[wteixeir]

...how can i change the colour of that blue screen that shows up when starting up my computer, behind the boot panel ????

thanks

[mrbiiggy2]

http://resexcellence.com

[ARENA]

AFAIK that blue background is hard coded into the Aqua 'window manager' and no one has been able to change it.

[Adam Betts]

BBX Theme replaced the default original blue bg that is in Library>Desktop Pictures and then it will change the Login background.

I don't like this method myself.

[ARENA]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
BBX Theme replaced the default original blue bg that is in Library>Desktop Pictures and then it will change the Login background.

I don't like this method myself.

Well, yes that's the "dirty method" for replacing the Login panel background. The one that can't be changed is the solid blue background that appears with the Boot panel.

[Dace]

It can't be changed...but it can be hid. Create a bootpanel.pdf the size of your screen resolution and Voila! Blue bg is gone. It's a dirty and cheap method...but it works. The progress bar location changes but I'm sure you can easily figure out where it will appear.

[Hi I'm Mike]

I have found the file that changes that as well as the start up sound etc. the file is called bootx.bootinfo but i still don't know how to open it to show what is really in it.. i will just paste some text from the first few lines here...

<CHRP-BOOT>
<COMPATIBLE>
MacRISC
</COMPATIBLE>
<DESCRIPTION>
Boot Loader for Mac OS X.
</DESCRIPTION>
<OS-BADGE-ICONS>
(then goes on to say this.)
1010
00000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000F8000000
000000002B73732B0055735500F80000
00000000F5799DF6004F792B0000F800
0000000000F69D4E004F2B000000F800
000000000000559D2A55F500000000F8
000000000000F69D732B0000000000F8
000000000000004F96F50000000000F8
00000000000000799D4E0000000000F8
0000000000002AF8559D0000000000F8
00000000000079F6F59D4E00000000F8
00000000004E4F00005573000000F800
000000004F9D55F5004F9D4FF500F800
0000F800557A56F50055567A2BF80000
000000F8F8000000000000F8F8000000
0000000000F8F8F8F8F8F80000000000

0000000000F7F7F7F7F7F70000000000
000000F7F7F7F7F7F7F7F7F781000000
0000F7F7F99E9EF9F7809E80F7810000
00F7F7F7F8A4C856F77AA4F9F7F78100
00F7F7F7F756C879F77AF9F7F7F78100
F7F7F7F7F7F780C85580F8F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F756C89EF9F7F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F7F77AC1F8F7F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F7F7A4C879F7F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F7558180C8F7F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F7A456F8C879F7F7F7F781
00F7F7F7F7797AF7F7809EF7F7F78100
00F7F7F77AC880F8F77AC87AF8F78100
000081F780A5FBF8F780FBA5F9810000
0000008181F7F7F7F7F7F78181000000
00000000008181818181810000000000

now i don't know if you can tell in here but you can definatly tell in the file that those are images there and the file goes on and on and on.
at the end of thos little "images" which there is like one more it says this

</OS-BADGE-ICONS>
<BOOT-SCRIPT>
load-base
begin
dup 6 " &lt;/CHRP" $= if
6 + dup 6 " -BOOT&gt;" $= if
8 + true
else
false
then
else
1+ false
then
until
( xcoff-base )
load-size over load-base - -
( xcoff-base xcoff-size )
load-base swap move
init-program go
</BOOT-SCRIPT>
</CHRP-BOOT>

Now I don't know what CHRP-BOOT is or if it means chirp and it is the sound at the begining or what it is but this file is huge and has a lot of stuff in it. in the middle it looks like a dmg file but it is in text and shows up like if you did not set your browser to download the dmg's or sit's or whatever stuffed item like that.. example:

alright so it looks like it isnt going to show everything here if you want the file let me know. i will also try and relocate it on the system.

[Hi I'm Mike]

I hope someone knows what it is and what it does. it looks like its just the file that makes the computer boot up but also has a whole bunch of othr things in it. so let me know what you think. if you want to know where it is, or just have a copy to look at etc.
my aim name is mpinbwzrd and my email is mike@trizera.com


(I can't get any more of it to post.)

[smeger]

That file is written in Forth, and it's telling open-firmware how to go about actually booting your mac. CHRP is Common Hardware Reference Platform, the name given to a common apple-motorola initiative from a few years back to get a common motherboard architecture. The initiative basically died, but I guess the name lives on in the booting code.

