Changing monitor resolution using applescript

I am having a little problem with a server. The problem is that I am using an ancient montiro that is only capable of 640 x 480 at 60 Hz and the server is set on 800 x 600 (it’s default). As you might assume, I cannot see to fix the problem. I can logon to the server (It is an iMac with an external monitor attached, LONG STORY) with my G4 so I could drop an applescript in the startup items folder (It’s using Mac OS X so it would be the folder the the login items prefpane looks in when it start up.

Ooooops! Just re-read your question. OS X. So sorry! Ignore my silly post - or, of course, downgrade! (Just kidding).

can you establish a telnet or ssh session to the iMac and change resolutions from there? i’m booted in os 9.1 right now and can’t check to see if it’s possible to do such a thing from the command line. you could also try booting into open firmware and setting the default resolution. i had to do that a bunch of times when i was trying to get an iMac to reliably work with XFree86 and linuxppc. it’s worth a try, i guess.

If you can logon to the server from another Mac you may be able to change the prefs file where the monitor resolution is stored (without having to do telnet or ssh). But you’ll have to figure out where the prefs file is. I’m not sure if it’s stored per user or in a global prefs, but I’d suggest looking at some of the .plist files in either /Library/Preferences or in /Users//Library/Preferences.

The .plist files are XML and should be viewable in a text editor. If your client is OS X and you’ve installed the developer tools then you should have an app call PropertyListEditor with your developer applications. Just copy some likely candidates from the server to your client and look thru them and see if you can find the monitor resolution, make your changes, put the modified file back on the server. If it was a global prefs (from /Library/Preferences) you may have to reboot. If it was a user prefs then go login to the server as that user and see if the change “took”.

Excuse my density, but what do monitor settings on the server have to do with the display on your ancient monitor? I don’t know a lot about client-server systems, but I always thought the server delivered files to the client and what the client did with them was strictly a local matter. If you’re talking about web pages that don’t fit your browser’s screen, that would be the fault of the way the HTML was written, not monitor settings on the server.

[3/7/02 11:51:37 AM]

It sounds like you have 2 computer. If you have 2 computers you should also have 2 monitors. If this is the case why not just plug in you monitor to the server, change the setting and plug the old monitor back in. Much easier then scripting or play I think that check box is about here. . .maybe here. When you do get it working you could install something like Timbuktu. If you had that running you could run the server from your computer.