Graphics apps

Providing graphics for BOINC applications

A BOINC application may provide graphics (e.g. visualizations) to volunteers. These graphics are shown in two contexts:

• As a screensaver, if selected by the user.
• In a window, opened using the Show Graphics button in the BOINC Manager.

Graphics are generated by a 'graphics app' program (separate from the main application).

BOINC provides a graphics API for developing graphics apps using OpenGL.

This graphics app must have the properties that:

• If invoked with --fullscreen, it opens a full-screen borderless window. In this case it is acting as a screensaver, and must exit on mouse or keyboard input (if you use the BOINC graphics API this is handled automatically).
• Otherwise it opens a standard window, and may handle mouse/keyboard input.

The graphics app is part of an app version. The logical name of the program must be 'graphics_app'. When you set up your app version directory, use an entry like

<file>
   <physical_name>uppercase_graphics_6.14_windows_intelx86.exe</physical_name>
   <logical_name>graphics_app</logical_name>
</file>

in your version.xml file.

The graphics app is launched by the BOINC Manager and/or by the screensaver. It may be killed at any time. Multiple instances of the graphics app may run at the same time (e.g. if the user opens a graphics window via the Manager, and then the screensaver runs and launches another instance).