FrontRow Hack – Getting it Working

9:33 am, October 27th, 2005,

Over in the comments section of my other blog, reader Lone Star kindly posted the five steps needed to configure your illegally pirated copy of FrontRow, including a keyboard shortcut to launch it.

Click the link for Lone Star’s tutorial. Be warned, I haven’t tested it.

Reader Lone Star writes:

A few pre-tutorial notes:

If you have already placed front row.app in your applications folder but HAVE done the plist modification, this will not work exactly as desired. Download the patched front row.app again and replace your plist modded version with the downloaded one. We’ve found it works much better this way. You don’t see the ugly dock icon, and the problems with iTunes working properly seem to be gone too.

==========================

STEP 1.
Download JacksonBrown’s patched Front Row STW.

His brilliant patching work makes Front Row run under 10.4.2 without having the iMac’s remote present.
There are three files inside this .ZIP
- Readme.txt you may now ignore, as it is out of date.
- Front Row.app copy to the Applications folder
- BezelServices.framework copy to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/

(EDITOR’S NOTE: It has been suggested it’s best to backup ‘BezelServices.framework’ before overwriting it)

At this point you will need to reboot your computer.

STEP 2.
Open Script Editor.app (located in Applications/AppleScript) and paste in the following code.

tell application “System Events”
tell application “Front Row” to activate
key code 53 using {command down}
end tell

Once you have done this, save it as an application named openfrontrow.app in your applications folder.

STEP 3.
Now go to macupdate and download the program named Xkeys. It is freeware.
Once you have the file downloaded, install it and then open it up. Inside the program, configure your F8 key to run your openfrontrow.app file you created in STEP2.

STEP 4.
Now go into System Preferences. In the Accounts preference tab set up front row.app (the one you downloaded, NOT to be confused with openfrontrow.app that you created in STEP2) to be a login item.

STEP 5.
Reboot your computer. When it turns back on, press the F8 key and hopefully you will be experiencing Front Row! Pressing F8 again (or a lot of other keys on the keyboard) will close Front Row.
Let me know if it works!

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18 comments

An easier way of doing this in Quicksilver is to make the script itself (not the open front row.app) a trigger. It works way faster. It will run with about one second wait.

computerdude33, on October 27th, 2005 at 11:33 am

so, is this legal?

josh, on October 27th, 2005 at 7:56 pm

No, this isn’t really legal. However, I have this friend who used FR on a mini plugged in to a TV set… It looks amazing. NTSC video stinks, and this was a connection via RCA cable no less. June 06 will be very interesting…

Victor Agreda, Jr., on October 28th, 2005 at 11:27 am

I got it to work juts fine on my 1.33 12in Powerbook. Works even better when used with my BT phone and a Salling Clicker script.

Joshua Zimmerman, on October 30th, 2005 at 6:25 pm

xkeys does not work on 10.4.3. can anyone tell me how to work around that?

Pieter Gustavson, on November 2nd, 2005 at 6:23 am

Anyone needing the Front Row hack with instructions and Photo Booth can visit my webpage at http://homepage.mac.com/mark_brooks/markabrooks/page10/page10.html

Mark Brooks, on November 2nd, 2005 at 12:17 pm

Would not run at all you see the script launch but nothing appears on the screen, followed all the instructions and nothing. Looking in the activity monitor you can see that front row is running but will not bring it on screen.

quiff, on November 6th, 2005 at 8:49 am

you have to hold down esc for a few seconds to get front row to activate, whilst its the front most app… alternatively, go to Mark Brook’s homepage and get his very useful opening app, which automatically activates Front Row.

Stefan Langford, on November 6th, 2005 at 10:01 am

Another cool thing is a little app called dockless… you make it so that it maeans that whenever front row isnt active its not in the dock, thus meaning that its kind of like dashboard in its seamlessness. you just need to hold down your favourite Fkey then Esc, and front row loads. quit/ leave it and the app disappears from the dock, but may still be on.

stefan Langford, on November 19th, 2005 at 7:45 am

All needed files and great Hack instruction can be found here:

http://homepage.mac.com/mark_brooks/appsformymac/page30/page30.html

Mark Brooks, on December 13th, 2005 at 10:49 pm

is it true that OSX 10.4.4 breaks this hack?

larry, on January 11th, 2006 at 5:32 pm

This site is really cool.

Dijor, on February 9th, 2006 at 9:33 am

Cool site man. Keep up good work man!

Weqiqen, on February 15th, 2006 at 2:20 pm

Nice job Webmaster. Beautiful website very good work and nice design!

Sirobiy, on February 16th, 2006 at 1:48 am