[OT] Sparta (was Re: Metacard support)

[Richard Gaskin]

Wilhelm Sanke wrote:

I certainly won't let my limited understanding of Greek history get in the
way of appreciating a great post. :)

> Kevin Miller in his post of Dec 6 (subject "Metacard support") acknowledged
> these attributes in so far as he wrote:
>
>> Revolution has been around for 7 years less than the MC IDE, and has many
>> more features.  So we're not there yet on a raw efficiency or uncluttered
>> scale. 
> 
> Now, I do not really insist on definitions or attributes for Metacard, my
> responses in this part of the thread were just triggered by Richard's
> mentioning a clients opinion.
> 
> I hope that the "golden nugget" Metacard which the Rev folks have acquired
> will be indeed exploited by them to improve the Revolution IDE by integrating
> parts of Metacard into Revolution or maybe by adapting paradigmatic ways of
> programming.

Amen to that, brother.  And there are always ever better ways to do things,
we learn as we go.  Take a gander at 4W Props in RevNet -- I'm considering
proposing that we might use a similar "message buffering" technique in MC
for even greater responsiveness.

>From the Rev list yesterday re. the property sheet:

----------------------------------------------------

There's a subtle aspect to the way it works that may be
worth mentioning for others making things that respond to the
selectedObjectChanged message:

With most tools that respond to the selectedObjectChanged message, they do
so as it's sent, but the downside is that when you're drag-selecting
multiple objects the message is sent frequently, so the user interaction is
slowed as these tools update themselves.

With 4W Props the selectedObjectChanged is not responded to in real time.
Instead, it sends itself an update message in 100 milliseconds, after first
checking the pending messages to make sure it's not already waiting for one.
This small delay actually makes the experience lightning fast for the user:
the 1/10th second delay is not noticeable, but it greatly minimizes
interferences with the drag-selecting gesture, allowing a subjectively more
responsive experience.

I've started using this "message buffering" technique on all my tools that
respond to selectedObjectChanged, and now I can have many of my palettes
open without slowing down the user experience.

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
 Fourth World Media Corporation
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