Hi,

Newly created account to see if I can get any idea on the priority of the performance of Inkscape in terms of coming versions. Please take this post in the spirit it is intended - i.e. I really like Inkscape and its potential and really hope it can improve.

I have used things like Aldus Freehand (probably not many remember Aldus - makes me feel old), CorelDraw, Illustrator etc. commercially with a high level of proficiency but having moved out of graphic design I now only tinker privately and have long since stopped using the commercial tools due to upgrade costs and old apps not working on new OS etc. Out of the various FOSS applications Inkscape definitely includes the features and functionality that is required to do something worthwhile but over the years of coming back to test new versions out I am always stumped by the performance problems it is hindered with and the perceived emphasis that features have over performance. The practical performance is such that no matter how much i want to use the application, I reach the point where I spend more time with workarounds and other applications (like exporting outlines to GIMP for further 'beautification') than I actually do creating the image I need. I compare using Inkscape to the commercial products and am frustrated at the amount of time I wait for it to redraw, copy/paste, scroll, etc. (see list below)

I have trolled the forums for a while on and off to see if there are any developments on the performance side and I see things like Cairo renderers and other enhancements either in the pipeline or partially released (outline only mode) etc... I have read forum posts and reviews and everyone seems to be having similar performance issues at one time or another. Everyone tries to find workarounds (threads, outline mode, filters, compatibility etc) but, nothing really seems to be happening on dealing with these issues properly... (in my opinion)

Now as I understand it, there are no fulltime devs on Inkscape and as such I should just bite my tongue and keep coming back over the next few years to see if anything has improved... I wish I was a developer of sufficient skill to help out but unfortunately I am not and cannot contribute financially to help get more dedicated resource.

To get to my long winded point - Inkscape does not need another feature (I would even get rid of some of them) - In my opinion - at most it needs an interface upgrade but more than that in my opinion it needs 100% of the part time dev time on performance.

Thanks

Vapourfire.

ps... Some of the performance issues listed:

All recent tests on i7 Q720 quad core (6gb) with ATI5650 (2gb) using 0.48.2 Win7 64-bit (0.48.3 will not run at all - GPF on start no matter how many times I try to install it or use compatibility mode) All tests done with nothing other than some security TSRs (antivirus, firewall etc) running.

Note that the combination of these issues creates the overall subjective impression of poor performance. I am not referring to any filters or special features like exporting/importing - everything is flat fill and strokes on normal paths and objects/groups of objects. Sometimes there are more more than 1000 objects, sometimes its one object of 1000 nodes, sometimes its a basic shape intended to be used in another application. Very important note, this is a subjective comparison of performance based on how I feel that Inkscape performs vs the commercial vector applications that I have used.

1) Screen Redraw when scrolling or moving in every mode. Outline mode is the fastest by far but still subjectively slow - making the assumption that anything offscreen is not being redrawn and therefore a zoomed in view should have to recalc less makes no discernible difference. Redraws can get progressively slow enough that you can sip a coffee between object moves even if you can only see a small portion of the actual work. One easy way to see this is to open a few applications - eg. a browser, media player or something else... then click the app icons at the bottom of the screen to return focus to each app.. you will see that each app appears instantly, but when the Inkscape window regains focus, there is a noticeable redraw of the entire screen - menus, scrollbars - not just the drawing.

2) Copy and Paste - copy and paste various groups of objects... single object of perhaps less than 20 nodes are responsive (i.e. immediate)... select and copy 50 of them and it begins to lag noticeably. Copy a thousand objects (like a map with symbols for mountains and trees) and the delay is 20 to 30 seconds, sometimes up to a minute. I realise that complexity introduces inevitable delay but in comparison to other apps, its noticeable... even copying a 20MB raster/bitmap in Paint.net is faster.

3) Object scaling - i.e. drag an object or group bigger or smaller and the lag is noticeable. The more nodes, the longer it takes - even in outline mode. Again, I realise complexity issues...

4) Extended use degradation - This may be very subjective, but I have noticed increased delay over time - i.e. the longer you use Inkscape the slower it tends to perform... I am not sure if this is solved by restarting Inkscape or just closing and reopening the current file. Memory does not seem to be run-away (i.e. I have not noticed a memory leak in the ram usage) but it does seem like that reopening Inkscape every hour or two helps.

5)... sure there are more that I have forgotten...

Again, I hope my comments are taken constructively... I dont mean this as a technical bug rant etc.. Inkscape is good but it could be great and I appreciate the obvious efforts that many people have put into the existing application.

Thanks

On Linux (for image with no filters) I feel inkscape is -normally- fast.
But I launched it today on seven and it takes a long time to start (but then it was ok).
Maybe it's a gtk issue on windows.
How many fonts do you have ?

Again.. this is subjective and I have not used Inkscape on Linux so i have no basis to compare if its a Win vs. Linux problem. Dont have access to a dedicated linux box of comparable spec so perhaps I may try a vm and see - although a vm may produce its own performance issues...

