[PD] pd-extended 0.40.3 ui performance

[Damian Stewart]

hey folks,

the new UI in 0.40-3 extended looks super nice - but on my machine (dual 
i386 2.0Ghz / MacOsx 10.4) it seriously degrades UI performance, especially 
with Graph on Parent objects.

for example, loading a small GOP abstraction with four bang buttons, two 
checkboxes, a number box, a slider and a vu meter takes a noticeable amount 
of time with 0.40.3-extended, but happens instantaneously with 
0.40.2-vanilla. dragging this abstraction around the window suffers as 
well: on 0.40.3-extended when dragging this object the performance drops 
down to about 10fps, whereas on 0.40.2-vanilla i can drag at what seems to 
be the full framerate of my system (there's a bit of mouse lag though).

it seems such a shame, because it really is much nicer to work with, 
visually, but the sluggishness when i get sizeable patches going is going 
to keep me on 0.40.2-vanilla with its old fashiouned ui. i assume the 
culprit is Tcl/Tk. i ask again: why are we using Tcl/Tk to implement the UI 
part of a **graphical** dataflow language? Tcl/Tk is a user-interface 
toolkit, but we're asking it be a graphics platform, and it just can't hack it.

-- 
damian stewart | +31 6 5902 5782 |  damian at frey.co.nz
frey | live art with machines | http://www.frey.co.nz