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Something to let me rotate all windows to ANY angle?

nagromme

nagromme

macrumors G5
Original poster
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
OS X can rotate any window to any angle and still have it function--as seen in Amit Singh's demos in which he's programmed windows to swing in response to a PowerBook motion sensor:

perturbed2.jpg

http://www.kernelthread.com/software/ams/


I'm seeking an app/hack that simply lets me set an angle that ALL windows will use. So they can ALL be tipped at 40 degrees or whatever.

Any leads? Has anyone done this? It doesn't sound hard to program.

As for why... Well, no good reason at all... just because!

I'm looking at buying a 20.1" LCD (Dell, $440) that can rotate between portrait and landscape. So my diseased mind is picturing leaving the display rotated halfway... with the windows still level :D

(I know, you'd need to rotate the mouse movement too in order to be really functional... but I'm looking for weird not functional :) )

Besides... who hasn't secretly wanted to rotate a co-worker's windows just 5 degrees, let them discover it and complain... and then prop a book under one corner of the monitor and tell them "that happens sometimes"? :D

TIA. I'll post pictures maybe if I get this to happen.
 
nagromme said:
I'm looking at buying a 20.1" LCD (Dell, $440) that can rotate between portrait and landscape. So my diseased mind is picturing leaving the display rotated halfway... with the windows still level :D
Click to expand...

Okay, it's total geektoy lust, but I can totally see how it would be sweeeeeeet if the whole screen stayed level while you were pivoting it...like it was on a gimbal. :D
 
But not the screen as a whole... each individual window rotating in place :)

It wouldn't be automatic as you moved the display... but I suppose an animated version would be fun, so you could trigger it WHILE you manually rotated. Still, I'm just looking to leave it running at 45 degrees and have all the windows still working... Good old Quartz!

Now this brings up another idea I had--a USB doodad with a level inside it, to add angle-sensing to any display with USB ports :) It could auto-trigger Tiger's portrait function, or be used for gimmicks like this :)
 
Having the monitor permanently tilted at an angle would be pretty cool....but you know that where this road ultimately leads has to be an LCD screen mounted in the center of a tight dub, set on a pedestal in the desk. 'Cause when we stop, the only thing still spinning is your ear. :D
 
Well, you'd just hold the mouse at the same angle. (But I bet there are already apps to change your mouse angle for ergonomic reasons. If not, it would be a nice feature if anyone feels like making a Window-angle app :) )
 
But then you'd need to hack the menu bar so that all the menu items rotated as well, right? That would be sweet - seeing the Apple menu icon rotating as you rotated the screen.

Of course, I guess that would result in a little stair-stepping of the menus. That's a much more difficult task, I would think - making the menus pull down at the angle of the display.
 
Nah, I figure just keep the menus as is, lined up with the display. Simpler. You just have to tip your head a bit :)
 
That's pretty sweet - first time I've seen such a thing.

It would be really cool to see your windows jiggle a little bit if you moved your knee or bumped the laptop, etc.
 
I have an actual valid need for this type of thing, and even went so far as to email that guy to see if he'd do it (he wouldn't).

Using crappy programs like Dreamweaver where you have like 12 windows open, more or less renders Exposé useless. I've always wanted to be able to say, tip my include files one way and my interface files another way, so that even when things are all stacked up, I can still see and pick some other windows behind it.

In addition to that, all these perfectly square windows don't add much to the chaos that i have in my real world. Too much order. I'd love to see my 2 dozen windows open at all different angles. It'd make sense to me.
 
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