Working...
#1
Hi all, noob here. I have built a raspbmc for my father in law. Is there a command he can use, from his remote, to stop working... In the right hand corner? This happens if he selects a non compatible file. If I get this I use ssh but he won't be able to. Any help appreciated.

Thanks
Mark
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#2
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#3
"Back"
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#4
Sorry I lost the original post thought it had been deleted. I'm not well at the moment, must be something to do with that!

Back doesn't work :-((
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#5
A related issue: I've often wondered how much CPU time is taken up by animating the "Working..." dialog - it's quite common for it to remain on screen in SportsDevil with the CPU pegged at 100%, and whether this CPU load is due to SportsDevil doing its thing or the GUI updating at 60fps is hard to tell, but it's quite possibly the latter. Maybe SportsDevil would work more quickly if so many cycles weren't being wasted updating the GUI.

So given how big a hit updating the display can have on the Raspberry Pi, would it be possible to disable the "Working... " animation (ie. the spinner), or update less frequently, perhaps only once a second? Maybe as an advanced setting... or just default on Raspberry Pi? Pretty please? Smile
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#6
(2013-07-05, 21:59)MilhouseVH Wrote: A related issue: I've often wondered how much CPU time is taken up by animating the "Working..." dialog - it's quite common for it to remain on screen in SportsDevil with the CPU pegged at 100%, and whether this CPU load is due to SportsDevil doing its thing or the GUI updating at 60fps is hard to tell, but it's quite possibly the latter. Maybe SportsDevil would work more quickly if so many cycles weren't being wasted updating the GUI.

So given how big a hit updating the display can have on the Raspberry Pi, would it be possible to disable the "Working... " animation (ie. the spinner)? Maybe an advanced setting... pretty please? :)

I believe as.xml allows you to
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#7
(2013-07-05, 22:02)Martijn Wrote: I believe as.xml allows you to

Oooh... tell me more! Smile

If there is an as.xml setting, I can't seem to find it (or it's not obvious which one it is).
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#8
If you are in sport devil and the working is spinning and it just goes on and on how do you get out of the cycle?
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#9
(2013-07-05, 22:42)Msandbach Wrote: If you are in sport devil and the working is spinning and it just goes on and on how do you get out of the cycle?

Back button usually works for me.
Texture Cache Maintenance Utility: Preload your texture cache for optimal UI performance. Remotely manage media libraries. Purge unused artwork to free up space. Find missing media. Configurable QA check to highlight metadata issues. Aid in diagnosis of library and cache related problems.
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#10
(2013-07-05, 22:02)Martijn Wrote: I believe as.xml allows you to

Looking at tthe Confluence skin and also GUIDialogBusy.cpp code there's nothing that controls the visibility of the spinner shown by the busy indicator.

It appears that the skin defines the behaviour of the busy indicator, in particular animation of the "spinner" graphic.

In Confluence (and Confluence Modified) it's possible to disable the spinner by editing 720p/DialogBusy.xml and commenting out or removing the following control:
Code:
<!--
                        <control type="image">
                                <description>Busy animation</description>
                                <posx>20</posx>
                                <posy>20</posy>
                                <width>32</width>
                                <height>32</height>
                                <texture>busy.png</texture>
                                <aspectratio>keep</aspectratio>
                                <animation effect="rotate" start="0" end="360" center="36,36" time="1200" loop="true" condition="true">conditional</animation>
                        </control>
-->

I ran some tests, modifying the SportsDevil add-on so that it left the busy indicator visible even when the addon is idle, and with the busy animation DISABLED the CPU load (as measured by top) is a consistent 20-25% on a 1GHz Pi (ie. normal, minimal activity, vsync enabled) but with the busy animation ENABLED the CPU load is pegged at 90%.

So that's 65-70% of the CPU load just to animate the busy indicator... Eek

Since by definition the busy indicator is shown when XBMC is actively doing something and in need of as much CPU resource as is available, it seems counter-productive to then steal a significant chunk of those CPU cycles (on a Pi at least) just to display an animated "busy" graphic.

Perhaps the Confluence skin could use an alternative animation that isn't so resource heavy (at least on low power devices, why not even all devices). A "busy" animation that updated only once a second rather than 300 times a second would seem more appropriate.

Not sure if its the placebo effect but with the busy animation disabled, addons like BBC iPlayer and SportsDevil do seem to respond more quickly when navigating channel listings etc., as this is when the busy indicator is displayed.
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#11
(2013-07-06, 03:26)MilhouseVH Wrote: Perhaps the Confluence skin could use an alternative animation that isn't so resource heavy (at least on low power devices, why not even all devices). A "busy" animation that updated only once a second rather than 300 times a second would seem more appropriate.

It's an interesting point. Thrashing the GUI when we are already busy doesn't seem like a good idea.
Does Amber do the same? As that's targetted at low power devices, it may be worth suggesting they change first and see if the reports are positive.
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#12
Okay, I've tested this.

With progress spinner enabled in confluence, and playing a ts file (which tends to be slow to start with "working..." displayed) from USB stick.
I'm launching with curl and JSON interface, as that blocks until the codec info is parsed (basically the time taken showing working).
I can run "time" on the curl command to measure time to start. I ran each one 3 times and used the final number (the first is slower due to disk caching effects).

With "working..." enabled it takes 8.38s.
With "working..." disabled it takes 6.01s.

That seems pretty significant to me.
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#13
Hopefully someone with some authority in this area can pop in and give us some direction - a "feature" that slows down the UX by 40% is a feature I can do without... Smile
Texture Cache Maintenance Utility: Preload your texture cache for optimal UI performance. Remotely manage media libraries. Purge unused artwork to free up space. Find missing media. Configurable QA check to highlight metadata issues. Aid in diagnosis of library and cache related problems.
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#14
I've opened a Trac ticket whatever that is worth (not sure if Trac is still used for feature requests/bug reports).
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#15
(2013-07-08, 16:29)MilhouseVH Wrote: I've opened a Trac ticket whatever that is worth (not sure if Trac is still used for feature requests/bug reports).

Not for requests.
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