Changing the Home Screen

At last, I managed to replace the home screen that 3's branding of the A1000 forced me to use. Of course 3 prefers that their customers are directed to their services, but we as users tend to have needs that not necessarily complies with 3's intentions.

An Austrian (I think) guy, Benedikt Koenig, has written a Windows application that enables users to create their own custom designed home screen. Freeware as it is, the application is (besides being in German) a little tricky to obtain and install. I first spotted his application in a thread in the Aussie3G forum. Here is how I modified my A1000:

First I downloaded the software. Benedikts application "A92x Menü" is available either as a .rir download from My-Symbian or his own site (the latter has an English version too). Unfortunately I could not handle .rir-files, so it took me a while to bypass that problem. Finally I found a zip-file (a92xMenu) in the download section of the Danish 3G-forum.dk (you need to register there).

Then I decided which sites I wanted to start with. For now these became mobil.tre.se/selfcare (my 3), wap.hitta.se (an excellent Swedish phone directory), and wap.sl.se (Stockholm public transportation). I needed some graphics, so I captured images from their web sites and resized the pictures into the 55x38 pixel .bmp-files that A92x Menü uses.

The next step was to start Benedikt's excellent software application, enter the menu texts, Web addresses, and insert my graphics. After realizing that I had to go to the menu selection "Datei/Einstellungen/Zurücksetzen" in order to point to relevant directories, I got two files (now_snack.mbm and snack.ini) when I pressed "Erstellen...".

Then, following the guidelines in the pdf-documentation (included in the zip-file, in German), I copied the two files from my PC (using Motorolas Desk Top Suite) to the directory c:/system/apps/now in my A1000 (yes - I took a backup of what was in that directory just to be on the safe side).

Finally I restarted the phone and became extremely satisfied. Thanks Benedikt!!!