Change screen resolution on the command line

Dec 02, '11 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

At work, we run lots of tests for our product. We also reboot the headless minis after each reboot and want to with certainty that they are using the correct resolution. Our configuration management tool works best with command line applications. After searching around, I discovered that there isn't an application that could change resolution from the command line that was a native Intel binary.

I did find source to change resolutions, but it completely lacked any error checking and used APIs which were deprecated in 10.6 and absent in 10.7. I ended up writing a program that works on 10.6 and 10.7, has error checking, is released as a universal binary and is GPL code on github in hopes that others can use and help improve it.

Here is the download link for the installer package, and the source is available here.

Here's what it looks like when run:

$ screenresolution get
Display 0: 1280x800x32
$ screenresolution list
Available Modes on Display 0
  1280x800x8 	1280x800x16 	1280x800x32 	1280x800x30 
  1152x720x8 	1152x720x16 	1152x720x32 	1152x720x30 
  1024x768x8 	1024x768x16 	1024x768x32 	1024x768x30 
  1024x768x8 	1024x768x16 	1024x768x32 	1024x768x30 
  1024x640x8 	1024x640x16 	1024x640x32 	1024x640x30 
  800x600x8 	800x600x16 	800x600x32 	800x600x30 
  800x600x8 	800x600x16 	800x600x32 	800x600x30 
  800x500x8 	800x500x16 	800x500x32 	800x500x30 
  640x480x8 	640x480x16 	640x480x32 	640x480x30 
  640x480x8 	640x480x16 	640x480x32 	640x480x30 
  720x480x8 	720x480x16 	720x480x32 	720x480x30 
  720x480x8 	720x480x16 	720x480x32 	720x480x30 

$ screenresolution set 1280x800x32
Setting mode on display 0 to 1280x800x32

[crarko adds: I tested this using the installer package (in 10.7.2), and it works as illustrated above. The command is installed in /usr/local/bin by default, and required no additional fiddling to make it work. You can also build this from the available source code if you have Xcode installed.]

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