Enable Monitor Rotation on your Powerbook
I was right. I never tire of saying that, or even typing it. Way back in March I posted about how it was rumored that monitor rotation would be included in Tiger (and I guessed that Tiger would cost $129). As we all know by now, I was right (on both accounts).However, it looked like us Powerbook users wouldn't be able to use this feature. Fear not, according to Leo at fscklog Powerbook users can rejoice! At least 15-inch or greater Powerbook users with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 can rejoice. Luckily, I count myself amongst those numbers; sadly C.K. has a 12-inch Powerbook, and this trick wouldn't work for him.
I am happy to report that rotating your monitor on a 15-inch Powerbook has never been easier:
1. Launch System Preferences (if you already have System Preferences open quit it and launch it again).
2. Hold down the Option key and click the 'Displays' preference.
3. There's no step 3!
You should find yourself looking at a preference pane that looks exactly like the picture in this post. Rotate at your own risk though, navigating via trackpad with the screen rotated at 90 degrees isn't as easy as it sounds.
To return your screen to normal repeat steps 1 and 2 (including quitting System Preferences).
This entry was tag team written by C.K. and myself, so if it seems meaner than my normal fare you know why.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
El Payo said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Works on a 15" AlBook with an ATI Radeon Mobility 9600 as well. Cool!
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kmduke said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Worked for me on my 12' iBook with the ATI 9200, and wow, trying to use the trackpad, AHHHHHHH.
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RP said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
I think I need an upgrade or I'm doing something wrong. Not working for a NVIDIA GeForce4 MX and a 17" LCD Studio Display.
I was thinking of buying a Radeon 9800 XT. Would it work with that?
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chris said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Worked on my Tibook with Radeon 8500.
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Scott McNulty said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
lgc90too, you're right! I fixed it, thanks.
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Shane Todd said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
You bastards! Do you know how hard it is to use a trackpad with the monitor rotated like that!
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Scott McNulty said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Shane, I tried to warn you!
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Aaron Vegh said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
My god, why??? What possible utility could this serve on the Powerbook?
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Jason Robertson said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
It works on my 14" iBook G4 with a Radeon 9200
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Jeff said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
okay, so rotating 180 degrees (flipping it) also flipped the trackpad control - up was down, etc. BUT rotating only 90 degrees didn't "remap" the trackpad, thus making it really really really hard to get it back. Wonder why they didn't take that into consideration...
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Scott McNulty said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Mitey, if I had to guess, which I assume you would like me to, you are right. The Mac mini is using up most of its graphics mojo drawing the screen to whatever rotation you have it set to, so I would expect lightening fast reaction out of other graphically intense operations.
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Caius Durling said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Doesn't work for me on my 12" with GeForce FX Go5200. Guess I'm in the same boat as CK when it comes to screen rotation. I'll be testing this on my mates new iBook when it comes, and my friends iMac G5 once his new modem arrives and he installs tiger.
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Chris said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
Re: slowness when rotated
It sounds to me like all the screen draws get done to a portrait shaped frame buffer (e.g. 1024x1280) so that the x and y axis are still in the same direction, and then it gets rotated in it's entirety (e.g. to 1280x1024) as a final operation . If that is the case, it's a pretty sucky way of doing things. Your GPU is now tasked with doing 60|70|85 huge texture rotations per second, which might be managable for the more powerful hardware, but is a big hit for a Mini.
Yes, that was all based on assumption, but it seems to fit the evidence.
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Ari said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
works great on my Ti book and hey - someone wanna be awesomely cool and make a program to change the trackpad preffs so we all dont die trying to tun this feature off? :)
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Beren said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
Finally! A use for the round, puck-style Apple mice! That way you can hold them sideway, upside down. All you have to do is click a bit different. Hmmm. Click different. . . ?
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Chris said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
Ok, laugh out loud. I tried this on my mini and the screen blanked out. Dark. No picture. I waited 30 seconds, w/ no return to the original (right side up settings). I rebooted and it was right side up for the Apple logo; it was rotated 90 deg for log in, and then it goes blank after log in.
Any ideas on how to UNDO this? I'm using a 17" Sony CRT monitor (no it doesn't rotate!). Any "safe mode" log in I can use?
Many thanks in advance for the replies.
-C
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Michael said 11:18AM on 7-01-2005
Man, this is going to be a fun trick to play on many friends!
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Evansbee said 4:33PM on 7-08-2005
This is pretty cool. If you combine this with that handwriting program they have in OS X (inkwell or somthing) it starts to look like the next gen powerbooks might have fold over screens and double as tablet pcs.
/me prays
-Evan
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Shane said 5:17PM on 7-15-2005
Why would this work for a 12" iBook but not a 12" Powerbook?
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Peter Berglund said 7:25PM on 7-19-2005
It seems like this nifty feature disappeared after updating to 10.4.2 :(
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