Significant text layout speed improvements

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

FYI. After optimizing image drawing operations and memory usage in NeoOffice 2.1 Patch 5, I took some time to try and optimize NeoOffice's text layout code.

As a result, I have optimized the code so that text layout now runs between 2 and 2.5 times as fast as the Patch 5 code. Put another way, text layout now draws in only 40% - 50% of the time that it did in Patch 5.

As I've probably mentioned before, Mac OS X native text layout is much slower than X11 text layout and even with the optimizations, native text layout is still slower than X11 text layout. This is the price that we pay for those pretty anti-aliased fonts that Apple bundles with Mac OS X. Nevertheless, my latest optimatizations narrows the gap by a sizable amount.

Since my fixes contain some pretty significant changes to the text layout code, I suspect that there will be a few new bugs so I have posted the following test patch. Please help me find any bugs by using this test patch:

PowerPC:
http://www.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.1-Patch-5-Test-1-PowerPC.dmg

Intel:
http://www.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.1-Patch-5-Test-1-Intel.dmg

Patrick

yoxi · Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:14 am Post subject:

Since installing this test patch, the redrawing of some of the panels (e.g. the Indents tab in the Paragraph Formatting dialogue) has been slowed down, after clicking on the up/down spinners to change the text indent, for example.

I am using ShapeShifter, and this change of behaviour is only exhibited when SS is enabled, so it shouuldn't affect most people (unless it's still there when SS is off, but not noticeable because my mac is too fast!).

If this is useful to know: the affect is most noticeable the first time I click on a spinner - like around a 1/2 second delay before screen redraw - and then still there but shorter delay every time after that.

- padmavyuha

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Here's another test patch to try. I have found a few more small performance improvements and I have reversed the screen flushing optimization that I had in the last test patch that is probably causing the problem that ovvldc is seeing:

PowerPC:
http://www.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.1-Patch-5-Test-2-PowerPC.dmg

Intel:
http://www.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.1-Patch-5-Test-2-Intel.dmg

Patrick

Lorinda · Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 1:05 pm Post subject:

I haven't had a chance to try out test 2 yet. But in both patch 5 and patch 5 test 1, I occasionally see thin white lines through the text, as well as "scrunched" lines where one line of text is squeezed/scrunched. Both resolve if I scroll the affected areas off and back on the screen.

Since this was happening with patch 5 before I installed test patches, would you like me to file a bug report, or should I just report on any changes here?

I do have a screen shot with both effects if that's of help.

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

ovvldc

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Lorinda · Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 2:06 pm Post subject:

sardisson · Town Crier Joined: Feb 01, 2004 Posts: 4588

No, no, that was just Patrick foreseeing a future problem you were going to have and fixing it before it ever occurred.

Er, wait, that was a different sci-fi movie Wink

Smokey

ovvldc · Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 3:38 pm Post subject:

Hey, look, Patrick is fast, but not that fast..

-Oz

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Here's another test patch to try. Ed helped me get rid of the stray pixels when scrolling rapidly. Hopefully that bug is squashed:

PowerPC:
http://www.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.1-Patch-5-Test-3-PowerPC.dmg

Intel:
http://www.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.1-Patch-5-Test-3-Intel.dmg

Patrick

yoxi · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 1:02 am Post subject:

Yup, for me test patch 3 (on intel) fixes both the panel redraw delay and the scrolling white-outs (that lorinda mentioned) that I hadn't had time to file a bug over, myself. Oh, and the text-scrolling speed (even with ShapeShifter running) is noticeably faster too - no dropouts now when doing quick page-downs. Rah, rah, Patrick.

- padmavyuha

OPENSTEP · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 7:31 pm Post subject:

It also fixes these issues on the older test box of mine where I could reproduce them earlier and makes older PPCs feel snappier as well, esp. for text-only documents.

ed

amayze · Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 5:26 am Post subject:

The white lines when scrolling have gone for me too, but now there's the opposite problem when there are miss-spellings:

To re-create:
* Spell a word wrong and scroll the window so the wiggly line is half hidden by the bottom of the window.
* Turn off spell-checking with the toolbar button
* Turn spell-checking back on.
* Scroll down the document.

The extra bit of red line disappears when the mouse is moved over the lower scroll bar and tool bar.

Andy.

OPENSTEP · Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject:

Yes, that issue can be replicated using lines in tables. Patrick and I are aware of it and we'll work on tracking it down. Thus far it seems to be isolated to only that bottom portion of the Writer window; I haven't seen any graphic marring anywhere else. There's something that we need to flip back to doing rectangular clipping and will need to wade through things to figure out what it is. The wavy lines are drawn by setPixel() IIRC so I may start taking a look there.

Thanks for the screenshot and the steps to repro!

ed