Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

[Jim Coltz]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

I'm happy that your issues were resolved with the latest beta patch. For myself, the beta patch provided a bearly noticeable speed improvement. I'm still seeing two menu repaints per screen change, as well as erractic highlighting behavior when the mouse pointer is placed over a menu title.

Yesterday, I sent Alpha 5 a copy of my database. I hope that they can solve this problem as I have spent over a year developing this database (it was my first attempt; a learning experience). If they cannot, my options are to revert to an earlier update, or scrap the project alltogether. As it was my first database, perhaps the error lies in my programming, although up to two updates ago, I did not have these problems. I cannot use the database at the slow repaint rate it is displaying. (Sorry if my frustration is showing through.)

Sending a copy of the database with detailed instructions of how to reproduce the problem will get to the bottom of whether or not the there is a bug. I have found that if I can produce an example of a reproducible bug, the folks at Alpha always have a patch out, either privately or publicly within a couple of days. In this case I only saw some of what you are seeing: The slow repaints when in design mode. The rest of the time I was quite happy with the performance of my applications. Also, the problem was only really bad on my laptop running VISTA. On my desktop using XP Pro the symptoms were there but barley noticeable from a speed aspect.

I hope that your particular problems will be be addressed and resolved quickly.

I do have to echo Martin's sentiments though when it comes to other users having the same problem. If this were a widespread bug there would be a lot of chatter on this board about it. The fact that only a few of us even noticed the difference in the speed shows that this is not something that most people will have a problem with. I myself would not have even jumped in on this thread had it not been for my use of VISTA. I have found several issues with programs running differently (if at all) under VISTA including some of the utility apps that are available for Alpha 5. I completely understand your frustrations and can only say hang in there and be patient with the developers at Alpha Software. They are one of a select few companies that will even entertain altering their code to the benefit of one or two people. If you factor in that the response time is sometimes within minutes, on weekends and holidays and often from the President of the company, I think they stand alone when it comes to customer service.

[Lance Gurd]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Was content to let this roll along and see the result, as most of my work needed to be in quickbooks last week.

Now that we have the beta update, I am seeing the same as Tooth, two menu refreshes per screen paint and menu titles disappearing on mouse over. The speed of screen refreshes is marginally better than last week.

Therefore Alpha please keep at it because it hasn't gone away!

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Lance, as others have noted cheering from the sidelines doesn't help nearly as much as sending in an example for Alpha to study. -- tom

[Lance Gurd]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Tom,

Others have tried to send in sample databases, and Alpha have stated they cannot replicate the problem. It is obviously a problem as many have seen it and Alpha have produced a patch to try and eradicate it.

I beleive that if I spent time building a sample database for alpha to look at (cannot use the database I am currently seeing problem on as it has three other users on it, and they would have to all stop working while I zipped it and it a 11Mb zip), then as has happened with others in this thread they can find nothing wrong with it, there is a double waste of time going on. Both mine and the production team at alpha's.

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Lance,

They've made some fixes and have asked for feedback. They're not seeing the issue with their forms & databases. Hence the oft repeated suggestion to send them something that exhibits the problem. And, I might add, it's not necessary to send all your data. Just enough so that the problem can be seen on your equipment. It's true that getting off the sidelines will take a bit of effort and inconvenience. It's also true that Alpha still may not be able to see the problem using your application. But if this problem were bothersome to my users I'd put their interests first and try what I could to get it fixed.

[csda1]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Not that this addresses the problem above, but I just wanted to remind people that if your application is slow there are several approaches

1. Wait for Alpha Software to come up with more efficient processing
2. Clean up your code to be faster
3. Change your algorithm to a more efficient method

Doing 2 & 3 are always ideal if there is a good payback (versus development time) for the slow areas. And it never hurts to run faster (unless you're in track & field:) ).

While Alpha is very responsive, writing faster code always is a win-win situation.

[toothfixer]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Judging from the number of people who have viewed my post, I suspect that the problem may be more widespread than has been reported on this message board. I suspect that many people are waiting for a fix and not bothering to send their databases to the engineers (I've sent mine).

I hope that others join in and send their databases, as Alpha 5 has become unusable for me, and possibly to others.

Thanks in advance.

[Garry Flanigan]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

I have experienced slow screen refresh, disappearing buttons and I suspect major memory leakage over a period of hours when developing with version 1794_3092.

It is unusable, so I have reverted to an earlier version until problem is fixed.

Also as a general comment, the statusbar.set_text("blah blah") performs unreliably in most (all?) versions as it is frequently cleared when not directed to do so.

[martinwcole]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Gary, did you try 3093?

http://downloads.alphasoftware.com/a...chdownload.htm

[Garry Flanigan]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Martin,
No, as earlier posts indicate problem still exists.

[martinwcole]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

I'm in the process of moving a huge adb from 7 to 8. It has over 300 tables, and a lot of complicated things happening. So far I have had no problems, other than needing to occassionally comment out xbasic_wait_for_idle().

Note: I do not have either a menu or toolbar on ANY form in the entire app. I have a growing suspicion from reading a number of posts that the problem is related to these - as a test, install 3093, and on a few of the most offending forms, try removing the menus and toolbars, and see if that is the issue. If that is a fix, then it would give a definite clue to Alpha.

Also, even better, make a small, hybridized and data_safe version of your app but that has the problems, zip and post it here, and maybe some of us can test it on our systems and see if we have the same results.

[toothfixer]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

I'm in the process of moving a huge adb from 7 to 8. It has over 300 tables, and a lot of complicated things happening. So far I have had no problems, other than needing to occassionally comment out xbasic_wait_for_idle().

Note: I do not have either a menu or toolbar on ANY form in the entire app. I have a growing suspicion from reading a number of posts that the problem is related to these - as a test, install 3093, and on a few of the most offending forms, try removing the menus and toolbars, and see if that is the issue. If that is a fix, then it would give a definite clue to Alpha.

Also, even better, make a small, hybridized and data_safe version of your app but that has the problems, zip and post it here, and maybe some of us can test it on our systems and see if we have the same results.

I think I noted in an earlier post that if the menus on the forms were set to <none> the screen refresh rate would be restored. I believe that the menus, whether default or custom is where the major problem lies. I am not a programmer, so I cannot make a definite statement; just an opinion.

[Lance Gurd]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Ok, I have done a few experiments.

On office desktop, problem occurs in my main database, not in Alphasports. Pointing to the problem probably being data specific.

On laptop, problem does not occur in main database. Probably making problem operating system specific?

desktop - win XP Pro SP2
laptop - win XP home SP2

Anyone else who has the problem, are you using XP pro with custom menus?

[martinwcole]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Lance, almost all of us are using xpro sp2 - make a datasafe version and post here so we can test and maybe figure out - it may also be a Windows setting or a printer driver or a video driver. I remember once about 6 years ago having Alpha inexplicably crash on certain forms but only on certain computers - I fought until I was ready to give up when someone asked what kind of printer was installed on the offending workstations, and it turned out that certain HP drivers were modifying one of the MFC files that Alpha was also using. Once I got a new printer driver from HP, the problem mysteriously disappeared.

[Elke]

Re: Slow Refresh Rate of Screens

Lance,

Do you have a solid backdrop or some sort of gradient? I have seen the slow refresh when not using a solid backdrop.