Sony Ericsson released a new version of their Themes Creator - Supporting Symbian phones, too.

current version now: SE Themes Creator Version 4.16

"The Themes Creator is a personal computer based application that allows users to personalise the “look and feel” of the Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The application allows you to create new themes, edit an existing theme and save a theme.

This application helps you to create/compose themes which are compatible with Sony Ericsson mobile phones. It's not a graphic editing tool, but more of a “composer”, that is, it enables you to create a theme based on existing components (sound files, image files). It also allows you to change display colours for menu text, clock display."

What's a theme?

A theme is a way to change the graphical experience for the user in just one setting. When the user selects to use a theme, the following user interface details may be affected:

• - Colours of graphical elements (backgrounds, shadows, highlights)
• - Pictures used as backgrounds for graphical elements
• - Sounds used for different alerts and events

 

Which elements that may be affected by themes depends on the mobile phone model. At delivery a number of themes are pre-loaded into the phone. More themes can be achieved, for example through an Internet connection, via MMS, or from a computer connected to the phone via Infrared, serial/USB cable or Bluetooth™ wireless technology.

 

Theme files for Sony Ericsson phones, except for the Symbian™ phones and Windows Mobile phones, are TAR archives with the file extension .thm. A theme file contains at least an XML file, in which colour settings for graphical elements and optionally image file names and audio file names are defined. If the XML file specifies image or audio file names, the specified files are also included in the archive. To extract the individual files from THM theme files most standard archiving applications on the market can be used.

 

Sony Ericsson Symbian/UIQ phone theme files are ZIP packages with file extension .utz. A package contains an XML file specifying colour settings, images and sounds used in the theme, together with a number of image and audio files.

  

Sony Ericsson Symbian S60 phone theme files are installable .sis packages. Windows Mobile phone themes are packaged in .tsk files. This is a specific format used for Windows Mobile devices with touch screens.

themes can be edited using three different modes:

• - Wizard mode
• - Advanced mode
• - XML editor mode
•  

watch here the video about the theme creator:

here is a changelog for Sony Ericsson Themes Creator Version 4.16:

•  
• - Enabled advanced color options for S60 themes
• - Enabled preserving of the aspect ratio and changed the recommended size of the background for S60 themes
• - Added more signing options when making S60 themes
• - support for Symbian phones Satio and Vivaz added
   

For more Informations, look here: Sony Ericsson Themes Creator

thanks to Mike from Smartphonearea for pointing at that :-)