Article is written by Tamás KOSÁRSZKY.
How do you mean customizable?
You can replace all the images, the icons, the funny chameleon artwork, the fonts. Also you can set the background color, the transparency levels, the dimensons, positions of certain user interface elements. The image resource files can be either embedded into the booter or can be loaded at runtime by using a special .plist style configuration file.
Doesn’t embedding the images makes the boot loader too large?
With the current set of icons, images, fonts embedded, the booter size is about 300k. Without embedding the resources you will get about a 110k large booter. The maximum size of the booter is 392704 bytes (383.5k).
What image formats are supported?
The booter has built-in support for true color 24 bit PNG images with 8 bit transparency layer. We wanted to offer a high quality lossless image format which can be created, edited with many graphics applications across all platforms.
What if I still prefer the text mode interface?
We can’t switch between text mode and graphical mode at the moment after the booter has been started, but you still have a Boot.plist option to disable the GUI. This way you get the well known text based Darwin boot menu.
Ok, this is all fine. Can I see something?
Sure! Click below on the pictures in the gallery to see these shots in full size.
Can I have it now?
No. Please don’t ask for it as you will get it when it’s released.
What’s next? Do i have to wait for next christmas ;-)?
We’re still fighting with issues and polishing the code but freezed the features. So instead of staying quiet, we’re going to reveal other features in the next post on this week.
Image gallery:
Countdown timer using a progress bar.
You can select from many partitions across multiple disks. Even the foreign OS types are detected properly on GPT formatted disks as well.
You can choose from the typical boot options available for native HFS partitions.
This is how the video mode list will be rendered as a transparent window surface over the icons.
Optionally you can replace the grey apple logo with a custom transparent image.
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