Automatic Screen Rotation demo (look out iPhone!)

[Guest]

[Kenrick]

I updated the Auto Rotate app (to version 1.4) with options in the right-click menu to directly set the orientation to default landscape, 90, 180, and 270 degree rotations.  This includes the proper orientation for the touch scrollers and the mouse.  It also automatically saves the settings if the app is closed. 

If you lock the rotation then it will use no additional CPU resources, but with rotation unlocked (i.e. auto-rotate) it still has the 5-10% CPU overhead.

Enjoy...

Executable program: http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/files/OQOScreenRotate14.zip
Source code: http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/files/OQOScreenRotateSrc.zip

[Opus]

Thanks Kenrick & Terran!

Having the Rotate options available from the system tray icon allows me to work with my 02 in slate mode with less reliance on the keyboard.

I'm not sure if it is my settings but Portrait 1 & 2 works backwards for me, I'd espect #1 to rotate to Right like my FN Rotate so Touchscrollers are on the top right corner.

Only recommendation I have are slight different menu titles, borrowing from other system tray icons for consistancy (here is one proposed layout):

• Settings
• Enable Auto Rotate
• ------------------------
• Rotate Landscape Default
• Rotate Portrait Default
• Rotate Landscape Upside Down
• Rotate Portrait #2
• ----------------------------------------
• Exit

Other than that it's great! Thanks so much.

[Kenrick]

Thanks!  I will update it per your excellent feedback.  I'm actually teaching a class right now where we're talking about GUI design, and I made the same mistakes regarding inconsistencies that I tell my students not to do, so I better redeem myself :-)

[Opus]

lol! They call it "useability" in our office...

Since the first Windows 3.0 SDK I got around 1991 back in coding days at work, I've been preaching good UI design based on reading a thin white book that came with it called Common User Access Guidelines (CUA) by IBM. I wish I could find that book, someone borrowed it & never returned it back, better than the newer & glossier ones out thru MS Press & other publications.

I always shutter in development projects when the user reps ask for ellaborate & non-compliant screen designs, saying "they'll learn it from training" when I insist on a cleaner & more intuitive user interface.

Anyway, I only meant my comments as a recommendation, maybe others might have other feedback that would work better. That is part of the "useability" methodology  , I like to check out various off the shelf software to see common trends on how they do it but I've even seen Microsoft come up with some inconsistent or non-intuitive doosies.

[Dave P]

I wish I could find that book

As far as I can tell, the original is no longer published. There's a good article on it from the IBM Systems Journal at:

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/273/ibmsj2703E.pdf

I think the Redbook that superseded it is:

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/gg244107.pdf

Now if we could only get Microsoft to read it before they rewrite Windows again.

[Opus]

Dave P, thanks a bunch!

I did a quick gloss over and the redbook looks like it has similiar but updated content on CUA. I have a few PDF's downloaded from IBM I found after doing a search including a scan of the Wikipedia links. Plenty of concepts to grasp, I have it on my to do list so this will come in very handy.  Despite the evolution of GUI's that have exploded, in some cases imploded, the concepts about usability still remain the same.

[warlock]

thanks for a great program.

it would be useful if you could add an option to turn off/on the touch scrollers, they always get in the way when in slate mode.

[Vet3shaws]

thanks for a great program.

it would be useful if you could add an option to turn off/on the touch scrollers, they always get in the way when in slate mode.

That's a great option!  It's better than opening the OQO manager all the time to do so for inking.  Right now I just try to rotate the scrollers away from my palm.  Usually that's the secondary landscape.

[Vet3shaws]

vet3shaws: I did write a 180 rotate toggle program that you could find if search the forums...

I barely had to worry about it before, but now with the rotate 1.4 update, (once I install) I'm sure that'll do even more and easier than before.  I really appreciate all this work.  You guys are amazing!

[deathspal]

Just want to say AWESOME!!!!!!!  My OQO isn't eve a full 2 days old and this Gem of an app is on it an working great! TYVM 

[DocP]

Great stuff...too great to be hidden in the archives...Dear Picasso can we have a permanent spot for this?

[surfhawk]

The other day I was operating my unit with an external LCD monitor.  I had need to rotate the unit.  The graphic on the OQO screen rotated as it usually does but the image on the external monitor did NOT rotate.

It would be helpful to have this addressed in future versions.

Thanks for a great app, it has been helpful on many occasions.

[scoobie]

I updated the Auto Rotate app (to version 1.4) with options in the right-click menu to directly set the orientation to default landscape, 90, 180, and 270 degree rotations.  This includes the proper orientation for the touch scrollers and the mouse.  It also automatically saves the settings if the app is closed. 

If you lock the rotation then it will use no additional CPU resources, but with rotation unlocked (i.e. auto-rotate) it still has the 5-10% CPU overhead.

Enjoy...

Executable program: http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/files/OQOScreenRotate14.zip
Source code: http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/files/OQOScreenRotateSrc.zip

thanks .
Is that a new dll file in the package, do i need to copy that to c/windows?

[Kenrick]

It's the old DLL.  Actually if you hang tight for another day or so I'll upload a new one that fixes the UI bug of the wrong portrait mode when manually rotating...

[Kenrick]

Ok, here's a small updated version of the OQO screen rotator.  It's all pretty minor.

I put a checkbox in place of the button to toggle between enable/disable, fixed the bug where the wrong setting was checked for the portrait modes, and renamed the orientations so they match the same names in the Tablet Input control panel applet.

Executable program: http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/files/OQOScreenRotate15.zip
Source code: http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/files/OQOScreenRotateSrc.zip

surfhawk:  Sorry, no mirroring to external displays at this time... I'm not sure all monitors support the rotated orientations either (I know my old BenQ doesn't).

Also, (thanks to nivenh who told me how to override the touchscroll message chain) I will have another little utility to remap the touch scrollers to other keys, when I get some time to finish it...

cheers,
Kenrick