[racket-dev] GUI Refresh

IMO, example 2 can be remedied inside redex (by pausing briefly before
actually triggering the updates), but the first one is probably
because of a more complex interaction of gui callbacks and probably
trickier to track down.

Robby

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Everett <webj2 at unoc.net> wrote:
> Observation of DrRacket and PLT Redex leads me to believe that when
> updating something displayed in the GUI each change is immediately
> reflected (in a nice functional manner), even if a batch of changes is
> being performed, thus wasting time drawing the GUI on intermediate
> results.  The effect is a less usable GUI.
>
> Example 1:
> Have two tabs open in DrRacket.  Click the other one.  You can see the
> scroll bar adjust first, showing the corresponding location in the
> current file, then the contents adjust second showing the right file.
>
> Example 2:
> In PLT Redex traces graph, move the font-size slider.  The whole GUI
> freezes up until it has redrawn, even though I wasn't done moving the
> slider.  The result is that I have to move the slider one font size (or
> few font sizes) at a time.
>
> Possible solutions:
> - For the slider: a timeout after user input stops before actually
> changing the value.
> - For the tabs: The ability to give a list of changes before updating
> the GUI
> - Functions to turn on/off updating and use them around a group of
> changes or when dragging a slider.
> - Some other kind of double-buffering feature at least, so it isn't as
> slow and as visible.
>
>
> Or am I wrong about the cause (and thus solutions) of these GUI
> problems?
>
>
> Thanks,
> -Everett
>
> _________________________________________________
>  For list-related administrative tasks:
>  http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/dev
>