Re: Pixmap Themes too slow (was gnomepad+)

[Craig Orsinger <orsingerc epg-gw1 lewis army mil>]

        As one of the people who started this argument, I thought
I'd see how it was going :-) ...

On 13-Dec-99 Loban Amaan Rahman wrote:
> Hence, this is not a case of "deal with it because that's the way the cookie
> crumbles. Rather, it's similar to setting graphic details in
> graphic-intensive games according to what kind of system one has - set it 
> too high and the game suffers.

        Yes, but unfortunately, in this case the problem was only 
noticeable with a few programs. In most cases, the people who are 
complaining have reasonably fast systems. If it were the case that
all or most programs behaved badly, looking to a cause like the use
of a pixmap theme would have seemed more logical.

> I agree the pixmap engine could be sped up in many ways, but it will still
> be slower compared to gtkrc themes, no matter what is done. The REAL
> problem is that the average user is not made aware of the above facts, as
> the person I'm replying to, and many others, have stated. Hence, the
> gnome-control-center should document that fact, not in the help pages, but
> in the theme selection window itself, and it should categorize the themes
> according to their type.

        For the record, I am using pixmap-based themes. In particular,
I've been using the blue-steel theme (both the GTK and Enlightenment
themes) for a while now. That's probably when I first noticed the slowness
in gnomepad, spruce, and gedit. There are just a couple of I want to make
about this:

        * Other programs are not this slow. I was pointing out this
problem in this way partly because I suspected that there was a common
feature these particular programs have that is slow, at least under
some circumstances. It appears, based on the discussion, that this
may be right. Elsewhere, folks are pointing to the gtk_text widget.
That's how things often get fixed in this environment - someone points
out the problem, the folks who write or use the code argue about it
a while and try to find the cause, and then someone figures out how
to fix it. Sometimes it doesn't work that way.

        * It might help if someone were to write down all the do's and
dont's of pixmap-based theme writing. Does it make sense to use 70x70
pixel images for buttons that are normally about 10x10 pixels? Are there
some widgets/places where pixmaps are a particularly bad idea? For my
part, if eliminating some particular pixmap and using good-ole fore-
ground and background colors instead would substantially improve the
performance of that theme, I'd do it, and I think others would, too. 
Yes, I realize this is largely a GTK/Enlightenment issue, but I figure 
they check this list occasionally. Besides, there may be GNOME-specific
issues here, since GNOME has some widgets of its own.

        * In this business, presentation is often at least as important
as substance. Cool-looking GUIs catch the eye and stimulate interest
in a computer system or program. If pixmap themes exist, people will
use them. I think it behooves the GNOME project to make them work as
well as possible.

 

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Date: 13-Dec-99  Time: 12:00:03

Craig Orsinger                  (email: <orsingerc@epg-gw1.lewis.army.mil>)
Logicon RDA
Bldg. 8B28                      "Just another megalomaniac with ideas above his
6th & F Streets                 station. The Universe is full of them."
Ft. Lewis, WA   98433                   - The Doctor
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