John's Adventures Forum » Support (John's Background Switcher)
Missing Feature in V.4
(14 posts) (4 voices)-
John,
I've been using the switcher for more than a year now, and in the previous version, I had the ability to stretch a photo to fill the screen horizontally and/or vertically, with no tiling and no cropping of any edges. Now, in version 4, there doesn't seem to be that ability, and now my photos that don't conform to a standard 16:10 aspect ratio (my monitor is 1920x1200) show gray bars at the sides, meaning the photo is not being stretched.
Has this capability been renamed? The only things I see that are close are "scale pictures to fit the screen" my current setting and where I'm seeing the problem, and "scale and crop to FULL screen" which doesn't sound right, as I don't want cropping, but rather just stretching in whatever direction it takes to fill the entirety of the desktop.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
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Yes, I dropped support for stretching pictures for three reasons:
1. I suspected that very very few people actually used it.
2. My thinking was why would you want to take a picture and stretch it, distorting the aspect ratio and the picture? To me it just didn't make sense as you lose quality and no matter what picture I tried it on it just annoyed me because it didn't look very good with the distortion effect and I wanted the highest quality experience from JBS 4 and stretching, for me, didn't provide that. I guess it's the perfectionist and photographer in me.
3. If you want to fill the screen completely then I figured it was better to crop the edges off than to stretch, that way you didn't lose the aspect ratio of the picture while only losing a small piece of the picture - even Windows 7 has this sizing option now built in.
Anyway, I'll have a think about re-implementing scaling in the next version (despite the fact that I rather dislike it) but in the meantime if you want to roll back to 3.6 you can download it here:
http://downloads.johnsadventures.com/SwitcherSetup36.exe
Be sure to turn off the update notification or it'll drive you nuts reminding you a new version is available!
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John,
I actually intensely dislike the bars and any cropping. I don't mind the slight distortion as most of the pics I use are close to 16:10 if not quite that wide. Plus, I use landscapes only—no people—so the distortion is not as noticeable.
As for your suspicions about people not using it, I noticed one person posted right after me with the same regret for the missing feature. ;)
I will be going back to 3.6. It's that big a deal for me. Sorry.
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Heh heh, well by my count that's 2 people out of several tens of thousands so I stand by my assessment! ;)
Keep a copy of the 3.6 installer as I will eventually redirect the link to download the latest version (I generally leave the previous versions for a few months, although if you do lose it I have archives I can always send you). Since I'm just one guy and it's freeware (i.e. I don't make any money out of it aside from donations) I don't plan on releasing new builds of older versions, but it'll continue to work indefinitely and if it works for you then by all means stick with it!
Oh, and keep an eye out when I eventually release 4.1. Stretching may make a reappearance!
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I look forward to 4.1 one and the possible return of one of its important features. :D
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Haha, see this is the problem, JBS doesn't do any spying on your system so I don't actually know how people use it and my only feedback is through the uninstall feedback page that optionally comes up when you remove it, from people who email me or use this forum. So I do my best to figure out what gives the best experience to the highest number of people. Clearly you can't please all the people all the time but I do try!
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Oh, absolutely, John. I've been recommending your software to those that I can. I've even been trying to get Paul Thurrott of Windows IT Pro and the Twit network's Windows Weekly to take a look and recommend it. I can't believe he hasn't put it in as software of the week yet.
I love it, and no other software comes close.
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Thanks for the JBS evangelism, it's much appreciated! :)
I'm just happy if people like yourself use and enjoy JBS, that's good enough for me!
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Another feature I've noticed that has disappeared is the box you ticked "use slected picture next". This was rather helpful for when I actually decided what pic I wanted as a background. Maybe I'm not seeing it but help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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Yeah, that feature was dropped to make all the modes behave consistently. To save repeating myself read the reasoning and my plans here:
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Running 4.1 now and loving the return of this important feature.
Thanks, John. :)
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Heh heh, I do try and get it right eventually! ;)
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I too am glad that the feature was returned to JBS. I reverted back to 3.6 from 4.0 because of the drop in customization and was really disappointed. I am going to try 4.1 and see how that works out. Also I too like Roykirk have been recommending your software on Techpowerup.com as well as my deviant art webpage...thanks for making good wares and being so open to the plebs.
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You're most welcome! And had I known how popular 'Stretch' mode was I'd never have taken it out - my bad for too much assumption! ;)
Roykirk
Newo
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