ikarus9999

The just released it on their website.

http://www.mobile-stream.com/landscape_info.html

weel

It would be useful if they told us how it worked... I have loaded the files and Rotation now appears in the Prefs panel, but I get an error message saying RotationMgr not found...

Do you have to uninstall the old version?

weelogic (sorry, sign in failed)

jjesusfreak01

Yes, you do have to uninstall the old version. It cant be deleted by overwriting it because the new file has a new name, and the functions overlap so it causes errors.

__________________
Brad Green - Enthusiast Extraordinaire...

Sony TG-50, Sony TH-55, Palm TX...TH-55 still the best

Fanny

Hi there from NorthWest Germany,

the updated landscape utility works on my TH-55/E1.
And very very neat feature is: Trigger: left, right or both.

This programm is all the money worth.

Apropos: Fanny is the nick from my lastname: Fandrey
Now I know that Fanny means another part from your body

[edit]
DateBk 5.4a s1 works not (DateBk-Button is away) if change an entry.
In ZLauncher 5.20 the option "fullscreen" is away.
[/edit]

__________________
Live long and prosper!

Joachim

FormerlyKnownAs

Is there any documentation available on this, or is it trial and error only?

Assuming the later, I did figure out it would appear in the Prefs based on the word "panel" in the app name, and that you do need to load both .prc files.

A few questions if anyone has the answers:

After loading the apps, the Prefs panel has both "PalmSource API and Sony API checked. Is this correct, or should you choose one or the other? And is this a setting for each app, or is it universal? (Which would make sense, although it appears to be on an app-by-app basis.)
edit: Answered, this is by program to emulate the API for programs that were not designed to run with a particular API

Does the selection of Default, Landscape, Portrait, or Auto designate the initial state of each app when launched? And does "Auto" mean to follow whatever has been set by the trigger, where the others are regardless of trigger setting? If so, why is the default setting "Default" instead of auto? As it is you have to change the setting for every app to "Auto" get the same functionality as the 1.0 version. (Edit: After some more trial and error, I can't see any difference between the behavior of "Default" and "Auto". Maybe it would come into play if "Locked" could be set?)(Second Edit: Default uses the rotation setting from the Trigger, Auto forces the "native" setting for a program regardless of Trigger setting.)

I'm assuming "Locked" is supposed to lock an app to a particular setting and make it "unswitchable". Is this true? But I guess it doesn't really matter because the "Locked" box always reverts to being unchecked. In other words, the Locked setting disappears as soon as you go to another app in the list and come back, or when you exit the Prefs panel and come back. (On my TH55.) (edit: Locked is inactive in this release)

Trigger Type "None" seems to simply lock the device in whatever rotation it is set to when you make the setting, changing The Trigger Rotation to "Right" or "Left" doesn't change anything. And how would "Both" work in this state? (edit: "None" is designed to allow third party triggers such as DAs.)

I'm guessing the "b" in version 1.1b stands for Beta, but unless I'm missing something this thing isn't even close to Beta-worthy. It has holes in it big enough to drive a Peterbuilt through. (edit: only a few holes, more like sized for a moped.)

And, oh yeah, ClieSkinner doesn't recognize this app's settings. Even after attempting to re-do the ClieSkinner setting it fails to switch VG or SB with a change of rotation.

VERY DISAPPOINTED!!! (Unless I'm missing something, and please tell me I am.)(edit: Yes, I was missing something, now that I have received explanations from MS I am only mildly disappointed.)

Monkeylove

Huh? I haven't tried the locked setting, but everything else seems to be working fine.



If you don't know what it does, don't touch it . That is probably a setting that is meant to be left alone anyways, unless you have a specific reason or issue.



Yes.



Not sure what auto does yet.



That's not true. With the "Status Bar" trigger activated, the program works exactly like 1.0. If you leave the application setting on "Default" you can manually change the screen orientation when you tap the status bar.



When you set the trigger to "None" it means you are going to manually specify the settings for each application (no switching orientations on the fly using the status bar). If the trigger is set to "Status Bar", you can tap the corresponding side of the status bar to switch orientations. Selecting "Right" or "Left" lets you rotate in that direction when you tap that side of the status bar (for instance, if you prefer to use one specific landscape orientation). "Both" makes it work just like Landscape 1.0 - tap the left side of the status bar to orient left, right to orient right, and the center to go back to portrait mode.

Other than that, I've noticed some improvements in different programs and it seems quite stable to me. Are you saying the program's of beta quality because there is no documentation? I admittedly don't understand every setting, but within a few minutes I was able to get it to do exactly what I wanted. Seems like an excellent update to me!

edit: one small tip - manually set the orientation of your launcher (i.e. Zlauncher) to portrait. That way, you can putz around with the orientations in all your applications and as soon as you hit the home button everything will be nice and right-side up

FormerlyKnownAs

One more thing...

The "Unistall" option only removes RotationMgrL.prc. You have to remove RotationPanel.prc using a file manager. (This makes some sense as a program can't uninstall itself while active, but it makes you wonder why the Uninstall option is even there.)

Monkeylove

I assume this is to make it easier for people to uninstall the program. They probably added it in because of the difficulties people had uninstalling Landscape 1.0. I assume we'll learn more details about the uninstall option when Mobile-Stream update their FAQ.

FormerlyKnownAs

You are right about the way "Default" works, I had already edited my comment on that. So what is "Auto?" (Please answer only if you know.) It seems to switch the app to its "native" orientation, where default leaves it in whatever setting the previous app was in.

Why is there a "Locked" box if the setting won't stick, so therefore it does nothing? (This, to me, is a major issue, maybe not to others.)

