Android Speed Woes

[Dan Friedman]

Ok... so here's an update...

The card that contains all this is a calendar.  On this card is a header, a datagrid that lists the events of the selected day, and another group with 84 controls in it (one button and field for each possible day) that makes up the calendar's grid, and more.   When you click "New Entry" or "Edit Entry", we hide the calendar and show the group "newEventG" which, as you know, contains several other groups for setting the event's properties (title, notes, dates, repeat, and more).  It is in the group "newEventG" that we are seeing all the sluggish behavior.

Last night, I painstakingly moved group "newEventG" to its own card.  Now, the speed is no longer an issue.  It's snappy and responsive.  I have to wonder if having a hidden group with so many controls was messing things up.

Mark, to answer your question, there isn't one image on the entire card.
ShowFocusBorder was on.
All these were correct:
    - opaque must be false
    - showName must be false
    - hScrollbar must be false
    - vScrollbar must be false
    - showBorder must be false
    - all bitmap effects must be empty

I am in a good place now and ok to continue with my project (although the tablet version is now funky as it moves to another card for event editing rather than the group overlay).  I hope all this helps LC resolve whatever this issue is.

-Dan


On 8/29/19, 11:56 PM, "use-livecode on behalf of Mark Waddingham via use-livecode" <use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com on behalf of use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

    On 2019-08-29 16:24, Dan Friedman via use-livecode wrote:
    > Hello again!   I am have a tough time getting things to run snappy on
    > an Android device.  It's blazing fast on my computer, and more than
    > acceptable on my iPhone, but on any android device, it's slow...
    > noticeably sluggish.   The issue is mainly hiding/showing groups.  For
    > example:
    > 
    > put the milliseconds into m
    > lock screen --for visual effect in rect (the rect of grc "ne_BG")
    > //removed the animation for speed testing
    > hide grp "ne_mainControls"
    > show grp "ne_repeatG"
    > unlock screen --with visual effect push left
    > answer (the milliseconds - m)
    > 
    > The result of m is:
    > iMac = 10
    > iOS = 1   (iPhoneX)
    > Android = 516  (Moto G5 Plus Android 7.0)
    > 
    > The groups contain no images or complex graphics.  Just some buttons 
    > and fields.
    > 
    > I have tried it with and without acceleratedRendering.  Actually, with
    > acceleratedRendering enabled it took longer, m=558.
    > 
    > I have it setup like this:
    > Card "calendar"
    >    Group "newEventG"  --> layerMode set to "Container"
    >       Group "ne_mainControls"  --> layerMode set to "Dynamic"
    >       Group " ne_repeatG"  --> layerMode set to "Dynamic"
    > 
    > Any thoughts or advice?  Most other functions are working within
    > acceptable ranges/speeds.
    
    So the first thing to do is (on Desktop) run with acceleratedRendering 
    and ensure that:
        1) 'the effective layerMode of group "newEventG"' is container
        2) 'the effective layerMode of group "ne_mainControls" is dynamic
        3) 'the effective layerMode of group "ne_repeatG" is dynamic
    
    If (1) does not turn out to be the case then acceleratedRendering will 
    have a slightly negative effect (as the engine will be doing what it 
    would do without acceleratedRendering on, but also paying the overhead 
    of caching the result!). To fix this you'll need to tweak the properties 
    of the newEventG group:
    
        - opaque must be false
        - showName must be false
        - hScrollbar must be false
        - vScrollbar must be false
        - showBorder must be false
        - all bitmap effects must be empty
    
    Essentially the rule here is that for a group to be a container layer it 
    must not have to render anything itself (as it is just meant to 
    'contain' other layers).
    
    If you get the groups effective layerModes as above I'd imagine you 
    *might* see a slight increase in performance with acceleratedRendering 
    on - the showing and hiding of the dynamic layers is essentially 'free' 
    in this scenario - but their content does need to be cached first. 
    Caching of dynamic layers happens incrementally as parts of them are 
    visible.
    
    However, given the difference in speed between the platforms with 
    acceleratedRendering off I'm inclined to think something else is going 
    on here... The CPU on a Moto G5 Plus is substantially less powerful than 
    even an iPhone6S - but definitely not 50x!
    
    You mentioned in another thread that you were using custom fonts... Do 
    you get better performance if you remove the use of custom fonts and 
    just go with the default?
    
    Warmest Regards,
    
    Mark.
    
    -- 
    Mark Waddingham ~ mark at livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
    LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
    
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