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Problems with forte performance

 
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I'm using Forte for Java 3.0 communitiy ed. for developing a swing application.

My machine, 600 mhz 256Mb, is doing really poorly when the gui reach a certain size.

Although I have something like 20 screens in all (the .form file is app. 180Kb) with a normal amount of widgets on them, Forte tends to use 120-150Mb of ram. But what really slows me down is that whenever I delete/add/refactor a JButton/JLabel/JWhatever it takes 5-10 seconds for Forte to do what it has to do.

I've searched the web for enhancing Forte performance, but found diddly. Does anyone know a trick to enhance the performance when refactoring?

Thanks,

Steffen



PS: I am getting a more powerful machine, but this will last some weeks...
 
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Not sure what to do get it, but sign up for the Forte 4.0 Early Access release and use it with JDK 1.4. Should speed things up considerably. You might even try using JDK 1.4 to run FFJ3.0 and change the project to use JDK 1.3.1 when it compiles. Not sure if there's any incompatibilities in doing this, but it should work.
Also, look in your Tools/Options/Modules and disable a few that you know you'll never use for any projects you're currently working on. You'll want to restart Forte after your modifications. You should notice a faster startup time, too. Suggestions for things to turn off are Version Control (real programmers don't need it.. ;-), JavaDoc, and Developing NetBeans, if you have them. Anyting web-related could be disabled, too, but I'm not sure if you have any (my FFJ3.0 Enterprise has tons, but I need 'em).
Let me know if it helps.
 
Steffen Foldager
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Thanks for the tips, Gerry.
I'm not sure I want to use jdk1.3.1 for compiling. I'm using DragNDrop and printing facilities from 1.4.0 and want to be able to test them.
But I disabled the following modules:
Developing NetBeans
J2EE support
Web
Version Control
- then Forte for Java 3.0 crashed
Stability is unfortunately not the strongest side of Forte...
Start-up time improved from 2 minutes flat to 1:25.
The annoying 10 second delay for gui-manipulating operations was still there, and I guess I'll just have to wait for a hardware upgrade....
... or so I thought!
Every Forte-managed gui-class has a .form file associated to it. And as it turned out, this .form file was plain convienient xml, ready for tampering..
One of the problems I had was that I had to rename all references to the ResourceBundle of my huge class. I had about 80 references to this bundle, and if each one would take about 15 seconds to change it would be some work.. (20 minutes, but very tiresome...).
Instead I just closed down Forte, searched/replaced in the .from file and job done.
Just remember to take a copy of .from before tampering..

Steffen
 
Gerry Giese
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Oops - didn't realize you were using JDK 1.4 to begin with. By default Forte 3.0 is recommended with JDK 1.3.1 I believe, and I simply assumed that's what you were using.
No idea why the crash happened since mine didn't. Maybe try again while in 'Project Default' so nothing is open that might use those modules.
You said your startup-time sped up, but you didn't notice any other improvements? How about your memory footprint? Any smaller? At least *something* got better, right?
Good to hear about the XML .form files. I'll have to remember that next time I do a GUI in Forte (hopefully soon).
Cheers!
 
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Maybe a look at the NetBeans performance pages
will help You:
http://performance.netbeans.org
 
Steffen Foldager
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Thanks y'all.
I did a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but what really helped was getting biggerbetterfaster hardware.
Forte now runs on a 1.6GHz P4 with 1Gb ram. And it performs OK. Not lightning fast though, but it will do.
Of course, Eclipse is superlightning fast on this machine. If only Eclipse would have a Swing GUI-editor, my life would be so much simpler...
Imagine if someone said that four years ago: You'll need a 2GHz CPU for running this simple program.
 
Steffen Foldager
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Oh by the way, another tip:
Since both Forte and Eclipse are file based (no repository), they can without knowing it share the same project folder. So I edit the GUI in Forte and go to Eclipse for the real programming. Neat, huh?
 
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