Re: Slow applets

["Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" <famrom idecnet com>]

shanley buffalo edu (2000-09-13 at 1046.48 -0400):
> What would you consider a "pixmap theme" (im a little new at this)  
> i would love to speed up my computer so should i stick with the default 
> gnoem and sawfish themes, are there still pretty themes that arent so 
> slow.  

Two things:

- no need to repost full messages, please cut when quoting. That is a
rule for mailing lists, or email in general.

- I posted a list of fast GTK+ themes that soon will be in the FAQ (I
hope). Please see my post named "Themes (Re: Slow applets)" one or two
days ago so you do not have to wait.

[Please, SFX: ad music and voice saying "New! World release! Sawfish
themes avaliable too! Ask in the same shop where you got your fast
GTK+ theme!"]

Sawfish Themes advices: 

- Most Sawfish themes are pixmap based, but they are not redrawn so
much (AKA less than GTK+ things), so they are not a big problem. The
speed test is done resizing a window and looking at the decors,
specially the title bar.

- There are themes that use non pixmap engines to draw window borders.
You can detect them due flat colors, or perfect gradients. But they
still use pixmap for things like the buttons (not bad, the pixmaps are
not transformed for this).

- Some Sawfish themes mix styles, and use images for some things, but
not for other things (title bar is pixmap, side bars are simple
lines). They use pixmaps for buttons too.

- Other themes use pixmaps everywhere, but the scaling operations are
quite simple (scale a rectangle). The shapes are reactangular, no
rounded corners, transparent areas or other candy. They are still
fast.

- Avoid any theme whose parts are not square or with holes cos that
forces the use of the Shaped Window X extension, eating CPU. Do not
confuse with themes that have a square tab (ie absolute-e), they have
clear holes and shapes (ie blue-steel).

Conclusion: Sawfish speed is harder to measure, but in general it is
fast enough, not so problematic as GTK+.

List of non pixmap SF themes I know (they use basic colors to draw
things, and pixmaps for the buttons, zero image scale operations,
I believe):

- CoolClean
- gradient
- gtk
- mono
- simple
- Step

List of pixmap based (but possibly fast) SF themes I know (use only
rectangular images to draw things, no shape operations, only resize
operations):

- absolute-e
- brushed-gtk
- brushed-metal
- Chromium
- HeliX
- HeliX-gray
- Helix-Sweetpill-*
- iron
- microGUI
- smaker
- Smalldome
- UnNamed

The lists are orientative, Sawfish themes are not so clear as GTK+
ones. Forgive any error (and post the correction, of course).

BTW, welcome to GNOME.

GSR