zhinchliffe Posted March 26, 2007 Share Posted March 26, 2007 I am talking about bringing the Apple TV GUI (Finder.app) over to an OS X computer and running it there, in place of Front Row. Is this even fathomable? I'd vastly prefer it over the normal Front Row. I'll be running some tests on it later today when it gets done downloading. Wish me luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Marvin Posted March 26, 2007 Share Posted March 26, 2007 I was thinking if it would be possible in any way just to simply copy the finder from aTV and rename it Frontrow and chuck it on an Intel Mac? I can't try myself, however Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbz Posted March 26, 2007 Share Posted March 26, 2007 no, that isn't possible. It checks for the device ID, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The best idea right now is to get the aTV OS working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zhinchliffe Posted March 26, 2007 Author Share Posted March 26, 2007 Ah, OK. Thanks for answering my question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbz Posted March 26, 2007 Share Posted March 26, 2007 oh no, the "it's impossible to just run it" is in response to Paranoid Marvin's renaming idea. In theory, what you are trying to do is possible, but heavy hacking will be required to finder.app. That's why it would be easier right now to change the rest of the aTV OS to make it think Finder.app is running on the aTV. But even that's proving hard to do. -Urby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackand Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 There's a patched Finder.app from the aTV going round (actually, just a couple of guys have it, you can do it yourself if you know how), and some guy over at hackint0sh said that tif you copied the BackRow and iPhotoAccess frameworks the way it is described here to a regular OS X install, and instead of replacing the regular Finder.app with the one from the aTV, you renamed it "Front Row.app" and placed it instead of the regular Front Row.app, Finder would launch that one instead, and as it is patched to skip the hardware check, theoretically, it should work. Or at least launch, as a Front Row replacement (probably without the Front Row introduction and being forced to exit it by Force Quit), but someone is gonna have to come up with a way of having it read the media on your Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbz Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 i'm not sure if it would work, but with the patched finder and injected frameworks, it may be possible to create an account and have that default to the Atv finder, enable fast user switching, set it to a key combo with an app like butler, and switch between the accounts, with one being a normal account, and another the Atv os. That way, the other account could register the fake atv and voila, you're done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackand Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 I believe Front Row.app is activated by BezelServices when it detects you press cmd+Esc or press the menu button on the remote, and it just launches Front Row.app, even if it's any other renamed app. But Finder.app from the aTV is identified everywhere inside as "Front Row", even in the bundle signatures, so there should be no conflict there. Now I only need the patched Finder… Edit: Ok, "any app" doesn't work, but I'm pretty confident about the aTV Finder. And, do you mean register the user as a fake aTV on iTunes? I don't know how that would work, but it'd be pretty cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbz Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 And, do you mean register the user as a fake aTV on iTunes? I don't know how that would work, but it'd be pretty cool. Yeah. I know you can do it with another computer (which is fine for my purposes) but i bet my theory could give you that without needing two monitors, or another more complicated solution. -Urby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackand Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 That'd be awesome, since I don't hace 2 macs to try this. I'm getting the Finder patch right now, gonna try my Front Row theory first, then I'll try to find out how to make the aTV Finder play my media. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackand Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 So the aTV Finder runs well on my iMac, but my Front Row theory doesn't. Now I'd really want to know how to get my media to the software, and I can't come up with a way to make iTunes think I have a bogus ?tv connected to the network and that its media folder is right inside my HD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob_nugget Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 I believe Front Row.app is activated by BezelServices when it detects you press cmd+Esc or press the menu button on the remote, and it just launches Front Row.app, even if it's any other renamed app. But Finder.app from the aTV is identified everywhere inside as "Front Row", even in the bundle signatures, so there should be no conflict there. Now I only need the patched Finder… Edit: Ok, "any app" doesn't work, but I'm pretty confident about the aTV Finder. And, do you mean register the user as a fake aTV on iTunes? I don't know how that would work, but it'd be pretty cool. Yeah I think that is about right here - I posted on hackint0sh about this - I copied the Frameworks over, renamed aTV Finder.app to Front\ Row.app (and the actual exe inside) and restarted. I also changed the references in Info.plist to say Front Row.app and not Finder.app. Also, I copied the SystemVersion.plist from CoreServices over (so my OS reports it is the aTV version). It still failed on the hardware check, but something in the system.log was continually trying to load the hacked Front Row (aTV Finder) up. Seeing as it loads when the whole OS is loaded, I think the hardware errors are a driver issue, not a missing hardware issue. aTV Finder is Front Row 2.0 for 10.4 - the identifiers all say so inside it, as do the pLists Anyone want to try and patch it into Leopard? I bet that already has Front Row 2.0 on it... Cheers, Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackand Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 Actually, someone at hackint0sh got it running! http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showpost.p...mp;postcount=52 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DsurioN Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 See my guide here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=46680 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackand Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 It's pretty good, I used it, but I meant that the guy over at hackint0sh got it running as a Front Row.app, launched when Menu is pressed on the remote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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