Picsel Pro Viewer

[ulivotsch]

If I go to http://www.picselpowered.com/ to download the picsel viewer, I only get the following error-messaage:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache/2.0.54 (Debian GNU/Linux) PHP/4.3.10-16 mod_ssl/2.0.54 OpenSSL/0.9.7e Server at www.picselpowered.com Port 80

Can anybody help? Is there any alternative download-site?
Thanks!
Uli

[StuGib]

It's not released yet AFAIK (was due end of January).

Someone on the Applications forum got an e-mail from Picsel saying it was due to be released Friday before last, but it never materialised. Until yesterday that URL showed a 'coming soon' image. I'm hoping the 403 error (rather than a 404) is a sign the new site with demo and ordering facilities is ready to be released but they're waiting until the right moment to let people in (straw clutching, moi? :)).

I hope it's worth the wait and they've sorted out the memory management from the Clie version.

Stuart

[Ce]

I've read on a (I think) German board that some people were able to actualy buy this program a few weeks ago but that there were some bugs. Since then the site only showed some info of the program without the 'buy" option and a few days later the site was down.

[StuGib]

Yes, that's right, it was briefly available just before the beginning of the year IIRC.

I've got the Clie version running and the zoom & pan interface is fantastic, but it can only load ~8-16 pages of a 250 page document I tried, and once it's run out of memory you can't even load the later pages. If they can sort that out I'll be buying it on the first day of release! If it has text search and re-flowing text I'll buy it twice! :D

[philb2k]

How does this compare to Repligo, which I am currently using and pretty happy with? I have not seen this app firsthand at all.

Cheers,

Phil.

[tosbsas]

no conversion needed - but try palmpdf

http://www.metaviewsoft.de/en/Software/PalmOS/Freeware/PalmPDF/index.html

and its free

Ruben

[StuGib]

All IME - I've mainly used Repligo, have tried PalmPDF 1.1, have the Clie version of Picsel.

Repligo
-convert on desktop but that means you can view just about anything on your Palm () because it's effectively a PDF printer.
-Can search for text.
-Fairly quick browsing page-to-page. Quick scrolling around the page or zooming in/out.
-Can reflow text to the width of the Palm screen.
-Has some advanced Acrobat-like features like adding annotations and highlighting text.
-No problem with colour pages.
-No sign of any updates in the last 2 years.

PalmPDF
-Open native PDF but PDF files only(?)
-Can search for text.
-No reflow.
-Pretty slow - lots of redrawing when you zoom in/out, chuggy drag & scroll. Most things I do tend to cause the WAIT status bar to go round for 3-10 seconds.
-Only really have enough memory to display greyscale on a TX.
-Free and in active development with big improvements each release.

Picsel
-Open native PDF, and also images, Word files etc (don't have complete list to hand).
-Zooming, scrolling and page changin is gesture based and works the best out of all 3 IMO. Zooming is real-time (you can see what you're zooming into) and very quick.
-IIRC from the website before it went down, it can do reflow text in the consumer version.
-Don't know if it can search text (hey, the UI is partly in Japanese, give me a break! ;))
-In the Clie version, seems to want to load the entire file at once, and once you run out of memory you're stuffed.
-No problem with colour pages.
-Established embedded product but no direct-to-consumer experience to judge Picsel on (how good are their support, bug fixing etc?)

[velocipedist]

If I go to http://www.picselpowered.com/ to download the picsel viewer, I only get the following error-messaage:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.


Now the page is back online. You can buy the application. However I didn't find any way to get a trial download, so I'm a bit sceptical about it. Before buying anything for a TX, first I want to see if it really works.

michal

[Ce]

Now the page is back online. You can buy the application. However I didn't find any way to get a trial download, so I'm a bit sceptical about it. Before buying anything for a TX, first I want to see if it really works.

michal

I mailed Picselpower about the absence of a trialversion. They replied in stating there is no trialversion but on palminfocenter i've read they are working on it.

I've read only a few comments about this program but most of these comments are not very positive. Although I can use a program like this I definitely won't buy it until a trialversion is available.
b.t.w...Picselpower has an unmoderated forum. Unfortunately it seems they don't reply to questions asked.

[StuGib]

Certainly wins my prize for biggest letdown of any Palm app:

- no demo
- can't open large PDFs (see thread on apps forum (http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105916)) - depends on content but often anything over 30-40 pages runs out of memory. I've got a 1-page 960Kb map (is multi-layered PDF to be fair) that it can't fully display. Memory management improvement is apparently 'on their roadmap'.
- just seen in their forums that text reflow isn't working and they've replaced their nice page browsing interface with a clunky Palm menu.
- in my tests on the Clie version (which was 1.0.3 - the latest is only 1.0.5) JPEG viewing is poor as it loses detail when you zoom in, and Word files don't display very well.
- no feedback from Picsel on their forums, though they do seem to be responding to direct e-mail questions.

Was so promising. Let's hope they're busy sorting out Palm issues rather than porting to Symbian/WinCE/Linux first.

[philb2k]

Guess I'll be sticking with Repligo, which seems to work fairly well on the TX.

Phil.

[tosbsas]

or check out palmpdf - great app and being developed nearly daily

Ruben