CF blues, now this.. (landscape mode for nx)

[clieboy]

Isn't it disappointing to have a device that could have been much better, but is limited for business stragtegic reasons?

You all know what I am talking about. We are all wanting Sony to release developer information to allow CF storage device drivers to be written. We are also all wanting landscape support for apps that need it (like spreadsheets/web browsing, etc.)

I emailed a few companies (cesinc, iambic, etc. ) enquiring about landscape support for their office apps (quicksheet/tinysheet/etc. ) Here's but one response (from cesinc) so far, but of course I believe all are facing the same problem:

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We'd love to. Problem is that Palmsource and Sony, et al never created a programmatic way to do it. So, it's not simple like shifting a regular image 90 degrees ...

Without Operating System support for this feature, it's unlikely to happen. Trust me, we've been all over Sony and PalmSource to add this for 18 months!!

Mike
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It just really sux.

:(

[Eric S]

Yup, the HandEra had that in the OS almost two years ago. If HandEra hadn't stopped developing hardware, as near as I can tell, I wouldn't own a Sony.

[Dr.Jones]

You might look into TealDoc - their latest version supports landscape mode.  They were able to impliment it on the NX & NR series so I don't understand why no one else could.

Most likely these other companies don't want to spend their time and money to impliment this feature.  You might also consider contacting those companies again and point out to them that TealDoc has implimented this feature so you don't understand why they're not.  Lets see how they try to talk thier way out of that one!

[clieboy]

Hey Dr Jones,

Yup, Tealdoc supports landscape. Palm Reader and Mobipocket does too. It seems that etext readers and video players (kinoma/built-in sony movie player) can do it but perhaps it's not so straightforward for spreadsheets and web browsers given their "dynamic" content?

I have mentioned it to cesinc though, and am waiting for their response.

[Eric S]

It's easier to do for text readers, because the majority of the UI is display only. The fewer buttons you have to rotate, the easier the task is. If you want to rotate menus, you'd either need OS support, or you'd have to write your own version of the menu routines.

[hansschmucker]

Actual the problem is very simple. There just are no routines for Writing vertical text in PalmOS. So, if you want to write text, you have to write your own routines. Programs like Tealdoc use their own routines anyway, in order to provide stuff like antialiased text, so for them its no big deal to swap x any y coordinates