GTK issues.. do not have any experience with the nuts and bolts behind the scenes... I do use GIMP 2 and it flies compared to Inkscape... Out of curiosity (and frustration) last night I created a 4980x7020 (A4 600dpi) image and imported an outline from Inkscape to mess around with it. (Note I realise that I am now in a raster/bitmap app and no longer vector so that changes things considerably) ... In GIMP2 bitmap redraw, scrolling, selections and everything is noticeably snappy and faster in comparison - at this resolution certain things are expected to be a little slow but everything is still pretty smooth and not once did GIMP2 give me the |Not responding| in the title bar as Inkscape does very often. I realise that bitmap rendering is different vs vector rendering so this may be a poor comparison of bananas and watermelons but I feel its a good indicator of another opensource app that performs very well and is easily as complex as Inkscape. Again - I realise that Gimp is worked on by far more developers and has far more support so I am being unfair on Inkscape...

I only have 252 fonts installed (i.e. all fonts in Windows/Font directory). Thinking back I do recall huge font directories causing problems with earlier versions of apps like CorelDraw but that was thousands of fonts... Important note with this - while the application does take a little while to start - this is not an application start issue that I am referring to.. I recall some of the commercial apps can take a while to startup and that is not something I am concerned about with Inkscape - its not some dinky assembler based screensaver that loads in ms...

This is primarily a users' forum, so not many developers will see your comments here (although I think some devs lurk around without posting). I would suggest the mailing list, if you want to be sure developers see your comments. http://inkscape.org/mailing_lists.php?lang=en

As an Inkscape user, who has very little understanding of coding or program development, I would not be opposed to a long wait between version releases, if it resulted in a meaningful fix of performance issue. As a moderator, I would be even less opposed, if it meant there would be no more performance-related complaints. Those are the hardest ones to answer (because while we can make suggestions to approve performance in certain situations, we can't really change the development path).

Developers not seeing this... Ok. I do not really want to subscribe to a mailing list that would probably be 95% irrelevant (or gibberish) for me (a non-developer) but I apologise for submitting this here in this forum. My reply to V1nce was purely that - this is not intended to be a dev or support discussion.

Long waits between versions... Perfectly acceptable scenario - In fact I have always bemoaned the way that commercial applications rush new versions to maintain a revenue stream rather than substantially improving a product. With FOSS a revenue stream is not a motivator so one would hope that development is targeted at key metrics wholly devoted to the improvement of the app and its long term roadmap. Take Handbrake (video encoder)... Sometimes its frustrating to wait (sometimes years) for them to implement a much needed feature or upgrade outdated codecs, but when they do, you can be assured that it works (usually ) and they have a policy of ensuring standards etc (like dropping AVI support long before any other app) that may not always be what the end-user wants in the short term... I have attempted to use Inkscape since I think before 0.43 (quite some time ago now) and each time performance has seemed to be secondary to features... Performance of features rather than application performance has always seemed (in my opinion) to take precedence. I realise its always nicer to show a feature to an end-user than a back end speed improvement but sometimes playing to the end-users tune is the wrong thing to do long term....

I think that the main reason I finally made the effort and posted this is because I could see very little definitive answer on the dev pages/wiki etc roadmap regarding overall performance and its priority in the development path...

Please close this thread for further comment if you feel this is inappropriate. As always I'll keep watching for improvements...

Oh no, I didn't mean that it's not appropriate. It's a perfectly legitimate message. In this forum, posting opinions is fine, and as well, posting complaints is fine. I just wanted to let you know that most devs probably won't see the message.

It seems, and especially lately, that several people have posted similar or related comments, thinking they will be guiding Inkscape's development, just by having posted their opinions. I'm just not sure how much it influences Inkscape's development. I wonder if it would make sense to have a "messages to developers" subforum here? I have a feeling that some people could abuse it. Although that's what moderators are for after all. But I do think there needs to be some relevant way of letting devs know what folks are thinking, and how they are using Inkscape. I mean, I know exactly what you mean about not wanting to join the mailing list, just to make one, or very few comments. Maybe a msg to devs topic would be more appropriate, but it would get very long, which would discourages devs from reading it -- so that earlier messages will be read a lot, and later messages, not so much. I don't know....maybe more devs lurk around that I'm aware of? I'm not sure how to know.

Anyway, typically, ordinary Inkscape users like me, would contact devs through the bug tracker at [url="https://launchpad.net/inkscape"]Launchpad[/url]. But that would be via posting specific bugs, or new feature requests. I don't know if there is any one bug report about performance issues (since that's generalized way of describing several specific issues). But you could look around at Launcpad. If you find one that seems to fit (or maybe even more than one) you could click the button that says something like "This affects me too". I think you'd have to register with a password, but that's better than joining the mailing list. Normally you'd get an email whenever there's activity in the bug report (that you subscribed to) but I think you can disable that.

You could try a "Message to Developers" sticky thread. If it gets too big, "Message to Developers 2". Those who are interested can bookmark "View first unread post" icon in the forum and use it to jump to the first unread message every time. (Right click on the icon and select "Bookmark This Link".) Or they can subscribe to the thread an get an email for the same thing.

I can't make those decisions, since microUgly runs the forum. I have no idea whether he has or will read this topic. But if it's important to you, you're welcome to start a new topic in Feedback and Suggestions subforum. I'm sure he'll see the suggestion there. I suspect he'll think that Launchpad should meet most needs, but I'm certainly not a mind-reader