Landscape DEXplor

[Dan East]

Here's a screenshot of DEXplor running landscape at 480x360. I'm using JS Landscape to rotate and increase the display resolution with subpixel rendering. Note that this looks a little bit better on an actual Pocket PC because of the use of subpixels.

I configured DEXplor to show two additional columns - Attributes and File Type. I also used a new feature that will be released in version 1.30 to configure the toolbar. I simply added several more of the 20+ DEXplor commands to the toolbar.

Also note that the customized toolbar contains commands exposed by plugins. Specifically, the Find Files, GZip and UnGZip commands.

I hope to release version 1.30 within 1 to 2 weeks.



Dan East

[Dan East]

While I'm at it, here are a couple more.

320x240, plain landscape:


And the hideous 480x240 (don't know why JS Landscape even supports that resolution):


Dan East

[JohnE]

I noticed a BIG performance hit with DEXplor when I had Jimmy Landscape 3.0 installed. I had it in the default 320x200, portrait and I still also noticed a general graphical performance hit.

[Dan East]

Any program (JS Landscape, etc) that forces your device to run landscape will cause a noticeable load on your device, making everything run slower in general. However, DEXplor itself should run slightly faster in landscape 320x240 because less items are visible at one time compared to portrait, which would result in less work to update the display. The net result could still be slower performance depending on how much of your CPU resources JS Landscape requires to rotate and blit the display at the non-native orientation.

If DEXplor seems to be disproportionately slow running landscape compared to other similar applications, then there may be an issue specific to your model Pocket PC. Can you describe in detail how DEXplor's performance is affected? Is it seen when scrolling vertically, refreshing, etc? Do other programs like Pocket Excel seem to exhibit a "BIG performance hit" in landscape as well?

Thanks!

Dan East

[JohnE]

To clarify, I understand the performance hit if I have it in landscape, at a different resolution or both. What I didn't understand was that there was a performance hit while in portrait 240x320. Have you noticed slow performance in portrait 240x320? In other applications it wasn't as noticeable as it was with DEXplor. I removed Jimmy's Landscape because of the very noticable performance hit while using DEXplor. (it was really annoying) If I remember correctly it was while I was scrolling. I'm running Audivox Maestro PPC, with 256mb CF. I'll be happy to re-install and give you some more info. I didn't try DEXplor in landscape mode, but will be happy to do some tests and give you the info.

thank you, JohnE

[Dan East]

I just used JS Landscape to rotate the display to 320x240 on my iPaq. I see no performance penalty at all when DEXplor is running at that resolution. Vertical scrolling, refreshing and Item Dragging is very responsive, just like when running in portrait.

Has anyone else seen any performance problems running DEXplor at 320x240 landscape?

Dan East

[Dan East]

[JohnE]

[Dan East]

I was just trying to think of how DEXplor differs from other programs and why it would slow down with JS Landscape 3.0 while other programs don't. The only thing that comes to mind is the ClearType support. Try turning that off and see if DEXplor speeds up. Additionally, you can try another program with ClearType, such as MS Reader, to see if it suffers performance problems with JS Landscape 3.0.

Dan East