Auto Rotate Screen (using APS) Files

Program Name: AutoRotateScreen using APS v0.4
Build Date: 1 Jan 2013
Compiler: MinGW GCC 4.7.2 with QT Creator 2.6.1
Language: C++11 with QT 4.8.4

Copyright 2012,2013 Yeo Kheng Meng (yeokm1@yahoo.com.sg)
Licensed under GPLv3

Important!
This software is still new. Problems such as failure to rotate or blank screens may occur on certain systems. If you experience any issues, I appreciate it if you can drop me an email. Do include your machine type, operating system version, graphics card model and graphics driver version.

Base Description:
Using the sensor data provided by the Active Protection System, the program will auto rotate the screen to the desired orientation.

Although IBM/Lenovo has an official software that does exactly this, it does not work for the non-tablet versions. This program differs from the official one in that it allows the user to customise the exact laptop orientation for the rotation to kick in. You can also individually select which orientation to activate or deactivate.

This project was conceived by my need to have this function when I added a touchscreen to my non-tablet X60.

For non-Thinkpad machines, this tool can work as a regular screen rotation shortcut on the tray. See readme file for more details.

Since this application is still new, please forgive any bugs or missing credits or lousy UI. Would gladly appreciate any comments.

Requirements: Thinkpad Active Protection System driver. Windows XP or above. (Both 32 and 64 bit supported)

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Calibration Instructions:

1. Turn off AutoRotation if it is still enabled.
2. Choose the first of the 4 display orientation position by selecting any of the 4 buttons.
3. Move your laptop roughly into the position you desire for that particular display orientation.
4. Select the Calibrate button.
5. Tilt your machine side to side, forwards and backwards to obtain the maximum range of position you desire for the program to switch into that display orientation.
6. Click the Calibrate button again to stop. Choose if you wish the new settings to take effect immediately.
7. Repeat the above steps for the other 3 display orientation positions.
8. You can save your settings into the configuration file asr-config.ini (stored in the same directory) at any point in time.
9. Enable AutoRotation and test your results. You can recalibrate for just a particular display orientation if necessary.

If there is any abnormal behavoir, press the ESC key to disable AutoRotation.

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Limitations:
1. It is possible to set overlapping ranges during the calibration. Should your machine be within an overlapped range, the screen orientation will switch back and forth between the affected orientations. Just take care to avoid this issue during calibration. My program will issue a warning, but it is up to you to decide whether to still accept the calibration.

2. THe APS sensor is only a 2-axis device. This means that 2 laptop positions can have the same x and y values, eg. flat up, and directly upside down. Again, there's is no way for me to program around this. Just be aware when calibrating.

3. On some systems, the graphics card driver may not support the native Win32 Rotation. In that case, you can try the keyboard shortcut method. AutoRotateScreen will issue the keystrokes

Orient 0: Ctrl+ALT+UP
Orient 1: Ctrl+ALT+LEFT
Orient 2: Ctrl+ALT+RIGHT
Orient 3: Ctrl+ALT+DOWN

This keystrokes are typical Intel graphics driver screen rotation hotkey hotkeys. If it fails, you can pair AutoRotateScreen with this program iRotate. http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/irotate.shtm

It interfaces natively with the graphics driver to rotate the screen. It accepts the keyboard shortcuts above and then rotate.

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For non-Thinkpad machines:
This program can will simply act as a screen orientation shortcut on the system tray. Several warning messages will show during launch. Use the commandline arguments given below to suppress those warnings. Once suppressed, one can use the tray menu to select the desired screen rotation on the fly.


Optional: You can add this program to your Startup folder or Task Scheduler if u want it to start automatically upon every login. Once calibrated, the program will start minimised to the tray. See the link for more information
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Schedule-a-task

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CommandLine Arguments:

/s : To suppress missing sensor.dll warning
/r : To suppress missing/corrupted ars-config.ini file warning
/m : Always start minimised to tray area. (Useful for non-calibrated/non-Thinkpads)
/a : Disable Auto Rotation on program start (default is enabled if program is calibrated)

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ars-config.ini format:

Orient0: MinX MaxX MinY MaxY enable
.
.
.
RotationMethod PollRate ScreenDelayRate

To reset program, just delete this file and start calibration from scratch.

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Changelog:
v0.1 (8 June 2012)
Initial release

v0.2 (8 June 2012)
Added commandline argument to allow disable auto rotation on program start
Added commandline argument to customise polling rate

v0.3 (24 June 2012)
Left click on tray icon also brings up program
Reduced confusion on Auto-Rotation option in tray menu
Prevent multiple instances of the same program
Range of poll rate limited from 20ms to 90000000ms
Allow individual display orientation to be deselected
Improve screen orientation delay algorithm
Press ESC key to disable autorotation (during abnormal behavior)
Warn if overlapping ranges encountered			
		
v0.31 (27 June 2012)
Corrected bug that enables to save config data even for non-APS enabled machines
Adjusted custom message values to make all above 1024

v0.4 (1 Jan 2013)
Ported to C++11 and QT 4.8.4
Added easier adjustments of poll/delay rate
2 ways of rotating, using native Win32 APIs or keyboard shortcuts               
                    

Credits:
1. Programming Windows 5th Edition by Charles Petzold
http://www.charlespetzold.com/pw5/

2. Numerous MSDN guides

3. Actions transform rotate Icon
Oxygen Team
http://www.iconarchive.com/show/oxygen-icons-by-oxygen-icons.org/Actions-transform-rotate-icon.html

4. Codeproject.com for Display Orientation guides and other etc
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/36664/Changing-Display-Settings-Programmatically

5. Pulling Data from Thinkpad APS Sensor (CONG NGUYEN)
https://flashandrc.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/pulling-data-from-thinkpad-aps-sensor-using-c/

6. ThinkWiki page on the APS
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Active_Protection_System

7. Finally the National University of Singapore module CS1010 (lecturer Yung-Hsiang Lu ) for teaching me the basics of C Programming.

If I miss out any credits, please feel free to inform me Yeo Kheng Meng at yeokm1@yahoo.com.sg