JS Landscape by Jimmy Soft

Review by Andy Ai, posted 7/17/01:  

TOTAL SCORE:

   2 out of 10 stylus taps.

Link: For more information, visit the Jimmy Software website

Discussion:

JS Landscape is a program that allows you to change the resolution and orientation of your PocketPC’s screen.  This is useful when trying to look at a large document on your handheld’s relatively small screen.  The resolution options are (These numbers are for portrait orientation.  Just switch the numbers around for landscape):

240 x 320

240 x 480

360 x 480

480 x 640

Unfortunately, most graphics, and programs, that you already have installed on your handheld are formatted for a 240 x 320 screen.  By changing the screens’ orientation and size, some programs and graphics may not take advantage of the extra area.  Additionally, there is no scrolling feature, unless one is included in the program you are running.  For example, if you change the orientation to landscape, you can scroll up and down in Internet Explorer, but you cannot scroll when looking at you Dashboard screen.  You would need to recreate any previously created skin or graphic to take advantage of the extra landscape features.

Another problem is that when you change the size of the screen, you also shrink the displayed text.  The result is text that is hard to read, and it is also harder to select items since the icons and other links are also smaller than normal.

One nice feature about the program is that you can rotate the orientation of the screen 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise.  That way you can either have the hardware buttons on the left or right hand side of the screen.

Overall, I think that a landscape function is nice to have, but not a necessity.  In my uses, I don’t think that I would ever encounter a need for this, but some users may conceivably want to work on a large document that would need a higher screen size to see.  Other than that, I don’t really see a need for the program.  If you are dead set on having the resizing and orientation ability, then this is a decent program.  But, you might also want to consider the virtual display program by Nyditot software.  That package is similar to this one, but also includes a floating scroll bar feature.

WARNING:  Be very cautious when trying to uninstall JS Landscape.  When I uninstalled my copy, it deleted an important .dll file from my Windows directory.  As a consequence of this, I had to do a hard reset of my system, losing all of my installed applications and settings.  It was a real pain to reinstall all of the programs and change the settings back to the way I had them."