SwitchRes is an utility built around a Control Panel and an Extension. It will allow you to control and automates the resolutions of all your monitors. It is distributed with a Control Strip Module and a Contextual Menu Item, so that it’s always available everywhere.
It is completely configurable. You can define which resolutions are really accessible, and which will require a confirmation.
You can save the position of the icons on your desktop, independently from one resolution to the other, unlike the Finder. The position of the icons is restored at startup.
You can also create ‘display sets’ which will allow you to change the resolution and the depth of all your monitors with one click.
You can assign a specific set to an application, so that every time you use this application, your Mac will automatically switch to predefined resolutions.
Configuration
SwitchRes will require a Mac with at least MacOS 8.
SwitchRes is fully compatible with MacOS 8.5 and will use all its specificities (Navigation Services, theme–switchable Appearance, PowerPC version of its Control Strip Module…)
Shareware
SwitchRes is distributed as a $9 shareware. This version is an evaluation version. You can use it for a 1-week period. After that, the preferences saving and restoring will be deactivated. To activate them again, you will have to register.
You can use the included ‘Register’ application. Don’t forget to write your address or eMail address, so that you can get the key to register.
Installation
Just drag and drop the ‘SwitchRes’ Extension and the ‘SwitchRes Control’ Control Panel on your system folder.
If you want to use the Control Strip Module or the Contextual Menu Item, drag them onto your System Folder too.
Then you have to restart your computer to use SwitchRes.
Note: You will need to delete all previous versions of SwitchRes in the Control Strip Module folder to use the new version.
User interface – the menus
Principal menu
After installation and restart, you have access to the principal menu, either in the menu bar, or in the Control Strip. This menu will look like this:
Each hierarchical menu give you the detail of each monitor:
You can choose the resolution and the depth of the all monitors.
The resolutions in italic (like 640 x 480, 120Hz) will require the traditional confirmation box. This dialog will be displayed for 5 seconds.
When the ‘ctrl’ (control) key is pressed, you can switch into a grayscale mode instead of a color mode.
Secondary menu
The secondary menu will be displayed in the Control Strip by clicking on the SwitchRes icon while holding down the ‘’ key:
This menu allows you to open the Control Panel. The Control Panel can also be opened on the Finder with a double-click on its icon.
Settings – The SwitchRes Control Panel
The Control Panel has 5 parts, each represented by a button on the upper side of the dialog.
Preferences are saved when quitting the Control Panel or closing the dialog. All settings are applied immediately.
First part: Resolutions
You can see the resolution list of every monitor. The button under the list allows you to display all resolutions your video card is capable of. Warning: your monitor may not support all these resolutions. I’m not responsible of any damage caused to your monitor. Moreover, these resolutions are not necessarily handled by your video card. In this case, no resolution change occurs.
If this button is grayed out, no other resolution is available.
From left to right, in the list, you can see:
• the resolution itself
• the vertical refresh rate of this resolution
• if this resolution is allowed or not
• if this resolution is displayed in the menu or not, or if it requires a confirmation alert box
• if this resolution owns an icon setting
Under this list, the options allow you to:
• Configure the menu: by displaying the refresh rate in the menu
(Example: “640 x 480” or “640 x 480, 120Hz”)
and by displaying a custom monitor type
(Example: “Multiscan monitor”, “21” Multiscan monitor” or whatever you want)
• Keep same color depth – You can specify to keep the same depth or to use the deepest available when switching in a new resolution.
Second part: Preferences
The buttons shown in this part of the dialog allows you to:
• save automatically the positions of the icons of the desktop when a switch occurs. The button on the right or the last command of the menu is devoted to do this manually, which can be time saving if you don’t change your icons frequently;
• set the resolution of every monitor attached after restart, or use a specific display set (see below);
• change the delay of icon repositioning at startup. In order to wait for external hard drives to mount on the desktop, this delay is modifiable.
• use the Navigation Services in the Control Panel for choosing an Application
• activate or deactivate the SwitchRes icon at startup
Third part: Display sets
In this part, you define the settings of all your monitors that you want to handle in a set. Each set can contain up to 7 display settings. That will allow you to use a preference for non-permanently attached displays. All sets can be displayed in the principal menu.
You can add a key shortcut to each display set. For that, just click on the shortcut, and then press the key(s) that you want to use. If you want to delete a shortcut, just click with the mouse instead of pressing a key.
Fourth part: Applications
In this part, you define which applications will have their own settings.
These settings are the display set used and the sound level. They are applied when the application is launched, and can be applied again each time you put this application on the front (user definable option). When you quit the application, you can choose to restore the predefined settings.
The last application definable option is the ability to forbid every resolution change coming from the application itself. Only SwitchRes will be able to change the resolution. This is useful for games that will change your monitor to an hard–coded resolution.
Fifth part: Menus
This part is devoted to define what you want to see in the 3 SwitchRes menus: the Control Strip Menu, the Menu in the Menu bar and the Contextual Menu.
Here you can also activate or deactivate the menu in the menu bar of each application:
Try everything to choose what you like the most…!
Various
Comments
For all comments, you can email me at:
madrau@kagi.com.
Thanks to…
David Nine, Tobias Jachmann, Tom Sabourin, Mike Gerenser, Bob Patterson, Michael Kummer, Gilles Génin, Norbert M. Doerner, David Clémençot, James F. Naron, Sheldon D. Stokes et Yochanan for beta testing;
Christoph Sahm for the German localisation;
Ammon Skdimore for his help in designing the BOA.
History
New in version 1.5
• The 3 menus are definable independently
• Applications which quit can restore the settings that were active when they were launched
• Applications may or may not apply again their settings when they are brought to front
• SwitchRes can forbid the applications to change the resolutions when they are active
• SwitchRes now shows its icon at startup
• The shareware testing period has been extended to 7 days. The annoying alert has been changed to a normal window that will allow the boot process to continue.
• Appearance of the Control Panel has radically been changed
• Lists in the Control Panel can be sorted
• The size of the Control Panel is definable. That will allow more items to be shown in the lists.
• Use of the Navigation Services is user–definable
• Position and size of the Control Panel are saved and restored during two sessions
• The name of applications that are not found (e.g. games on CDs) are conserved. Icons not found are replaced by the generic application icon (instead of a blank square).
• An Internet menu is added, which will allow you to go directly to the SwitchRes home page from within the Control Panel. This needs Internet Config to be installed.
• Position of the icons is saved when the computer shuts down
• Now supports the PowerMacs 6100/7100/8100AV and PowerBook 520, 1400 (and probably others which hasn’t been tested)
• A conflict with some applications when using hierarchical menu in the menu bar is corrected
• Display Sets’ name can now contain characters ‘(‘ and ‘-’
• A conflict with SpeedDoubler 8 shortcuts is corrected
• The current resolution is no more saved in the System ‘Display Preferences’ file. This could corrupt this file and prevent every ulterior resolution change.
• The monitor gamma is conserved after restart, even if you use a System-forbidden resolution
• SwitchRes correctly recognizes the number of colors when you add VRAM on your video board
• SwitchRes correctly recognizes the monitor when you upgrade from MacOS 8 to MacOS 8.5. On some machines (7300/7500/7600/8500/8600), one resolution was dropped in this transition (1024x768, 72 Hz), which would confuse SwitchRes and makes it think the monitor was changed.
