Customizing BoinxTV

BoinxTV comes with more than 30 layers which already offer an impressive set of graphics elements and effects. Many of these layers expose controls which let you change their visual appearance by replacing graphics, choosing your CI font, changing the colors or positions of the text and other graphical elements.

The real power, however, lies in the fact that the layers are actually made with a Mac OS X technology called Quartz Composer. In theory, anyone can make their own.

Quartz Composer

Quartz Composer is an amazing visual environment for creating complex animations which are called Quartz Compositions. Quartz Composer comes with the Apple Developer Tools on your Mac OS X Leopard DVD. ADC members can download the software from the Apple Developer Connection website.

Creating Your Own Layers

Almost anything is possible with Quartz Compositions. Create interactive TV shows where your audience can send in SMS text messages which are displayed on screen. Create stock charts from online data. Keep scores in a sports match. Play games on screen. You may find inspiration in some of the layers included with BoinxTV.

To work with BoinxTV, the Quartz Compositions must contain certain elements so that BoinxTV and the layer can talk to each other and that the layer can display the media files BoinxTV sends to it. The technical documentation is included with BoinxTV under the Help menu.