin you have to know a few things.

Branding

The main problem that appears with flash menus is branding. Most people buy their phone from an operator. Operator has his own mods to the standard firmware and places all kinds of restrictions. One of them is flash menus - disabled. You can easily see if your phone would support flash menus. All phones supported on this web page should have at least one flash menu preinstalled. So try all original themes to see if a flash menu appears. If not, you need to debrand your phone. That means your phone's memory will be completely erased and flashed with a generic Sony Ericsson firmware. Backups advised!
To debrand your phone please click here and follow the tutorial.

a2uploader

This program was created by person known as "the_laser" and published here. It needs no installation, just unpack and launch it, and it will be ready to use.

Since it "hacks" into the phone your antivirus will most likely block the application. My suggestion is to use Kaspersky Internet Security, it will warn you about the program but won't block it, unless you want so. I'm using a2uploader since it came out and I can assure you there is no virus.

Now, let's start. This process is divided into 2 parts so it would be easier for newbies, once you learn it, all will go really fast. It takes me about 2 minutes to apply a new flash menu on my phone.

Part 1 - Flashing the menu to your phone

1. Launch a2uploader.exe and the interface like one in the image above should appear. Do not launch the program from within the zip archive!
   If you receive an error when trying to launch the application that means your antivirus disabled it. For support please refer to the forum where the application was published.
2. Click "FileSystem tool" button
3. Turn your phone off, remove the battery and put it back in
4. Hold the "c" key and connect your phone to PC via the USB cable
   (You might need SEMC Flash Device drivers if you haven't used Sony Ericsson Update Service before)
   It usually takes up to 15 seconds for the connection to be established. If there is no response from your PC there might be a problem with your phone-with-cable connection so check the metal contacts.
5. Once connected the a2uploader interface will look like this:

6. Navigate by double clicking: /tpa/preset/system/desktop/flash
7. Add a new menu by dragging and dropping it in the a2uploader.

8. Once the uploading to phone is finished you must click "Shutdown FS manager" button. After that close the program, unplug your phone, and power it up. Head on to part 2!

Part 2 - Assigning a menu to a theme

Do this part only if you didn't get a theme (*.dm or *.thm) with the menu

Download a theme from the internet that you will use with the menu. Since I don't have enough time on my hands I didn't make any theme along with the menu.
Warning! If your theme has Media/Walkman Menu skinning, the background pictures will be deleted by Themes Creator. Therefore backup the theme, after assigning the menu to theme (the following tutorial) use WinRAR (or some other compression/extraction software) to extract the media backgrounds from the backed up one and MPSkinner to put them back in to the modified theme.
And now... To assigning a menu to a theme.

1. Launch Sony Ericsson Themes Creator (Advanced Editor mode) and load the theme you are about to modify. Once you load it the warning message like this might appear:

In that case click Yes. These are elements that define the look of Media Center, from some reason Sony Ericsson still didn't incorporate it to the program,
2. Click XML Editor button.
3. Scroll down and add the following line just above the last one:
   
   <Desktop_style Source="MenuName.swf" Type="File"/>
   
   The Source must contain the name of the menu you want theme to load. So... Replace the "MenuName.swf" with the file name of your menu. Extension ".swf" is required. A few examples:
   
   <Desktop_style Source="TargetingOrangeC2.swf" Type="File"/>
   <Desktop_style Source="GRedT1.swf" Type="File"/>
   <Desktop_style Source="Glassy-BlueW3.swf" Type="File"/>
   <Desktop_style Source="ClockMenu1K1.swf" Type="File"/>
   <Desktop_style Source="GleamingGoldC1.swf" Type="File"/>

4. Click OK, and in the warning that will appear click Yes
5. Click the Save button. If Themes Creator cannot save the file it might be set as Read Only. (Right-click the file, select Properties, uncheck "Read Only" and click OK, then you'll be able to save)
6. Close the Themes Creator, copy the theme to your phone and activate it. Now it will load the menu you specified in the XML above, if the menu is in your phone's FS.

Of course, there are always cases where something doesn't go as it should. That means your phone is either branded (refer to branding on the top of this page) or you did something wrong or mistyped the menu name in theme XML.

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