My first impressions while trialling Port Explorer 2.000

[Defenestration]

I am interested in purchasing just about all of the DiamondCS products, and while trialling Port Explorer 2.000 I have come across some problems:

1) One of the first things I noticed was that double-clicking on a column header separator (ie. to change the width of the column to the width of the largest column item) did NOT work. I am running on XP SP2, and the font used for the column headers is different to the font used for the actual listview info (ie. column header uses MS Sans Serif (I think), and listview info rendered in Verdana), so maybe this has something to do with it. I see that the font for the listview is changeable, but when I changed i9t to MS Sans Serif 8, and then clicked the cloumn header separator, it still did not resize the coluymn to the correct width. Am I doing something wrong ?

Even if I am, this needs to be changed because this was my first impression of Port Explorer (ie. it did not work as expected)

Also, the font used for the tabs "All", "TCP, "UDP" etc.... is different again. Why is this ? Why not use the same font as the column headers ?

2) It might have been a bli[p on my system, but the first time I tried to connect after rebooting (because of Port Explorer's installation), I could not browse the web/get my e-mail. I then shut down PE and tried to re-connect and it connected correctly. I can't be sure this is a problem with PE because it is only the second time I have connected.

3) More of a question this one, Should my connection slowdown when running PE ? Again, I cannot be sure it's PE's fault, but it just seems slower somehow.

I haven't read the help manual cos I;'m lazy, but how do you see exactly what a certain app is sending (ie. the contents of the packets) ?

Regards,
D......

[Pilli]

Hi Defenstration and welcome.

1. To change the size of columns click on the vertical bar seperator by the side of each column header.
The font used is the same on every tab Verdana regular 8 - Changing the font should work globally for all tabs, well it does here.

2. Port Explorer should not effect your internet connection in any way but PE will require a change in your firewall rules to accomplish some of it's look up functions such as resolve & Whois.

3, There should be NO noticeable slowdown of connections.

Reading the manual may help you understanf PE's many functions laziness should not be an excuse :)

Can you please tell us what your firewall is, as MaCfee does not get on well with Port explorer, as far as I know there are no problems with other firewalls.

HTH Pilli.

EDIT: missed word ;D :-[

[siliconman01]

-{ Quote: "3, There should be NO noticeable slowdown of connections." }-

Pilli, are you sure this statement is correct? I don't see any noticeable slowdown in my Internet connection when PE is running.

[Jooske]

Guess Pilli forgot the word "no" as there is no noticable slowdown in the connection.

[siliconman01]

I figured "NO" was missing...Saturday duldrums.. ;D

[Pilli]

-{ Quote: "siliconman01 I figured "NO" was missing...Saturday duldrums.. " }-

I must need a drink! :D Not until this evening though, some nice "real ale" ;)

[Defenestration]

The problem with the Column width not being resized to the correct width when clicking on the right-hand column header is definitely there on my system. Attached is a screenshot of the Status and Sent columns after double-clicking on the right-hand side of these columns.

[Jooske]

I hover between the column break and drag it wider or smaller; if you double-click you only change the order of the selection in that column.

[Defenestration]

I don't mean double-click on the column header itself, but on the column break. This should automatically resize the width of the column to the widest entry in this column. This is standard Windows behaviour.

Another improvement that could be made would be to have some indication of sort order on the column header, like with Windows Explorer. Currently it's not easy to see on which column the list is being sorted on.

Apart from these two minor problems, I love this software. After reading some of the manual I have successfully managed to spy on exactly what data is coming/going over my Internet connection.

[Pilli]

-{ Quote: "I don't mean double-click on the column header itself, but on the column break. This should automatically resize the width of the column to the widest entry in this column. This is standard Windows behaviour." }-
-{ Quote: "Another improvement that could be made would be to have some indication of sort order on the column header, like with Windows Explorer. Currently it's not easy to see on which column the list is being sorted on." }-

Thanks for your points, I am sure DCS will look into it :)

Cheers. Pilli