DisplayFusion RSS: New features for cursor location and wallpaper image manipulation

RE: New features for cursor location and wallpaper image manipulation

Binary Fortress Software — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 20:27:56 GMT

We've just released DisplayFusion 5.1 Beta 11 (http://www.displayfusion.com/Download/Beta/), and there are now a bunch of Mouse Cursor related Functions on the Settings > Functions tab. Just assign a key combination to the ones you want to use, and you're good to go.

Thanks!

RE: New features for cursor location and wallpaper image manipulation

Binary Fortress Software — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:52:12 GMT

Thanks, will do!

RE: New features for cursor location and wallpaper image manipulation

Binary Fortress Software — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:40:18 GMT

Keith,

If you need beta resource testing for these features you know where to ring

Pawel

RE: New features for cursor location and wallpaper image manipulation

Binary Fortress Software — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:55:00 GMT

No problem, we definitely appreciate insight into the requests

1. The option is just built-in. We'll definitely consider the option to change it back to truly random in the future if it becomes a popular request. It actually used to be truly random, but a lot of customers didn't like the fact that they would see the same image in close succession, so we changed it to work in the way you requested above. If you add new photos, they are automatically included into the mix, and even after a reboot, it will pickup where it left off.

2. We'll definitely consider implementing this feature, but I agree that it's only useful if the pictures are in a certain folder structure, so we'll have to investigate it a bit further.

Thanks again for your feedback and suggestions!

RE: New features for cursor location and wallpaper image manipulation

Binary Fortress Software — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:41:08 GMT

Keith,

Thanks for paying attention to these requests. I got some more comments, sorry for being so verbose but based on my software experience the only way to come up with good functionality is to first ensure good understanding of the use case - I'm sure you appreciate that.

1 - Best answer I could have hoped for! Slight repeats are just not an issue because with large number of pictures nobody will notice it. Some additional questions on the functionality:

- Is this an option on the exiting random functionality or just part of it? It would be nice if it was an option on its own because that creates a richer user experience (some people actually do like a truly random selection which implies repeats).

- If I add a new set of photos somewhere within the folder structure from which random selection occurs (including a new folder with photos), will these photos be included in the random mix automatically? That would be nice because it simplifies the number of things that user has to do - just add the photos and they will show up at some point, nice!

- If the process is interrupted (ex: system reboot) will it pick where it left off or will the selection be reset to the beginning? Picking up from where it left off is what I would expect.

- Is there going to be a possibility to reset to ALL PICTURES NOT SELECTED? There should be one to enable the user to start over.

2 - Yes, selecting that exiting alphabetical order option will indeed display photos alphabetically, but today that also includes alphabetical selection of the folders as you pointed out. The idea is to be able to do this:

a) Randomly select a folder that was not yet selected
b) Display all pictures within that folder, sequence here does not really matter and alphabetical is a good default
c) Go back to (a)
d) Be able at anytime to reset to ALL FOLDERS NOT SELECTED

This is a fine point but it has a lot to do with the idea of a well controlled picture frame alternative. Many people, including myself, organize picture folders in a Year>Month>Event structure like this:

- Pictures (top folder)
.|- 2001
..|- 01
...|- event folder 1
...|- event folder 2
...|- etc for events
..|- 02
..|- etc for months
..|- 12
.|- 2002
.|- etc for years

Option like the one requested would allow having random pick of the events (regardless of the year/month) but once selected to see all the pictures from that event before randomly selecting the next event. In fact this correlation of the folder structure to the usefulness of the option should be pointed out to the users should the option be ever developed.

3 - Fantastic!

4 - This is another fine point that has more to do with picture management then management of multiple displays as such. So I guess you guys need to pick your product priorities. But should the picture frame functionality be a priority (as a wallpaper or a screen saver) then this set of functionalities will make your solution unbeatable in the market as far as I can tell. And I did look at a lot of free and paid for solution. This is a huge value for people like me who already have tens of thousands of jpegs and keep adding new just made as well as old as they are slowly being digitized - an enormous time saver

Thanks,
Pawel

RE: New features for cursor location and wallpaper image manipulation

Binary Fortress Software — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:01:00 GMT

Glad to hear you like DisplayFusion! Let's see if I can answer some of these

1. We've actually implemented this function for 3.4.1. There's still a small chance that you might see an image twice, but only at the end of the rotation. For example, the last image in the rotation could end up being the first one selected when the rotation restarts.

2. If you select the "Show images in alphabetical order" option in the Desktop Wallpaper configuration, it should more or less do this? Or were you thinking of having it randomly select a folder instead of going through the folders in order?

3. We've got this on our feature request list, so I've added your vote to it.

4. I'm not sure if this is possible, but we'll certainly check it out and consider adding it if it is.

Thanks!

New features for cursor location and wallpaper image manipulation

Binary Fortress Software — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 06:51:45 GMT

Hi,

I just installed DisplayFusion and it is exactly what I need - well worth the cost . I use TV as a secondary monitor primarily as a picture frame. When nobody is watching TV we switch video-in to the secondary monitor and every minute we get a randomly selected picture displayed as a wallpaper image from our 20K+ (and growing!) collection. This includes file path/name which makes it supper easy to identify the picture. Beats a typical picture frame hands down!

But there are some features that I would love to have in a future release (or maybe I simply don't know hoe to invoke them?):

1. In the random desktop image mode, an option that prevents repeat display of an image already displayed until all images are displayed.

2. In the random desktop image mode, an option that selects a folder/subfolder randomly but goes through all images in that folder/subfolder sequentially before selecting another folder/subfolder

3. Forcing cursor to a specific monitor

Because my secondary monitor is in a different room then the PC, I also have a second set of KB/mouse by it (wireless via USB connected to the PC); otherwise I could not interact with the secondary display when in front of it. This means that the PC has two KBs and two mice (one set by the PC and once set by the TV). Now, I typically don't know where the cursor is when I want to interact with the secondary display since it is on the primary monitor. Just moving around the mouse that is by the secondary monitor is clunky because the two monitors are of vastly different resolution, primary is 1920x1280 and secondary is 1024x76 and I can't see the cursor movement until it jumps to the secondary display. It would be really nice therefore to have something like a HotKey to do the following:

- Position the cursor at the center of a specific monitor (ex: Ctrl+Win+# where # is the number of the target monitor), or

- Position the cursor at the center of the next/previous monitor (ex: Ctrl+Win+< or Ctrl+Win+> where < and > are previous/next)

4. Selecting what to do with the current wallpaper image:

Having so many pictures (over 20K) it is difficult to keep track exactly what they are. But when I see a specific picture displayed, then I instantly know if something needs to be done with it. It would be really nice therefore to add the following choices to the Desktop Right-Click Menu (doing it via HotKeys has an issue of the display selection, auto-selecting the display where the cursor is will not work in my case since the cursor is typically on the primary display while the image of interest is typically on the secondary display):

- DisplayFusion Wallpaper Image >
- Load next (should be consistent with random display, there is a shortcut for that now)
- Load previous (should be consistent with random display)
- Rotate 90 deg. Clockwise
- Rotate 90 deg. Counterclockwise
- Rotate 180 deg.
- Delete (permanently from the disc, with confirmation)
- Hide (set the hide attribute on the file and don't display it again)
- Show in the directory (open directory where the file is and highlight the name of it)
- Edit (open a user specified program, ex: Photoshop, with that picture preloaded)

Thanks,
Pawel