Rotate Display using AppleScript for MacOSX 10.6.8

rotate-screen-90-degrees.applescript

tell application "System Preferences"
  	quit
	delay 1
	launch
	activate
	tell application "System Events"
		key down {option, command}
	end tell
	reveal pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
	tell application "System Events"
		key up {option, command}
		tell process "System Preferences"
			tell window "Color LCD"
				click pop up button "Rotation:" of group 1 of tab group 1
				keystroke "90" & return
				set success to 0
				repeat until success is equal to 1
					delay 1
					try
						tell sheet 1
							click button "Confirm"
							set success to 1
						end tell
					on error errText
						log errText
						delay 1
					end try
				end repeat
			end tell
		end tell
	end tell
end tell

rotate-screen-standard.applescript

tell application "System Preferences"
  	quit
	delay 1
	launch
	activate
	tell application "System Events"
		key down {option, command}
	end tell
	reveal pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
	tell application "System Events"
		key up {option, command}
		tell process "System Preferences"
			tell window "Color LCD"
				click pop up button "Rotation:" of group 1 of tab group 1
				keystroke "Standard" & return
				-- If "Standard" is selected, no confirmation dialog is displayed.
			end tell
		end tell
	end tell
end tell

Thank you!! This was really helpful for me as well. FWIW I added a time out for the confirm loop and updated some of the UI stuff to what my preference pane is giving me today.

tell application "System Preferences"
quit
delay 1
launch
activate
tell application "System Events"
key down {option, command}
end tell
reveal pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
tell application "System Events"
key up {option, command}
tell process "System Preferences"
tell first window
--set elems to entire contents as list
--repeat with el in elems
-- log name of el
--end repeat

			delay 1
			click pop up button "Rotation:" of tab group 1
			--				key code 125  --down arrow
			keystroke "270" & return
			set success to 10
			repeat until success is equal to 1
				delay 1
				try
					tell sheet 1
						click button "Confirm"
						set success to 1
					end tell
				on error errText
					set success to (success - 1)
					delay 1
				end try
			end repeat
		end tell
	end tell
end tell

end tell

Use https://github.com/CdLbB/fb-rotate instead.

List the display id's with other information, e.g.

$ ./fb-rotate -i
#  Display_ID  Resolution  ____Display_Bounds____  Rotation
0  0x19156030  1280x800       0     0  1280   800      0    [main][internal]
1  0x76405c2d  1344x1008   1280     0  2624  1008      0
Mouse Cursor Position:  (   528 ,   409 )

Rotate screen with by d (display) and r (rotate) options:

fb-rotate -d 0 -r 180