[comp.sys.mac.programmer] Can I twiddle the screen size?

long@rainbo.enet.dec.com (Richard Long) (10/12/89)

Hi,

I'm pretty much a novice at Mac programming, so forgive me if this is
impossible.

I use, at times, Stepping Out II on my SE to give me a large, virtual screen.
Some programs, like games, just won't work well (or aren't playable) on a
virtual screen.  What I'd like to do is create an FKEY (maybe?) that would
do the following:

1.	Determine if the screen is currently larger than 512 x 342 pixels.

2.	If so, twiddle some data structure to make it 512 x 342.

3.	Put up an SFGetFile dialog, prompting for a program to launch.

4.	Launch that program (if one was selected), and then reset the screen
data structure to the original, larger size (if it was changed), so that 
other programs can take advantage of it.

From some of the Mac books I have, I determined that the screen size 
information is stored in ScreenBits.  I wrote a small application in LS Pascal
to look at it, and it seems to have all the data, but I can't change it!

Am I doing something wrong, or is this just flatly impossible?  This is under
MultiFinder, by the way.

Thank you,
Rich

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