Re: GTK+ (Was: Evolution 2.0 and GNOME 2.6)

["Eugenia Loli-Queru" <eloli hotmail com>]

> Different themes can also make a big difference in speed on Gtk2 (try
> GnoMetal theme from freshmeat - tab switching is as slow as hell with
> that theme).

I agree. I have indeed seen some very slow themes around, slowing down the
gui incredibly.
However, I just use the Gnome "Default" one. I like its simplicity. :-)

> GTK calls typically go through half a dozen layers and libraries and
> thats probably what makes it slow  - if it were all in one library then
> it would be a lot faster as all that jumping around from one layer to
> the next is terribly inefficient.

I understand. However, the issue remains...

> BTW, the painting of widgets is under programmer control - you can delay
> showing all the widgets until everything else is finished/ready.

After testing a bit more the kde apps earlier, I saw that some qt apps are
working this way as well (constructing the window and then populating it
with stuff). However, none of these kde apps have the same lag duration as
GTK has: if you look hard you can see the lag in *some* of these kde apps or
pref panels, but with the gtk apps, they all show more or less the same
amount of very visible lag! So, while it's good news that programmers have
the control you mention, maybe the toolkit should get a bit more optimized
as well, as programmers don't seem to exercise this facility.

Rgds,
Eugenia