Re: (severe) performance issues

[Michael L Torrie <torriem chem byu edu>]

On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 09:24 -0700, David J. Andruczyk wrote:
> Though when a widget implementation causes 5-10x more cpu usage due
> to a bad design. I think it warrants attention.

Of course the speed of it can and should be improved across the board.
But to say that it is bad design is not correct.  It is no more poor
design than any other widget.  Except for the corner cases where
GtkLabel is not appropriate (such as in your case), the setup time is
only incurred once, just like any other widget.  To hack in logic to
deal with your corner case would likely lead to even poorer design.

> 
> Add one simple function call to assign a label a FIXED size
> (similar to the call for GtkEntries) so as to prevent the resize up
> the widget tree syndrome.  When a label update occurs, either
> truncate anything past that limit,  or if the ellipses property is
> set to use that instead to show the label is larger than it's
> allocated area.

I don't think it is that simple.  First of all, a fixed size that you
think is right for your app may or may not even have enough room to
display any of the text of the label on other people's systems.  They
may not be using the same font for the default in GTK, not the same DPI,
etc.  Thus how would you specify "fixed?"  Further a GtkLabel can
contain markup and cover multiple lines and have different kinds of
alignment and justification.  

> 
> It would solve the cpu usage problem from the resize triggers and
> not break backwards compat.  It's also something that should have
> been done 3-5 years ago.

It would break binary compatibility.  Your best bet is to follow the
lead of evolution and other projects that need similar functionality and
implement a custom widget, and perhaps submit it to the GTK head
developers as an ancillary widget.

Michael

> gtk-list gnome org