B4J Question Application speed suffering?

[MegatenFreak]

Hello.
The company that uses my app has a lot of low-mid range systems. Now, before, the app was super fast everywhere, but ever since we've done visual design to make it look better (mainly using CSS and sometimes JAVA code within the module) it's become really slow on their weaker systems. Forms load slower, and even when typing in a TextArea the characters appear slowly.
I was wondering if there are any guidelines or hints I could use to optimize my application and make it faster??
Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[Erel]

but ever since we've done visual design to make it look better (mainly using CSS and sometimes JAVA code within the module) it's become really slow on their weaker system

Only you know which changes you made that caused it to be slow. We cannot guess it...

 

[MegatenFreak]

Fair enough!!

 

[sorex]

what I noticed a few days ago is that if you use non default fonts - for example fontawesome for button icons - things like loadlayout become slower.
(from instant to 2-3 seconds, even when the main form already loaded the font for a button icon the delay is still there on later loadlayouts)

but once the form or panel is loaded it should be fast at later appearences.

I've never seen delays in textfields/areas myself.

 

[Erel]

what I noticed a few days ago is that if you use non default fonts - for example fontawesome for button icons - things like loadlayout become slower.
(from instant to 2-3 seconds, even when the main form already loaded the font for a button icon the delay is still there on later loadlayouts)

Sounds strange. Try to reproduce it in a small project.

 

[AnandGupta]

Sounds strange. Try to reproduce it in a small project.

Yes, agree.
Never found fontawsome or materialicons slowing down anything. I use them at many places.

Regards,

Anand

 

[sorex]

Try to reproduce it in a small project.

I did, with a layout with just 1 fontawesome button.

If you change the font to default it's a lot faster.

it's like the font gets (re-)loaded everytime a layout contains a reference to it.

Do you want me to add it to the bugs/features sub forum for investigation?

 

[AnandGupta]

Do you want me to add it to the bugs/features sub forum for investigation?

Better upload that small project here. We want to check it too.

Regards,

Anand

 

[sorex]

here you go...

button 1 loads a layout with normal fonts

button 2 load a layout with fontawesome icon buttons and pause 2-5 seconds

button 3 load another layout with fontawesome icon button but there's no delay if you used button 2 first, if you do it before button 2 you have the delay aswell

so it's not re-loading the font but the initial load takes time even if it's only 1 button in the layout


maybe loading a small layout after the main form is show can bypass this delay for the first layout that gets loaded by the end user.

 

[AnandGupta]

so it's not re-loading the font but the initial load takes time even if it's only 1 button in the layout

Yes you are right. There is a notable delay if we click as you described.
I put logs and noted time delay ,

    Log(DateTime.Now)
    pFontawesome.LoadLayout("fontawesome")
    Log(DateTime.Now)

Maybe Erel and throw lights on it now.

Regards,

Anand

 

[Erel]

@sorex this is not related to this thread and it is not really related to LoadLayout. It takes a few hundred milliseconds to load font awesome. However it is only needed once and it doesn't affect the app performance.
On my computer it takes about 200ms.

You can explicitly load the font yourself with:

Dim n As Long = DateTime.Now
    Dim x As B4XFont = xui.CreateFontAwesome(10)
    Log(DateTime.Now - n)

The layout will then be loaded immediately.

 

[klaus]

On my computer, the time to load FontAwesome is 590 ms.

 

[Erel]

You can load the font asynchronously:

Sub AppStart (Form1 As Form, Args() As String)
    MainForm = Form1
    MainForm.Show
    MainForm.RootPane.LoadLayout("main") 'layout without FontAwesome
    Dim jo As JavaObject = Me
    jo.RunMethod("loadFontAwesome", Null)
    Wait For FontAwesome_Loaded (Success As Boolean)
    Log($"Font loaded: ${Success}"$)
End Sub

#if Java
import java.util.concurrent.Callable;

public static void loadFontAwesome() {
   BA.runAsync(ba, mostCurrent, "fontawesome_loaded", new Object[] {false}
       , new Callable<Object[]>() {
                   @Override
                   public Object[] call() throws Exception {
                           anywheresoftware.b4j.objects.JFX.loadFontAwesome();
                       return new Object[] {true};
                   }
               }); }
#End If

 

[AnandGupta]

You can load the font asynchronously:

Thanks.
Can we use this tip to load , say a custom font 'stylish.ttf', so that the layout loads faster ?

Regards,

Anand

 

[MegatenFreak]

I don't use font awesome, but I do change the font using CSS to a local file in the Assets folder. But that's not the issue in my case. Even the older app without colorful design used a special font.

 

[Erel]

Can we use this tip to load , say a custom font 'stylish.ttf', so that the layout loads faster ?

It has nothing to do with layouts. Measure the time it takes to load a new font. If it is too slow then use this code.

 

[agraham]

You can load the font asynchronously:

That's neat! Can it be used to run any arbitrary B4A or B4J Sub asynchronously without bothering with threads? I should be able to work that out myself but my minds' a bit fuzzy at the moment.

 

[Erel]

runAsync is explained here: https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/java-libraries-and-multithreading.12697/post-204943

With the exception of server handlers, B4X code is not expected to run on other threads. General B4X code cannot safely run with this. Things will break.