Cursor movement through ToAlbum is sluggish

[Rinzwind]

Moving the cursor through a ToAlbum by just holding the right arrow key seems a bit slow compared to doing the same with a RubScrolledTextMorph:

https://github.com/pharo-graphics/Toplo/assets/1611248/23f6403f-2f12-4bf8-b065-27f8329171a7

I thought it was probably due to the ToAlbum being hosted in Morphic but it doesn’t seem faster when opened in a separate window:

https://github.com/pharo-graphics/Toplo/assets/1611248/3aa71dc9-16cb-460a-9046-f377a8a77340

Versions used: Toplo commit a55be92b77b75efb in Pharo 12 build 1521.

[Rinzwind]

For the RubScrolledTextMorph, the cursor speed depends on the “Key repeat rate” setting in the macOS System Settings. See the Apple support article “Set how quickly a key repeats on Mac”. I have it set to the highest rate. For ToAlbum, the cursor speed depends on a BlKeyboardProcessor’s value for ‘shortcutRepeatInterval’, which is only assigned to in the #initialize method with the value always being a Duration of 100 milliseconds. It would seem better if that also followed the system setting.

[plantec]

thanks

[tinchodias]

For the record. I checked that SDL2 does take into account the key repeat setting in Mac with this script based on another from issue #567.

Steps to execute. Execute in a terminal ./pharo Pharo.image st example.st --quit after saving next contents in "example.st":

| window renderer eventHandlerBlock renderBlock background event shouldQuit |

"-- initialize SDL2 --"

SDL2 initEverything.
Stdio stdout print: SDL2 version; lf.

"-- create and show window --"

window := SDL2
            createWindow: 'Press any key to change color; Click on close window button to quit.'
            x: 100 y: 100
            width: 400 height: 200
            flags: 0.
renderer := window createDefaultRenderer.
window show.

"-- prepare to loop --"

shouldQuit := false.
background := Color blue.

eventHandlerBlock := [ :anEvent |
    anEvent class = SDL_QuitEvent
        ifTrue: [ shouldQuit := true ].
    anEvent class = SDL_KeyDownEvent
        ifTrue: [ background := Color random ].
    (anEvent isKindOf: SDL_KeyboardEvent)
        ifTrue: [ Stdio stdout << anEvent asString; lf ] ].
renderBlock := [
    renderer
        drawColorR: background red * 255
            g: background green * 255
            b: background blue * 255
            a: 255;
        clear;
        present ].

"-- loop until quit --"

event := SDL_Event new.
[ shouldQuit ] whileFalse: [
    [ (SDL2 pollEvent: event) > 0 ] whileTrue: [
        eventHandlerBlock value: event mapped ].
        renderBlock value.
        5 milliSeconds wait ].

[tinchodias]

I wrote a benchmarks / automated profile around this topic. It's in BlocBenchs repo, executable by: BlKeysCursorMoveTextEditorProfileCase example. The simulation sends "key down", not "key right", however... Results:

the 3 main columns are:

• 45% rendering
• 8% re-layout the elements (text)
• 18% recalculating the text selection

It very simple to modify BlKeysCursorMoveTextEditorProfileCase>>#dispatchEvent to simulate "key right". The results were different: most much more time was spent in re-layouting and ~5% in text selection recalculation.

[Rinzwind]

Thanks, I was wondering whether the command is not missing --headless but then I saw that question is already answered in Bloc issue #567 (I’m not sure where I can find the script and what else it does though).

[tinchodias]

@Rinzwind I'm sorry I missed initial steps I did to set up Pharo... In a terminal (Linux or Mac), create a directory, cd, and run: curl https://get.pharo.org/110+vm | bash. This downloads the vm, a fresh image, and two bash scripts: pharo (for headless) and pharo-ui for the "normal" IDE. After that download finished, one can run ./pharo Pharo.image eval 1+2. You will see a 3 printed in stdout, the result of the evaluation of the sum. pharo is a bash script that uses --headless argument... so you were right.

Also I wasn't clear on the script. What I mean is that the code in monospace format, copy it and paste in a text editor. Then save as example.st those contents, in the same directory as Pharo.image.

Finally, now you should be ready to execute ./pharo Pharo.image st example.st --quit. And you can edit the example.st file to play, if you want. If Pharo was downloaded in another way than the curl command, then yes, for example in Windows should be something like Pharo.exe --headless Pharo.image st example.st.

Hope it helps!

[tinchodias]

I didn't mention that the visualization in the screenshot is https://github.com/tinchodias/pharo-sauco-profiler, a visualization created with help of @akevalion in Roassal to show the results of Pharo profiler in another format, but you may prefer to read directly the output of Pharo profiler... it is available too in the inspector that the benchmark opens.

[tinchodias]

[Rinzwind]

Ah right! It hadn’t occurred to me it would be the script created through ZeroConf (I’ve used it on Linux but don’t use it on macOS).