Monday, June 23, 2008

Another release

Today, few days after the Pro release, I've released the free version too (v1.9.3).
Other than standard bugfixes, there is a new FreeBSD 7 build and an important 12 times speed-up when loading a document having big attachments or images.

Free version of Notecase is feature-wise complete, so expect less frequent releases in the future.

My plans for the next period of time is to improve Notecase Pro, adding support for task management, and to improve tagging support.

There were some people who wrote to me about Atol file manager. Unfortunately, this project is more or less dead, there is practically no demand for it.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

regarding atol:

okay. I admit it. I use atol. I use it more than I use notecase. I use it on Windows, where it crashes frequently; and I use it on linux, where it doesn't crash so frequently. I use it on SuSE and ubuntu. I used to use it on fedora, but I stopped using fedora. I keep it on my cross-platform memory stick.

I use it because it does something other file managers don't do: it has absolutely zero respect for system attributes. I can overwrite a running system file with it. That's right; I use atol to patch monolithic kernels on the fly. I am a bad bad man, and it is a bad ass file manager. further development would be nice; like not crashing so frequently, or further FTP development, and would eventually result in me not using any other file managers. well, as long as I can select whether or not it lets me overwrite in-use kernel files.

Adriatic said...

Well, for a start, it would really help to report any crasher bug :)

Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to handle 3 projects in my spare free time. I am still thinking on what to do about the situation, I even thought on creating a commercial version of Atol (with cheaper price than Notecase Pro), but that does not sound to be a sound business idea :(

I am open to suggestions though ...

BTW, you can fin latest Atol sources at: http://atol.sourceforge.net/temp/

m a r said...

So far, on my xubuntu 8.04 installation, the CPU temp goes up 10-15 degrees Celsius whenever the Notecase window is visible.

Xorg (33%) and NoteCase (45%) start sucking up CPU cycles on any version after 1.8.1.

I've tried them all (1.8.4, 1.8.8, 1.9.1 and 1.9.3). I love NoteCase. I hope you can solve this.

m a r

Adriatic said...

I've already got similar report on Notecase CPU usage, and when the user run the application thtough strace tool ("strace notecase"), the resulting log went like this:

socket(PF_FILE, SOCK_STREAM, 0) = 3
connect(3, {sa_family=AF_FILE,
path="/tmp/.X11-unix/X0"}, 110) = 0
getpeername(3, {sa_family=AF_FILE,
path="/tmp/.X11-unix/X0"}, [20]) = 0
uname({sys="Linux", node="drifter",
...}) = 0
access("/home/gch/.Xauthority", R_OK) = 0
open("/home/gch/.Xauthority", O_RDONLY) = 4
fstat(4, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0600, st_size=118, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE,
MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) =
0x7f7373e74000
read(4,
"\1\0\0\7drifter\0\0010\0\22MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE"...,
4096) = 118
read(4, "", 4096) = 0
close(4)

Basically, it appears that some security mechanism using .Xauthority file does not work OK.
The system reads constantly from file with ID=4 and writing to file with ID=3 system and that causes the high CPU load.

I am not sure what could be the problem. Some google-ing suggested that it might be the problem of the bad graphic card driver settings, but it did not help the user in question.

Can you run the notecase with strace too?

Adriatic said...

When looking into the differences between 1.8.1 and 1.8.4, there is a new code that draws over the text view.

Can you try going to the MainWnd.cpp
and removing these lines from there:

//code to register drawing over text view
g_signal_connect (G_OBJECT (textview), "expose_event", G_CALLBACK(textview_expose_event_cb), NULL);
gtk_widget_set_app_paintable (textview, TRUE);
gtk_widget_set_redraw_on_allocate (textview, TRUE);

and these:

g_signal_connect (G_OBJECT (margin1), "expose_event", G_CALLBACK(textview1_expose_event_cb), NULL);
g_signal_connect (G_OBJECT (margin2), "expose_event", G_CALLBACK(textview1_expose_event_cb), NULL);

When you compile the changed code,
does these changes help reduce the high CPU?

m a r said...

I ran strace, but the output was enormous. Anything you'd like me to cut and paste? (I searched the text for the first line of your other user's output, but it didn't show in mine.)

Maybe I should zip and email it to you?

I'm no programmer -- bit of a power user is all. I'm not sure I can compile it...

But I'll try.

m a r

Adriatic said...

If you can zip and mail me the strace output, that would be nice.

I don't have xubuntu, so I created a sample .deb on Ubuntu 8.04.

You can find it at: http://notecase.sourceforge.net/temp/notecase_1.9.3_i386.deb

Let me know if and how it works.

m a r said...

Whoa!

Awesome. The new .DEB works great. No overheating, no CPU overload.

I've just emailed the strace output.

Thanks!

m a r

Adriatic said...

Thanks for the feedback.

I guess the new code for gray text view (when not being active) will become an optional feature (switched through the options window)