Re: [jira] Commented: (PIVOT-47) Provide an effects level in TerraTheme

[Sandro Martini <sa...@gmail.com>]

Hi to all,
to start this, do you think I (or we) can start to refactoring some
graphics code, like all Gradient calls inside a single generic method,
and use from all components ?

Thanks,
Sandro

Re: [jira] Commented: (PIVOT-47) Provide an effects level in TerraTheme

[Sandro Martini <sa...@gmail.com>]

Ok, I'll try to explain the idea in short terms (some point is already
explained in the JIRA ticket):

The default behavior will be full effects ON, like currently.

This proposal is to disable groups of effects by switching them OFF,
depending on what is (not) wanted.
We have to see if providing an enum with some common levels (like ALL,
MEDIUM, LOW, NONE) but in this case we have to see in what category an
effect is ... but this is a detail.

The main use case for this is to exclude unwanted graphics effects, to
speedup execution of Pivot Applications / Applets, think for example
at Corporate (Intranet) Applications where usually the Graphics aspect
if less relevant, and usually there are many PCs (old, or at least
some year old) with not-so-good Graphics Boards ... like many Intel
boards, or with poor drivers.
GNome desktop has a feature like this, in the Graphic Configuration,
but this is based on the Graphics Board hardware functions ...

So, if i could let developers customize (by code and/or in wtkx files)
what effects exclude (and maybe disable and re-enable later) to
speedup all.

With "effects" here I'm thinking on:
- media
- transitions
- transparencies
- gradients
- backgrounds
- watermarks
- drawings
- maybe others ... like background colors, custom styles, etc ...


So a refactoring of some parts of graphics generation code should be
done (and this could be useful, in any case) in common methods, and
see if make if statements there to see if not process the code to
draw, ok ?

As a first example, I'd like to try with the gradients part ...
probably on modern PC with good Graphics Boards the speedup is
minimal, but i think this is another useful feature to have.

Or for example think on transitions: if i don't want them, i could
disable all them (skipping the related code in new common methods,
depending on the related flag), so users doesn't have to wait for
transitions to complete (also if is can set their duration as little
as possible, ok).


Comments ?

Bye,
Sandro

Re: [jira] Commented: (PIVOT-47) Provide an effects level in TerraTheme

[Greg Brown <gk...@mac.com>]

I'm still not 100% on board with adding this feature, so I would like to see some ideas about how this will work before we start hacking at the code.
 
On Thursday, October 01, 2009, at 07:29AM, "Todd Volkert" <tv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Sure
>
>On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 5:34 AM, Sandro Martini <sa...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi to all,
>> to start this, do you think I (or we) can start to refactoring some
>> graphics code, like all Gradient calls inside a single generic method,
>> and use from all components ?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Sandro
>>
>
>

Re: [jira] Commented: (PIVOT-47) Provide an effects level in TerraTheme

[Todd Volkert <tv...@gmail.com>]

Sure

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 5:34 AM, Sandro Martini <sa...@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi to all,
> to start this, do you think I (or we) can start to refactoring some
> graphics code, like all Gradient calls inside a single generic method,
> and use from all components ?
>
> Thanks,
> Sandro
>