[Guide] Back Row on Intel Mac, The complete Install Procedure

[Former Bender]

Important : you must make a Backup of your files, before starting this howto. You are held responsible of any damage, loss of your files.
This howto is for experimentation purpose only and i won't give any copyrighted of illegal files. So please don't ask for, thanks.


You must prepare/have a partition ready on your harddisk with an OS X installed.

(The OS X version must be a 10.4.8 minimum to make sure it will work,
as the AppleTV OS is a Mix of 10.4.7 and 10.4.8 )

----------------------

You must Boot from another OS X volume, as it will be easier to replace the system files.
(drag and drop without annoying permissions requesters).

When restarted, right-clik on the icon of the OS X partition you want to install Back Row in and check the "Ignore ownership on this volume" mark.

- Get the patched Finder binary file (6.6MB).

- Get the original Finder.app from the AppleTV OS:

OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app

Rename Finder.app to Front Row.app
Right-click on it and go inside its Package.
Open Contents/MacOS/ and replace the Finder file by the patched one and then rename it Front Row.

Open Contents/info.plist and replace <string>Finder</string> by <string>Front Row</string>


When you are done, put this Front Row.app in /System/Library/CoreServices/ inside the OS X partition you want to run Back Row.
(you can rename the original Front Row.app or overwrite it (It's not compatible with the new one and cant be run at the same time or you'll get system hangs).

Get these files from the AppleTV OS:

OSBoot/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BackRow.framework
OSBoot/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iPhotoAccess.framework

Put them in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ of the OS X partition you want to run Back Row.

--------------===CHOOSING BACK ROW MEDIA FOLDER LOCATION===----------------------

I have finally managed to find a hack to let you choose where you want your Media folder to be.

Open Disk utility and select the partition where Back Row is installed and click the Info button.

Copy its Universal Unique Identifier number.

Start Hex edit or 0xED. (make sure it is set in Overwrite mode)

Open BackRow Framework Binary located here :

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BackRow.Framework/Versions/A/BackRow

From the offset F2B14 to F2B37, replace this:

48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC (the numbers are maybe different, it's not important)
to
Your-Partition-Universal-Unique-Identifier

Now from the offset F2B80 to F2BA3, replace this:

5265636F-7665-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC (the numbers are maybe different, it's not important)
to
Your-Partition-Universal-Unique-Identifier

Now, go to the offset E03D4 and replace the two disk0s4 strings by the disk and partition number you want the Back Row's Media folder to be created.

Check in Disk Utility (info button) the partition number you want the Media folder to be created.

The Media partition must be HFS Extended.
You can choose any external harddisk you want.
The Media folder will be created at the root of the selected partition.

IMPORTANT
Don't move it inside folder's tree and use Alias, because at the next start, Back Row will not find it and will automatically create a new one.
If you choose an external Harddisk, you must make sure that it is mounted on your computer before starting Back Row. Otherwise, Back Row will not find its Media Folder and will create a new one on the first partition of the first internal disk of your computer.
The UUID is unique for every single partition. You will have to make this again, if you plan to move your system to another disk/partition.

You can now save the modification in the hex editor and continue.

---------------------------------<< EDIT >>-----------------------------
Grabberslasher on InsanelyMac has released a sample code to create a Front Row appliance
that add a Quit menu to Back Row.

You can follow the procedure here >> http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=46967, and try to compile it yourself.

MACDAD82 has compiled one version and added a very nice Quit Template.

So we don't need the QuitFrontRowUB.app anymore.
Goodbye Mighty Mouse on my Macbook Pro

Download the Quit.frappliance here >> http://www.mediafire.com/?biznvlmt5di

Then, unzip it and copy Quit.frappliance inside the plugin folder located here :

/System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/PlugIns/

IF you are not using English as default language you must go inside Quit.Frappliance/Contents/Resources/ and duplicate the English.lproj.
Then you just rename it as your OS X language.
If you are not sure about the name just compare the Resources folder with an Apple iApp. (e.g. Safari)

You can also change the CFBundleName = "Quit" in your_language.lprog/InfoPlist.strings to fit your language.

Then you just rename English to your OS X native language.



Click the link below, if you want to see how it looks like animated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RkocYDc0qY

Now, right-clik on the icon of the OS X volume you have installed Back Row in and uncheck the "Ignore ownership on this volume".

Run Disk utility and repair the Disk permissions of this OS X partition.

You can now restart on this Partition.

Press the Menu Button on your Apple Remote and enjoy !

-------------------------------------------------

----------------UPDATE ----------------------

Activating the Apple+Tab command to switch to other applications when Back Row is launched.

Greetings to MACDAD82 for this wonderful hack !

