[comp.sys.mac.hypercard] More slow things in HC 2.0

mrx@dhw68k.cts.com (Mark Murphy) (12/16/90)

   Another slow thing I have found in HC 2.0 is text selection in Fields.
Currently I have a front end to an Oracle database that has 28 bg flds and
11 bg btns.  To tab from field to field or select text from script takes
60 ticks!  At first I thought I might have some sort of overhead with my
openField messages but this does not seem to be the case.  I created a new
stack and duplicated the amount of flds and btns I have in my original stack.
Tabbing was very slow (about 60 ticks).  Now, 28 flds in not a lot of flds
for a card to have... it is not uncommon.
   Is there something I am doing wrong here?  Or am I doomed to have this
very slow text selection and tabbing?  I hope there is something I can do
about this.... I convinced management that HC 2.0 would be just the right tool
as a front end to our Oracle system... that it would have more than enough
power to do the simple data entry we do.
   The more flds and btns I add... the slower it gets....


-- 
mark				mrx@dhw68k.cts.com

jdevoto@Apple.COM (Jeanne A. E. DeVoto) (12/16/90)

In article <1990Dec15.174332.416@dhw68k.cts.com> mrx@dhw68k.cts.com
(Mark Murphy) writes:
>   Another slow thing I have found in HC 2.0 is text selection in Fields.
>Currently I have a front end to an Oracle database that has 28 bg flds and
>11 bg btns.  To tab from field to field or select text from script takes
>60 ticks!  At first I thought I might have some sort of overhead with my
>openField messages but this does not seem to be the case.  I created a new
>stack and duplicated the amount of flds and btns I have in my original stack.
>Tabbing was very slow (about 60 ticks).  Now, 28 flds in not a lot of flds
>for a card to have... it is not uncommon.

Actually, 28 fields is quite a few. For HyperCard 1.x, I used the rule-of-
thumb of an upper limit of ten to fifteen fields. I haven't done any testing
on this with 2.0, but it wouldn't surprise me if the magic number were still
in that range (or even lower, what with the slowdown caused by the use of
styled TextEdit). The number of buttons, on the other hand, doesn't seem
to be critical.

A card with 28 fields *will* display slow response when moving from field
to field. I'd recommend you take a serious look at your stack design; it's
usually fairly simple to reduce the number of fields by combining several
fields into one and using chunk expressions to address the combined components.
-- 
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a347@mindlink.UUCP (John Miller) (12/18/90)

In article <47417@apple.Apple.COM> jdevoto@apple.com
(Jeanne A. E. DeVoto) writes
> A card with 28 fields *will* display slow response when moving
> from field to field. I'd recommend you take a serious look at
> your stack design; it's usually fairly simple to reduce the number
> of fields by combining several fields into one and using chunk
> expressions to address the combined components.

Tabbing certainly will be slow.  Considering that lots of people are using
HyperCard to build database front ends, this would
be a good area to check when tuning the performance of the
next HyperCard upgrade.  HyperCard 2.0 does a *lot* of
unnecessary processing each time the user presses the Tab key.

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John Miller                         (604) 433-1795
Symplex Systems                     AppleLink (rarely)  CDA0461
Burnaby, British Columbia           Fax: (604) 430-8516
Canada                              usenet:  john_miller@mindlink.uucp
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