NDPix photo editor adds a Bento visual grid! What does it mean?

In a photo grid every cell is the same size, and a portrait has to fit a landscape shape. NDPix 1.2.8 adds a Bento view where each vertical photo takes exactly double the height, so it lines up with two stacked horizontals. The difference is not a matter of taste: it changes how much of the photo you see.

What a portrait loses in a landscape cell

The card band is landscape, 3:2. A vertical photo, usually 2:3, does not fit there without paying something. If it is fitted whole, bands appear at the sides and the photo shrinks inside its cell. If it is cropped to fill the band, the top and bottom edges are lost, exactly where a portrait usually has the head or the feet.

In a mixed folder the effect shows more. Horizontals fill their space and verticals end up smaller, so the eye jumps from size to size within the same row. The grid ends up treating as equal photos that are not.

And there is a limit no uniform grid solves. If every cell is the same size, the height available to a vertical is always that of a horizontal. It is not a cropping problem: it is geometry.

The exact two-height module

The Bento view breaks the equality with a simple rule. Each vertical photo measures exactly two cell heights and horizontals keep measuring one. Because the multiple is exact, one vertical matches two stacked horizontals to the pixel.

The exact multiple avoids the classic flaw of grids built from each photo's real proportion. When heights almost match but do not, columns drift and a step appears that never closes. With a fixed multiple, the row ends where it has to end.

The button to switch sits next to the zoom control. It appears only in grid view, with the stack panel closed and at least one vertical photo on screen. If the folder is horizontal only, it hides: in that case both modes are identical and the button would have nothing to do.

The preference is saved and the Bento view comes enabled. When you switch, the app shows a brief notice in the top bar. If no vertical is on screen, it scrolls to the nearest one before animating the change, so the difference is visible.

Changing views without losing your photo

Reordering a grid has a cost almost nobody notices until they suffer it: you lose sight of the photo you were looking at. When you change zoom or window size, columns rearrange and the scroll ends up pointing somewhere else.

NDPix keeps the position by file path and view offset, not by the scrollbar value. If the selected photo is still visible, the grid keeps it where it was.

When the number of columns changes, cards move for 180 milliseconds. Those crossing columns shrink slightly and drop their opacity, so the crossing reads as movement and not as stacked photos.

Selection follows geometry too. Arrow keys pick the neighbour beside it on screen, not the next one in the list, and Shift selects the visual block between two photos. In a view where heights change, that is the difference between navigating and guessing.

The update is done from the app: Help → Check for Updates, then the Download now button.

Note: a new-version notice also appears inside the library. If the folder you open has verticals, the Bento view is already enabled when you start the program. And you will also see the button next to the zoom, which takes you back to the classic grid when you prefer everything at the same size.