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Re: string drawing speed in 10.3 9 (was Re: REALbasic 5.2.2fc2 now avail

To: "REALbasic Betas" <realbasic-betas at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: string drawing speed in 10.3 9 (was Re: REALbasic 5.2.2fc2 now available)
From: Jason <jcox at prairienet dot org>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:34:15 -0600
Ahh, as I see.  I just got Panther installed, and boy does my
DrawString/Canvas based listbox compiled with 4.5.3 slow down fast
on panther.  Scroll that sucker for 5 seconds and the frame rate
drops from like 15fps to 2fps... then keeps going slower and slower.
Hmm, I'm quite bummed.  :-(

Even sadder, I'm not ready to compile my app with 5.2.x (just too
many issues for me), and 5.5 is, of course, not ready for prime
time.  I know it's ridiculous to hope for a 4.5.4 patch... but damn.

I advise you to get your project working in 5.2.2.  It's a great
release and I'd be very curious to hear what you think are the
show-stoppers there.

I started doing just that. Luckily during the 5.x dev cycle I kept up with the changes in the compiler, and made any changes necessary along the way to compile my 4.5.3 project in 5.x... but have had other issues and problems that kept me from moving to it. I worked this weekend on overcoming them, but here are a few "simple" problems I am struggling with (in no particular order):

1) I need to use the Delete key glyph in my File menu to show it as a keyboard shortcut for Command-Delete, Shift-Command-Delete, and Option-Command-Delete. I was using Carbon Declares to do this, but that doesn't work with RB5.x's new menu system... and as far as I know, there is no keyword that makes it appear. I currently "catch" these keyboard shortcuts in the KeyDown event of the window, since displaying the glyph doesn't really enable it as a menu shortcut. I'm fine with that.. just need to display it for the user!

2) I have a method that parses a text file line by line that seems to run about twice as slow or more when compiled with 5.2.2 vs 4.5.3. Not sure what the issue is there yet.

3) I have a preference window with a TabPanel, but when the window deactivates and then reactivates, all the StaticTexts and ListBox headers remain in the deactivated state. All other controls are fine. Oddly enough, another window has a similar setup, but works correctly. This has been a problem since early 5.0 alphas. I reported it and thought it was fixed at one time, but apparently not fully. Hopefully I can figure out why it works in one window and not the other.

4) Compiled app size with 5.2.2 is about 50% larger than with 4.5.3. I'm totally happy 5.5 has fixed this, and actually improved on 4.5.3 compiled sizes. In light of this DrawString slowdown issue on Panther, I'll take the larger app size in stride until 5.5 is released.

There's a couple other little odd things that I should be able to resolve, but haven't had time to look into them yet. Another major issue I overcame was the speed of canvas drawing that really slowed down in 5.x... but adding .useOldRenderer=true to all Paint and draw methods solve that.

Just curious, what is this 10.3 bug?  And are other apps likely to
be effected besides RB apps?

Yes.  It's a problem where ATSUSetFontAttributes (IIRC) consumes more
and more memory, and gets slower and slower, each time you call it.
And it needs to be called pretty frequently as you change text style
or color.  The work-around is to clear out the attributes first with
another call, but that wasn't necessary prior to 10.3.

Could adding a declare call to something help 4.5.3 apps?

Thanks,
Jason


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