[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] neat device

[From: John Meacham]

On Thu, Mar 30, 2006 at 12:59:27PM +0300, Tapani Pälli wrote:
> > In any case, looking at the memory usage, hildon-input-method takes up a
> > whopping 6.3 megs of real ram along with a decent chunk of x resources
> > as reported by xrestop. This seems like an absurd amount for the little
> > pretty cruddy (no offense) onscreen keyboard. it is the second largest
> > user of memory after the desktop itself!
> >   
> It was optimized mainly for speed, nobody wants to write with a slow
> one. It is hard to make a gtk-themable keyboard in that size without
> using some memory and still be fast. What was your method of looking
> memory usage? I have Massif graphs of IM taking ~3 MB at max.

yeah, giving up themeability is one thing :) I din't mean to imply
I wrote something superior, I just want to provide an alternate for
the memory starved that don't mind losing some functionality. 

But more importantly, I hope a dirt-simple open source input method
example will foster other people to write or port their own favorite
methods. From reading the backlog on this list, I think a lot of people
have been itching to try something or another. it is an interesting
design space.

but as to reducing memory usage:

mainly, not using gtk for drawing, which creating pixmaps and stores
various complicated structures for redrawing the screen quickly which
arn't as important on the nokia since windows are rarely obscured.

removing all customization functionality from the keyboard daemon
itself, putting it in a separate program.

giving up functionality :)


in any case, I am starting to think that writing a gtk-immodule is just
undocumented. If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know otherwise I
will go source-diving.

in particular, if there is anything  hildon-specific on how it interacts
with gtk-immodules that would be very intersting. I am guessing it has
its own expectations which might not apply to immodules in general, like
the keyboard being a specific size.

        John

-- 
John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