Don't Forget to Backup the file you gonna modify

- Open hex edit or 0xED. (make sure it is set in Overwrite mode)

- Load the Front Row binary file inside /System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/MacOS/
(i assume that you have done the hackint0sh's Howto before, otherwise the name of the file, Front Row in our case, will be another like Finder or AppleTV according to the name you gave it.)

- Search for this Offset > 45DDFA



check the image to make sure you are at the right place

replace the string BRFullscreenRenderer to BRWindowRenderer....

When you have done it:



check the image to compare if you've made it right.

Save and start Front Row (Apple+Esc on your keyboard or Apple remote menu button).

Now if you want to switch to another app you can press Apple+Tab keys and you'll have full support of the mouse and the Keyboard.

Dual Display (extended desktop) will let you see and control other apps, but you must move the launched apps in the second screen before launching Front Row.

--------------------
If you don't use the Dual display >>
Before starting Back Row, you must set your screen resolution to 640x480 or 800x600 and then start it, it will start and change the screen resolution to 1280x800 (or something like that) but will remain in 640x480 or 800x600 so you will be able to see the finder behind and select itunes.
--------------------

And you will be able to access your local itunes and let Back Row play its shared files... !

EDIT >> turn off all the AppleTV Syncing in iTunes, just use the standard iTunes sharing and you can directly access all your iTunes library locally by using the Sources menu in Back Row and select the iTunes sharing (not Sync).
With this tip, you will never get duplicates files.


---------MENU ORDER-----------

If you want to change the ordering of the menu you can modify info.plist of every frappliances.

System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/Plugins/*.frappliance/Contents/info.plist

Front Row.app can be different in case you have used another tutorial to install Back Row.
(e.g the name can be Finder.app or AppleTV.app)

Open the info.plist and change the value

<key>FRAppliancePreferedOrderValue</key>
<real>1</real>

1 = first on top
2 = second
3 ...
...


--------- PLAYING FLV, AVI, FLASH GAMES IN BACK ROW--------------

Great news everyone !

With the Amazing talent of EricIII from awkwardtv.org,

Back Row can play all many different kind of files by using the ATVfiles.frappliance >> http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/ATVFiles
This plugin gives you access to your files in /Users/frontrow/Movies/

If this path does not exist, you can create a frontrow folder in /Users/
then create a Movies folder inside and put the files there.

We just have to find a way to activate mouse and Keyboard support in Back Row for the flash games. (work in progress...)

If you want to see by yourself, just put a .swf flash game or any other kind of video file that can be opened with Quicktime in the above mentioned path. (You can install the codec pack "perian" to let Back Row play Divx, Xvid, FLV (flash video), etc...) >> www.perian.org

[hackand]

Niiice. Thank you! Now we just need to figure out how to make it read the media already on your Mac, and we'll have ourselves a new Front Row

[tty7]

Really great Need to check this!

[macuser_42]

thanks,
im still looking for the password for AppleTVHacks.rar
can u help me ?

[DsurioN]

Use a different mirror...

Oh by the way, someone over at InsanelyMac has posted an app like this that will not only quit appleTV, but also set your resolution back as well. You can try out my tutorial here : http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=46680. It does not require a clean install!

[alltherightpills]

got this working, looks great! but backrow disables bluetooth, so my wireless mighty mouse is no good for getting out of AppleTV and back into normal OSX. anyone have an idea for enabling bluetooth within the AppleTV side?

[Former Bender]

Originally Posted by alltherightpills

got this working, looks great! but backrow disables bluetooth, so my wireless mighty mouse is no good for getting out of AppleTV and back into normal OSX. anyone have an idea for enabling bluetooth within the AppleTV side?

Can you check in your console /Applications/Utilities/Console.app > System.log...etc
Do you get any message related to "blued" ?

I've got it working on a Macbook Pro with a bluetooth Mighty Mouse without any problem.

You must also check in /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app
Is the blued loaded ?

[arthuar16]

someone posted a torrent called appleTV.dmg on demo..no one knows something about it??
coz i got the finder patched But I miss da finder.app necessaried for back row...so...I'm asking
thanks.

[mackincrack]

Is there anyway to just install the Apple TV OS Image to a HD, and put it in a hackintosh.

Or what is the procedure to install this on a Hackintosh (Beige Box)

[DsurioN]

- Search for this Offset > 45DDFA

and replace the string BRFullscreenRenderer to BRWindowRenderer

and add 4 pairs of 00 (zero) at the end of BRWindowRenderer

In ASCII, it should look like this BRWindowRenderer....
in HEX, it should look like this 425246756C6C73637265656E52656E646572657200000000

Do we use doubles, floats, strings, 16 bit unsigned???? Whenever I try this Front Row does not launch anymore at all. Also, the HEX value you gave is how the original looks like (BRFullScreenRenderer)... After I make the modifications, the offset 45DDFA referes to the "W" in BRWindowRenderer instead of the "B"