After turning an old 2001 power mac G4 (500Mhz) into a media center computer I was frustrated with the inability of Quicktime to go into full screen mode. I have the Pro Versions on my other Mac’s (after spending $1200 on final cut studio I bloody well better!) but this machine had the humble free version of Quicktime only. After poking around on the internet I came upon an old apple script hack that allows Quicktime to play in full screen mode without needing the Pro (paid) upgraded version. So without further ado here is the hack.
1) Open up the Apple script editor (hint, you can find it under Applications > Applescript > Script Editor.app)
2) Type in (or if your lazy like me copy and paste) the following magic code into the Script Editor.app program:
tell application “QuickTime Player”
present front movie scale screen
end tell
3) Now do a File > Save As and choose a name for this little script (Full Screen may be a good name) and save it as an application. You can save it to the Desktop so you can easily find it.
4) Open the movie you want to view in full screen in Quicktime and then double-click on the apple script application you created.
5) Enjoy full screen goodness.
I soon figured out that it’s a little inconvenient once you have the movie in the foreground to have to then go to finder, then to the desktop and then click on the little app you’ve just created. I read that you can put this little app in the Script Menu. When activated, the Script Menu displays a small script icon in the upper right of the menu bar. So all you’ll need to do now once you have the movie opened in quicktime is to click the script menu icon then the script you created – full screen movie mode goodness baby!
Here are the additional steps to get the script into the Script Menu:
1) To install the Script Menu, launch the Install Script Menu application located in the Applications > AppleScript folder.
2) Now drag your full screen script to the Example Scripts folder that is located under Applications > Applescript.
3) Your full screen script is now in the Script Menu and can easily be accessed by clicking on the Script Menu in the upper right of the menu bar.
Sit back, relax and enjoy the latest editions of Top Gear in full screen!