04-09-2007, 01:02 AM

With the Perian project and others advancing the way they are, it will not be long before we are able to make Quicktime our own cute little version of Media Player Classic with a bevy of plugins that make it able to play anything and everything. To be honest, just about the only files it can't do that with are MKVs, and the Perian folks are working on that. So I've decided that since this is the case, more people will want to use Quicktime as their primary video player. The only problem with this is that many (rightfully) do not like the idea of a video player that cannot fullscreen without getting an extra $30 poured into it. True, playing in iTunes will do it, but really, who wants to go through iTunes to do this when a movie player should be able to fullscreen?

Now, to the point. If you are using a Mac, you can get Quicktime Player to play movies in full screen even if you don't have Quicktime Pro. And I'm not talking about Front Row, which will only recognize movies in the Movies folder and require going into Front Row. How, you ask? Well, Apple has provided the solution themselves. Follow these steps:

1. Click the linky.
2. Download the Script Collection.
3. Open /Applications/AppleScript/AppleScript Utility.app
4. Check the box "Show Script Menu in menu bar" (and "Show Library Scripts" if it's not automatically checked).
5. Mount the Disk Image if it's not automatically mounted.
6. In the "QUICKTIME SCRIPTS" folder that results, open /Quicktime Player Scripts/Play/Present Front Movie.scpt
7. This should open in Script Editor. Look for this block of text:

-- CHECK FOR QUICKTIME PRO
if QuickTime Pro installed is false then
set the target_URL to "http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"
display dialog "This script requires QuickTime Pro." & return & return & ¬
"If this computer is currently connected to the Internet, " & ¬
"click the “Upgrade” button to visit the QuickTime Website at:" & ¬
return & return & target_URL buttons {"Upgrade", "Cancel"} default button 2
ignoring application responses
tell application "Finder"
open location target_URL
end tell
end ignoring
error number -128
end if

8. DELETE IT!
9. Save and quit Script Editor.
10. Take the file you just edited and drop it in /Library/Scripts/
11. You are now done. When you checked that box earlier, a weird S-ish symbol should have appeared on your menu bar. Now whenever you want to fullscreen a movie in Quicktime, make sure it's the front window and click that little S-ish thing and click on "Present Front Movie." This will fullscreen the movie, complete with Fullscreen controls. Very nice, eh?

For those that want to know what they just did, Apple supplies premade scripts for use with Quicktime Player. One of the, Present Front Movie, works just like Full screen. Since they're letting you download a script file, you can edit it as you see fit for your own purposes (with a program Apple puts on every Mac no less). It turns out the nice folks at Apple comment extremely thoroughly, and even labelled which part blocks you from using the feature if you don't have Quicktime Pro. You simply edited this part out, so Quicktime does not check to see if you have Quicktime Pro when running the script. You then put this Script where it needed to be for the menubar script button to show it to you. Bear in mind this does not come with the Cmd+F shortcut that Full screen in Quicktime Pro does, so you'll have to click the S-thing and click "Present Front Movie" every time you want to do this (unless you assign a keyboard shortcut of your liking to this script ).

Well, have fun with this if you've been looking for a way to fullscreen Quicktime without Front Row and don't want to shell out $30 for Quicktime Pro.

DISCLAIMER TO AVOID LOCKAGE: Moderators, if you read through the post you will see that this is not a 'hack' or anything similar and is not in any way illegal.

04-09-2007, 02:36 AM

Just tried it out. Works beautifully. Thanks for the tip!! :black:

04-09-2007, 05:52 AM

It worked like a charm. Thank you.

04-09-2007, 05:18 PM

Awesome. Works great. Thanks for the tutorial.

05-06-2007, 10:13 PM

Hi Discerpto, I followed the steps you posted on making Quick time full screen and since doing so, Front Row will not recognise my DVD's. I must of done something wrong. Can someone please help me as I need to be able to watch DVD's. I get the message "supported dics not available".

Thanks

I've tried using DVD player...same problem. What have I done?

05-06-2007, 11:00 PM

Can someone please help me with this. I have no idea how to get a DVD to work. Thanks.

05-06-2007, 11:18 PM

Anyone

Panic over, restarted and it works now.

05-07-2007, 09:32 AM

Great tip man!! I'll give it a try tonight...

05-07-2007, 02:36 PM

Sorry I wasn't on last night, man. End of semester rush, you know. I don't think the issue had much to do with the script, though I should suggest that anyone making adjustments to Quicktime should probably restart OS X after doing so just as a precaution since the operating system depends on it for... well... everything just about.

05-15-2007, 12:07 AM

My macbook will not let me save it...??? Anyone?



Kind Regards,
Ryan

05-24-2007, 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by r12rex

My macbook will not let me save it...??? Anyone?



Kind Regards,
Ryan

It won't let you save what?

05-27-2007, 04:30 PM

yea it wont let me save the script when i have the delete the thing>.. HELP.. PLEASE =)

05-28-2007, 12:37 AM

Originally Posted by myMacBook

yea it wont let me save the script when i have the delete the thing>.. HELP.. PLEASE =)

Okay, so I'm assuming you got as far as opening up the script and deleting that one block of text. You're saying that after you delete the block of text, you can't save the script?

Did you by chance mistake the instruction to say to delete the entire file? Because if that's the case, that would explain why you can't save the file after deleting it. It's just that one block of text I specified in italics that needs to be deleted.

05-28-2007, 06:05 AM

no i followed your instructions... but i guess the only thing i do not get is how i manually mount the qtscripts? i am just guessing. But yea i only delete the italic part (by the way your instructions are very easy to follow). and it wont let me delete the new script.

05-28-2007, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by myMacBook

no i followed your instructions... but i guess the only thing i do not get is how i manually mount the qtscripts? i am just guessing. But yea i only delete the italic part (by the way your instructions are very easy to follow). and it wont let me delete the new script.

Okay, so you successfully deleted the block of text and saved the file. The next step is to drop the file in /Library/Scripts/. You can reach this folder by clicking "Macintosh HD" in a Finder window (not Home), then going to "Library" and then "Scripts." Just drop the file you edited right in there, not in a subfolder inside it. If you followed the other instructions until this point, after doing this (and possibly logging out and back in?), when you click the S-thing in the bar up top "Present Front Movie" should be there. Which step of this seems to be where the problem is? Is it that you can drop it there but it's not showing up when you click the S-thing?