The 'simple GUI' available in versions 5.8+ of the BOINC Manager uses graphical representations of projects and applications:

The project is represented by a 40x40 pixel icon.
Each application is represented by a sequence of images, each up to 290x126 pixels. These are shown as a slideshow, changing once every few seconds.

For example, in the following screenshot of the simple GUI, the two icons at the bottom represent CPDN and SETI@home, and the earth-map image in the middle represents the particular CPDN application that is currently running.

Specifying project files

Project graphics files are specified in a configuration file project_files.xml that you put in your project's root directory. This file specifies a set of 'project files' that will be automatically downloaded to clients (this can be used for purposes other than graphics).

The format of 'project_files.xml' is: ".html_text(" X X X ... X X ... ")."

For each file, this specifies:

its URL (where to download it from)
its physical name; it will be stored in the project directory on the client under this name.
its MD5 checksum (use 'openssl dgst' to get this).
its logical name; a 'soft link' file will be created with this name, linking to the physical name.

All file_info records must appear before the project_files record.

As with all BOINC files, project files are immutable. If you want to change the contents of a file, you must use a new physical name.

Project Icon

A project icon is a 40x40 image, PNG, JPG, GIF, or BMP format.

An example would look like this: ".html_text(" stat_icon_01.png http://www.example.com/download/stat_icon_01.png 186c5385c8f2a48ccc7e4f64251fcda1 stat_icon_01.png stat_icon ")."

Two things to note here:

The '01' in stat_icon_01.png is used for versioning.
The physical name for the project icon is 'stat_icon_01.png' while the logical name for the project icon is 'stat_icon'. The manager looks for 'stat_icon' and resolves it to a physical name.

Application Slideshow

You can have one or more images displayed in the Simple GUI when BOINC is running one of your apps. Each image can have a height up to 126px and a width up to 290px, and can be any of the following image types: PNG, JPG, GIF, and BMP.

An example would look like this: ".html_text(" slideshow_exampleapp_01_01.png http://www.example.com/download/slideshow_exampleapp_01_01.png 186c5385c8f2a48ccc7e4f64251fcda1 slideshow_exampleapp_02_01.png http://www.example.com/download/slideshow_exampleapp_02_01.png 3b262da3d69d6b9eb55add88b66cdab4 slideshow_exampleapp_01_01.png slideshow_exampleapp_01 slideshow_exampleapp_02_01.png slideshow_exampleapp_02 ")."

In this example:

slideshow_exampleapp_02_01.png

'slideshow_' labels it as a slideshow file, 'exampleapp' is the application short name, '02' is the index of the slide within the slideshow, and 01 is the version of the file.

Example

Here is the 'project_files.xml' file SETI@home is using: ".html_text(" arecibo_181.png http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sg_images/arecibo_181.png f9b65230a594098d183d2266511bc648 sah_40.png http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sg_images/sah_40.png 5791ba1be2d33eaa5f90ecf5de89a53d sah_banner_290.png http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sg_images/sah_banner_290.png 39839286db7f580bef5377322d15ed35 sah_ss_290.png http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sg_images/sah_ss_290.png caf95504208aedd6ac6d82201e2fd8b1 sah_40.png stat_icon sah_ss_290.png slideshow_setiathome_enhanced_00 arecibo_181.png slideshow_setiathome_enhanced_01 sah_banner_290.png slideshow_setiathome_enhanced_02 ")." "; page_tail(); ?>