Hint - if you try to understand Forth by reading it, you have to sort-of turn your brain upside down. It's "stack" based, which means that instead of using lines of code where one line performs a particular functionality, one line operates on the top of a "stack" of numbers.

Example:Adding 5 and 2. In a "normal" language, you'd write "5+2". In Forth, you write
5 ; puts the number 5 on the stack
2 ; puts the number 2 on the stack
+ ; adds the top two numbers on the stack and replaces them with the result.

If you want to play around with snippets of Forth, you can grab "gforth" using Fink and just type in your snippets. Fun, for 30 seconds.


Good luck!

[Vanquish]

Am I the only one who sees an X with a circle around it in the "code" that Hi I'm Mike posted ?

[mrtew]

Originally posted by Vanquish:
Am I the only one who sees an X with a circle around it in the "code" that Hi I'm Mike posted ?

WOW! I see it now that you mention it!
WTF???


00000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000F8000000
000000002B73732B0055735500F80000
00000000F5799DF6004F792B0000F800
0000000000F69D4E004F2B000000F800
000000000000559D2A55F500000000F8
000000000000F69D732B0000000000F8
000000000000004F96F50000000000F8
00000000000000799D4E0000000000F8
0000000000002AF8559D0000000000F8
00000000000079F6F59D4E00000000F8
00000000004E4F00005573000000F800
000000004F9D55F5004F9D4FF500F800
0000F800557A56F50055567A2BF80000
000000F8F8000000000000F8F8000000
0000000000F8F8F8F8F8F80000000000

0000000000F7F7F7F7F7F70000000000
000000F7F7F7F7F7F7F7F7F781000000
0000F7F7F99E9EF9F7809E80F7810000
00F7F7F7F8A4C856F77AA4F9F7F78100
00F7F7F7F756C879F77AF9F7F7F78100
F7F7F7F7F7F780C85580F8F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F756C89EF9F7F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F7F77AC1F8F7F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F7F7A4C879F7F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F7558180C8F7F7F7F7F781
F7F7F7F7F7F7A456F8C879F7F7F7F781
00F7F7F7F7797AF7F7809EF7F7F78100
00F7F7F77AC880F8F77AC87AF8F78100
000081F780A5FBF8F780FBA5F9810000
0000008181F7F7F7F7F7F78181000000
00000000008181818181810000000000

[Angus_D]

I think those are the badges shown on disks when you start up your computer with the option key held down (to select which disk to boot from).

[foobars]

Angus is right, those are those little badges put over the disks by the firmware boot selector (option key at startup). Technically this is BootX running, which doesn't handle the drawing of the background.

According to O'Reilly's Mac OSX for Unix Geeks this is the boot order for OSX:

1- Firmware initializes hardware
2- BootX draws the Apple logo and spinning disk. Loads the cached kernel extensions and any new extensions. Starts Mach kernel.
3- Mach kernel initializes BSD subsystem and I/O Kit, mounts root filesystem. Launches init process.
4- init process runs rc script, decides which system services should be started by reading hostconfig. If the system is booting from a CD, init launches the installation program. If you're starting in single-user mode init will drop you into a shell. Otherwise init mounts local filesystems, loads kernel extensions and launches...
5- SystemStarter draws the boot screen and progress bar (and blue background) and loads the StartupItems, then starts the login program

So basically you should look in SystemStarter to change the background, not BootX, which is many steps beforehand.

[Angus_D]

Actually, it's not SystemStarter either. Just before SystemStarter is launched, the WindowServer is started, and that's what draws the blue background as the lowest lowest window. It's what you see briefly if you kill the loginwindow or windowserver (thus restarting the windowserver), or logout, or what you see if you set the Finder's desktop picture window to transparent (or move it out the way - ah, playing with CoreGraphics Services is fun ). Since most of WindowServer is in CoreGraphics, you'll need to look in the CoreGraphics library. However, I suggest that NOBODY patches this library EVER using a theme with current theme technology.

[Vanquish]

this is very exciting

but what is that "code" exactly ??? don't tell me that it is used to draw an image ?

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by Vanquish:
but what is that "code" exactly ??? don't tell me that it is used to draw an image ?

See smeger's post above, it's relating to the interoperation between BootX and Open Firmware, and is written in Forth. There is drawing code in BootX, but it's compiled in. You can look at the source, of course, it's part of Darwin.

[Vanquish]

ok thank, well you are always a great help Angus