Rotate your screen with DisplayTwister!

[phaseIV]

Since I love viewing documents on a horizontal screen (especially now with my s10e) I decided to write an application that could rotate the OSX Desktop. At the moment it is working rather well so I wanted to share a first version here with you.

The app is called DisplayTwister and uses Quartz to 'redisplay' the destop image in different portrait and landscape modes. Also, when you apply a taller monitor resolution with SwitchResX you can get a fullscreen portrait mode and use DisplayTwister to scroll over the entire desktop image.

There are plenty of drawbacks with DisplayTwister, most notably the performance and the font aliasing, but it is very convenient to read long texts with the netbook turned over. (Tilt the screen Left and you can use your thumb to use the PgUp/PgDn keys on the Lenovo s10e)
And I can imagine that DisplayTwister can help installing programs (in combination with SwitchResX) and give access to dialogs that are bigger than the screen.

Give it a try, doubleclick the app and press the cmd-arrow keycombinations to tilt the screen. When you want to quit or change the orientation just cmd-tab back to DisplayTwister and press cmd-q or another cmd-arrow keycombination.

I love to hear your experiences.
http://captv.nl/rob/DisplayTwister.zip (Leopard)

Known issues; the 'real' mousecursor will popup at times and the simulated mousecursor will not change it's shape.
Oh, and i stole the icon. It will be replaced in a future version.

[rbonon]

That is cool. Love to read on portrait orientation. How should I set the resolution on the portrait modes in order to have the screen correctly displayed? Should I use the SwitchResX app that you mention?

[phaseIV]

Yes, i used SwitchResX to add new custom resolutions to my s10e. A resolution of 1024x1024 pixels will allow a fullscreen portrait mode with DisplayTwister.

Please note that SwitchResX is a commercial app, designed for native mac hardware. The uninstaller gave me a black screen after reboot, i had to re-update the DellEFI kexts in single user mode to get things going again.

[striatedglutes]

Yes, i used SwitchResX to add new custom resolutions to my s10e. A resolution of 1024x1024 pixels will allow a fullscreen portrait mode with DisplayTwister.

Before I go installing SwitchResX, did your custom resolution leave part of the desktop hanging off of the screen? I.e. if you maximized a window, would it maximize partially off screen?

[phaseIV]

Before I go installing SwitchResX, did your custom resolution leave part of the desktop hanging off of the screen? I.e. if you maximized a window, would it maximize partially off screen?

Yes it did. When you customize the desktop/finder size larger than the native screen resolution, parts of the desktop will become invisible.
I designed my app so you can use the mousecursor to scroll to the hidden areas of the desktop. In a next version I'll add a scale option so the entire desktop/finder size will be scaled (down) to match the netbook display.

[m1ke_l]

for the record, linux users can use $ xrandr -o rotate left/right/normal

[phaseIV]

for the record, linux users can use $ xrandr -o rotate left/right/normal

Unfortunately, as expected, this doesn't work from the osx shell.
If run, It starts X and gives a Bus Error.

[Euthenics]

This sounds interesting. Will definately try this out. The addition of scale option is nice.
When is the next version coming out?

[bernardsatx]

Thank you! I've been waiting for a program like this for over a year. I have one request and I can pay you for your work. I'm using Leopard on a Tablet PC and the rotation works fine with my GMA 950 but my mouse gets all messed up because of the Tablet pen software. Is there anyway you can release or modify a version that just rotates but does not do anything to the mouse? Send me a PM and I'll gladly donate to your work!

[bhylak]

Does anyone have a copy of DisplayTwister they can upload? The link no longer works.
If some improvements are made, and it works, I too will pay for it!