Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:49 am Post subject: Performance issues after upgrading from 1.1 to 1.2 Patch 4
Hello, I'm a longtime Neooffice user though I haven't posted here before.
Yesterday I finally decided to upgrade from Neo 1.1 to 1.2. 1.1 worked great for me, with very little slowdown (iMac G5, 2ghz processor, 2gb ram).
I installed 1.2 and now I have some performance issues. While scrolling within a document is faster and smoother than before, clicking menu items (File, etc) results in a BIG lag (4-6 seconds) before the drop-down appears.
Every time a window is opened (new document, Open or Save dialog, etc), the window is drawn one element - edges, icons, etc - at a time in front of my eyes. This happens quickly (1-2 sec max), but it's annoying considering things appeared complete instantly with 1.1.
I have Java 1.4.2 installed, according to the Java utility in Applications -> Utilities. I haven't messed around with the Java files AFAIK.
I am not sure what could be causing this wierd decrease in performance. My only idea from reading up a bit is that perhaps I didn't properly uninstall 1.1 - i just dragged the .app from Applications -> Trash. Could the old config files be causing this slowdown?
Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:30 am Post subject: Re: Performance issues after upgrading from 1.1 to 1.2 Patch
Hell_Gopher wrote:
I installed 1.2 and now I have some performance issues. While scrolling within a document is faster and smoother than before, clicking menu items (File, etc) results in a BIG lag (4-6 seconds) before the drop-down appears.
This should be limited to the first time you access a menu after opening the application. Even I (800 Mhz iBook) have a faster menu bar after the initial construction of the menu bar. I usually load the app, then immediatly cycle through all of the drop-down menus and work comfortably fast afterwards.
Perhaps Patrick could somehow trigger that initial buildup in the startup phase of NeoOffice.
Hell_Gopher wrote:
Every time a window is opened (new document, Open or Save dialog, etc), the window is drawn one element - edges, icons, etc - at a time in front of my eyes. This happens quickly (1-2 sec max), but it's annoying considering things appeared complete instantly with 1.1.
This is because Patrick double-buffered the windows contents in Neo 1.1 because of Java 1.3.1 drawing issues. These are now gone as Neo 1.2 uses Java 1.4.2. I have the impression that the overal time required for a redraw has not changed much, but that the process is more visible now.
I personally prefer this because I have a better idea what the app is doing and I am a control freak when it comes to computers. It is a matter of taste. To me, the scrolling speed improvement also outweighs anything else.
Then again, I made my own icon set, so I also don't mind so much if my attention is drawn to the toolbars .
Hell_Gopher wrote:
I am not sure what could be causing this wierd decrease in performance. My only idea from reading up a bit is that perhaps I didn't properly uninstall 1.1 - i just dragged the .app from Applications -> Trash. Could the old config files be causing this slowdown?
Yes, in some cases, that is possible. But not very often. Neo 1.2 converted your Neo 1.1 config so you should now be able to safely delete those.
If you want to see if your preferences cause a slowdown, rename or move the
Code:
~/library/preferences/neooffice-1.x
folder and see if that makes the application any faster. If it doesn't you can easily restore you old preferences by moving or renaming back the original prefs folder.
Hell_Gopher wrote:
I'd greatly appreciate any clues.
I hope was useful.
Best wishes,
Oscar _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Thanks for the thorough reply to my questions. What you said about the menu turns out to be true - it does speed up after a couple of times. I don't like that drawing effect, but its true that its not really any slower than before so it doesn't matter too much.
My prefs weren't at fault, I tried setting up a fresh set a couple of times with no effect.
Maybe things will get a bit faster in the future...still a brilliant program.
Oscar hit all the big points, so just one minor addition: the toolbar redrawing/slow menu at first use comes from the OOo code constructing the menus, which seems to be particularly slow (and sometimes quite buggy, so workarounds/protections have been added, which probably adds to the problem).
I'm hopeful (though not optimistic) that as part of the code overhaul/speedups present in OOo 2, the menu generation code also got some optimization....
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
I'm hopeful (though not optimistic) that as part of the code overhaul/speedups present in OOo 2, the menu generation code also got some optimization....
This reminds me of what I have found as a result of my NeoOffice 2.0 work so far. With NeoOffice, it seems to take a few seconds for a new document to get fully painted when a new document window is created. This time lag is a bit longer in my NeoOffice 2.0 development build than in NeoOffice 1.2, so I did some heavy debugging before I went on vacation.
What I found is that the OOo code that builds submenus is very costly as far as performance is concerned. This is why the OOo code delays building of a submenu until the last possible moment (i.e. when you click on a submenu's menu item).
The approach that Ed and I have used so far in NeoOffice is to build all of the menus when a window is first opened and then update all of the menus when you click on the menubar. While this works, it is hitting all menus and, as a result, is taking more time than OOo does to build its non-Aqua menus.
I plan on trying to modify my NeoOffice 2.0 code so that building of each menu is done only before just before each is opened.
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