Technical Q&As


The Apple Media Tool and Apple Media Tool Programming Environment products have been discontinued. For more information check out: AMT/PE Discontinued.

AMT_PE 15 - AMT_PE & Additional Monitor (1-Aug-95)


Q I recently got hold of an additional monitor for my Mac. I understand how to "run" AMT programs in preview mode on it instead of my Main Monitor (by choosing the Monitor dialog from the File/Preferences menu item.) But after I have compiled my projects with Runtime Maker or AMT/PE, they go back to running on my main monitor! How do I make my final applications use the other monitor?

A Once you build your application with Runtime Maker or AMT/PE, you lose control over which monitor to run on. When the application launches, it looks through the list of connected monitors the system maintains, and runs on the first one that has the size and bit-depth capability you have specified for your project.

You can see the order that the monitors will be searched in by looking at the numbers on each monitor icon in the monitors control panel. The first monitor is always one connected to the built-in video. If that monitor matches the settings your application wants, that's what it's going to run on. It would probably be a bad idea to try to change this by hacking the code that looks for a "good" monitor, as you never know what kinds of monitors your end-user has attached.

While you are working in AMT/PE under MPW, you may be able to take advantage of the fact that MPW runs on the monitor with the menu bar. So you could open the Monitors Control panel in your System folder, drag the menu bar over to a different monitor and reboot. That way, MPW will at least run on a different monitor than the one your application chooses to run on.

Technical Q&As
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