A Rotation Button for your T3 and T5

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On my T3, whether Avantgo, VersaMail, Plucker, or an eBook, I usually read in landscape mode. When writing in Graffiti, I typically do so in portrait mode. And when I view my photos, well... that depends on the way the images were taken, and I end up switching between landscape and portrait modes more often than I like. The rotation icon on the blue bar is small, so frequent switching is awkward. Also, rotation moves the position of the rotation icon, and I need to make a small, but real, mental effort to find the icon in order to rotate back.

What the T3 and the T5 needed was a dedicated hardware rotation button. A good alternative would be software that mapped rotation to a hardware button, but a cursory search of the web turned up nothing. I had planned to write the utility myself, but just never got around to it. Then I learned that PalmOne's new LifeDrive had just such a button and I was green with envy.

Okay, I'm overstating my state of envy. But it did push me enough to write Rotate. In the hopes that there are users like me who also need a hardware rotation button, I've made the program friendly enough for the general public. It's shareware, so you can try it before you buy it. And the paltry $5 registration fee removes the "*unregistered*" banner, gets you free upgrades, and funds improvements to the program.

Comments

Anonymous said…
You should add in an option to use the T3 voice recorder button for rotation. THAT will make the T3 really behave like a LD!!!
11:38 AM
Michael Yam said…
That's the number one request. So it's not just me; there's lots of LD envy out there :-).

Palm didn't provide a straight forward way to remap that button though. After a bit of digging, I am happy to say this feature will be in the next version of Rotate which is due out in a week or two.

Watch this space.
12:50 PM
Anonymous said…
Good stuff!! We're waiting for it!! ;-)
2:03 AM
Anonymous said…
hello,
I tried "Rotate" on my T3, but the settings don't seem to survive a soft reset. This leads to another re-mapping of the key I selected.

What can I do?

Bert.
3:03 AM
Michael Yam said…
>>I tried "Rotate" on my T3, but the settings don't seem to survive a soft reset.

This was somewhat intentional. I knew about this behavior and thought it was a good thing because sometimes, users might want to clean things up a bit with a soft reset.

For now, you will have to tap "Enable" and tap it again. I'll have to fix that in a future release or make it an option.
12:40 PM
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