I think that CPU load figures from Activity Monitor are not necessarily a good guide to performance.
First, remember that “100%” represents approximately 100% use of one core of your machine — and almost all of you have four or eight of those. One design aspiration of Tinderbox is to use the power your machine has, not to leave it lying around idle.
You’re right, though, is suspecting that maps with hundreds of notes will suffer some performance penalty when repositioning notes. One of the big changes in Tinderbox 7.5, in fact, was a significant performance boost when dragging items in complex maps. Still, there’s a lot going on when you move items.
I don’t think badges are likely to cause any observable performance issue at all.
I can imagine three ways that adornments might cause performance issues. If your Mac were very old, I suppose that the GPU might not be up to compositing lots of adornments. I don’t think any Mac that could run Tinderbox today would have that problem. Second, there might be some unforeseen issue in the map guides that’s causing trouble; the guides treat adornments specially, and you may be doing something that others haven’t tried. Third, I suppose that smart adornments could create more computational load, though I don’t really see the mechanism.
Finally, one guiding design principle for Tinderbox does contradict contemporary practice. We place a higher priority on getting complex work done than on surface aesthetics and experience; if we need to choose between frame rate and doing some useful computation, we’ll do the computation. When it’s a question between looking good and doing work, we’ll do the work. Still, when things get too ugly or too slow, we’re amenable to picking things up now and then.
Ok, here are some little videos, so you can judge for yourself. I am not sure, but I think, it’s lagging. Or I am too fussy. From the TB1 to TB3 I am always taking away a bit. TB 4 is a fresh tbx with only 3 cards with nothing more in it. I move the map around, drag a card around and shrink and magnify a bit. Here are the links:
I think, especially the TB3 is interesting, as there are no adornments, links etc and only 52 notes left. Nevertheless it’s lagging. Btw, the videos were taken at 60 FPS.
But speaking honestly, these don’t look very draggy to me. Except for 4, they’re somewhat complicated maps, and you’re making big, sudden moves with them. I, personally, wouldn’t find what you show here an issue. As I say, people’s tastes differ. (Thanks for showing what the performance is like.)
I have been having similar problems. No huge load on agents, and the same file worked fine in earlier versions. I have downgraded to 7.3.1 and no longer have the problem.
If you need a copy of Tinderbox, any version, you need to contact Eastgate directly. No user here has the rights to distribute software owned by Eastgate. This is a how-to forum – tech support is best handled directly with support@eastgate.com. Good luck.
Perhaps. Nevertheless it is always good to contact Eastgate support for technical support questions. Eastgate will do the necessary testing, and are in a position to do something about test results.
I had indeed the idea to test on my own machine. And as I own a licence, it came not to my mind that this could be a problem. Perhaps a little bit naive… sorry
IIRC all previous versions (at least the last 5.x, v6.x and all v7.0+) versions are available by changing the d/l URL from the current Eastgate page to the version required. More recently the DMG filename includes the the build number** of the version, but I’m not sure when that started. If in doubt, contact support.
** The Change Log section of aTbRef may help with that.
I’m running Tinderbox 7.5.4. on a late 2013 MacBook 15" (with on Chip graphics). I’d say my performance looks pretty much identical to what you are seeing in the videos. That being said, to me, the graphics performance is reasonable and doesn’t hinder my work when working in the map view
I read this thread, before I posted here, but it seems to be something different. What I noticed just now, is, that my tbx file has a size of more than 30 MB. That’s triple the size of the aTbRef file! With 52 notes… no photos or whatever, just a few notes and two devon think links. I think, this is not normal, is it?
We don’t have your document and cannot judge “normal”.
A Tinderbox document that autofetches a couple of large documents stored in DEVONthink, containing image, etc., would be expected to be large.
I suggest that you contact support@eastgate.com and send a copy of your document. As mentioned, this is a user-to-user how-to forum and cannot effectively diagnoses or resolve performance concerns. (sorry to be a broken record)
Amen to the last. This simply isn’t the sort of thing a user-to-user forum can fix. The correct approach at this juncture is to talk direct to support.
[as moderator] Before this thread wanders off in to a long conjectural but nonetheless uninformative discussion I’m going to lock it. In doing so, I’m mindful many folk only read the most recent or most-posted-to threads, so I 'd rather they read something more meaning. An issue was raised and a correct (though ex-forum) solution was given. In closing this, I imply absolutely no criticism about any of those who’ve posted in the thread. Rather, it has simply run its useful course.
