How does preview mode differ from real browsing of the directory? I find I am getting somewhat different results in Preview versus JXplorer, even though I've saved my changes in Studio to the penrose server.

When you hit "preview", Penrose Studio uses the embeded server. When you hit save, Penrose studio sends the config to the actual Penrose Server (the one that you are connecting to), but Penrose studio doesn't restart the actual Penrose server.

This is by design, you want to preview your mapping locally, once the mapping generates a desired result, you can then save/send your mapping to the server. You still have to restart the Penrose Server manually.

Penroser server (up to 0.9.8) requires a manual restart after configuration changes from Penrose Studio (save button). Starting from 0.9.9, Penrose Studio will separate between local and remote mapping to avoid this confusion. http://jira.safehaus.org/browse/PENROSE-127