If you specify "Landscape for an app, it always comes up rotated clockwise. If there is a way to change this, please let me know. Between the TH55 flip cover and the fact that I am right-handed (would have to cover the display with my hand to use the VG area), Counterclockwise seems to make more sense.
(edit: If you set the trigger rotation to "Left", Landscape will rotate Left (counterclockwise) if an app is set to Landscape.)

For Trigger Type "None" to be effective you will need to set up every app with a Portrait, Landscape, or Auto setting, because Default just leaves the device in the setting of the previous app. It seems to me that "Default" and "Auto" are misnamed; the functionality probably should be reversed. "Default" should be the default for the app, but that's really just semantics. (edit: This is a misuse of the "None" setting, it is there to allow third party apps to act as the Trigger.)

What I said was not that it is of beta quality, but rather that it isn't even up to that level. That is in part due to the non-intuitive interface, but that could be helped with a simple text file that would take about as much time as this post did. Primarily it is because of a non-functioning option, a kludgey interface and the way the Landscape launch option works. And I'll back off a little, maybe with some simple documentation it is up to beta standards, but no better. (Don't take it personally, Monkey, unless you wrote this app.)

Here is a simple list of my "gripes":

1) You should be able to set the launch state for an app to Landscape Right or Landscape Left. As is, if the app involves using the VG and you are right-handed the "Landscape" launch option is pretty useless. (edit: see above, this can be done, although the method it makes it impossible to rotate the other direction.)

2) "Locked" would be a good option if it locked problem apps into the rotation that works. In other words if App X doesn't work in landscape or portrait mode, lock it so that the trigger will not switch states. In version 1 I have run into several apps where tapping the scroll bar (and perhaps missing it by a pixel or two) switches orientation when you don't want it to, and others have reported apps that don't work in landscape mode.

3) The 2 API checkboxes need to be explained. I can see where they might be device-specific, or that Sony might need both, but I can only guess. Please fill me in if you have any knowledge on this.

4) It seems odd that the right side of the time window is used to switch regardless of whether you select "Right" or "Left" trigger rotation. But then maybe this is to allow the left side to trigger another app? (I haven't reloaded DateOnStatus yet to try this out.)

5) The "Uninstall" option should, at a minimum, include a warning that you need to delete RotationPanel manually in the "do you really want to" box.

6) Programs like ClieSkinner (and possibly CodeDiver) don't recognize the new version and its settings. The prefs panel would be nice if it allowed more useful settings.

(The preceding is just my opinion, yours may differ.)

FormerlyKnownAs

I threw that out for infomation only, users should be aware that they are not deleting everything they installed. Also, just as an FYI, once you have used the uninstall option the Prefs option is still there. When selected it does display the "RotationMgr not found" warning someone else described earlier.

JJF01

Some explanations:

The locked box doesnt work for now, but what it will do is disable the trigger. I told them that it needed the ability to have a both option for the trigger not very long ago, and so they didnt add the option to set landscape/reverse landscape yet. The API settings can usually be left alone, but they are important because they allow you to have it treat an app as using one of the APIs. For example, in ZLauncher, you should be able to set the API for Sony, and then fullscreen should work. These settings will also allow you to tweak them if you need to take screenshots. The uninstall setting allows you to remove the rotation manager prc, and then you can remove the other file manually. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

FormerlyKnownAs

Thanks much for some good, solid information!

So can we expect another update soon, with landscape AND reverse landscape launch options, as well as a working Locked option? And the API explanation makes sense to me. Would this be a case of "meant to be left alone anyways, unless you have a specific reason or issue", as Monkeylove indicated?

Finally, does the "b" in 1.1b indicate that this is a Beta release? If so, they might want to mention it clearly and prominently on the website.

Cyker

YES!! THEY MADE THE ACTIVATION TRIGGER ON A DOWN-UP EVENT INSTEAD OF JUST DOWN!!!!

Now if I run my stylus over the clock by accident it doesn't go into mad flip-flop mode!! WOOHOO!!!

Now all I need them to do is throw the panel away and/or add a DA trigger so I can put Dat on Status back and I'm sorted


Aside from the lack of documentation (Understandable; Programmers are generally very bad at documentation Luckily for me I'm a Linux user and am used to crap documentation ) I think this is neat.
I found it fairly intuitive, except for what 'Auto' and 'Locked' do.


Gripes/Suggestions:
+ Instead of listing ALL the apps, have Add, Remove and Default buttons, so the user can add and remove apps and easily see at a glance which ones have had states set instead of having to guess. The Default button would be to set a default state for any apps not on the list (Similar to the ScrollBar5 Panel hack).
This would also have the benefit of not wasting so much Preferences space (My testing caused the Prefs entry to get rather large...)

- Documentation!! Or at least some (i) buttons for the more obscure options

- A DA where we can pick which rotation mode we want to be in (Big finger-friendly buttons! ), and also have a button linking to a second form that we can set the same kind of options as in the panel.


I'll have to do some more testing, but in doing a SoftReset to remove the old one, my TH55 has re-caught the extremely annoying unknown conflict it had where I have to disable every single hack-like application to stop it crashing

I wish I knew how to fix it up; The only way so far has been trial and error using Palm Internals to check (If the Notifications list doesn't work/causes a Fatal Error, I know the stupid conflict is still in action... ) until it doesn't crash... :cry:

JJF01

You arent likely to mess anything up when you mess with the API options, but you do have to have at least one of them selected, or your VG area will be raised in whatever program you are on. I was going the mention the Down/Up event thing to them, but they seemed to figure it out by themselves. Thanks for mentioning it.

Uninstallation is extremely difficult, and if you have the full version, I would recommend against it. Maybe i'll write some documentation for them and have them put it up, or they can do it themselves.

If the program accepts rotation commands from a program, we dont need to have them make a DA, one of our resident programmers could do it. Sharky maybe, DAs are one of his areas of expertise.