Is nothing cheaper than something?

[Charity]

FM automatically does the following and I want to know if it helps to turn them off

 

• Has checked 'commit' on custom dialog.  Helps to uncheck it?
• Has quick find checked in layout
• Is it cheaper to have layout base set as NONE for fill instead of a colour?  If the colour I want is the same as no fill, why fill it?  Does it take FM work to fill the colour?
• Same question on all objects.  Does it take more effort to make something transparent or to colour it?
• Better to set spell check off in settings then will it help to turn it off on each individual field?
•  many more things I can't think of a the moment but I keep coming across where I wonder if it helps.

Thank you for any input.  

[Wim Decorte]

#1: use it only if you need a commit after the user makes a selection

 

#2: unchecking will not speed things up.  It's only when you use QuickFind that the fields will be used

 

#3 and #4: FM has to apply "something" even it is transparency.  Common wisdom is to stick as close to a theme as possible and to avoid FM having to store and apply individual deviations from the theme.

[comment]

FM has to apply "something" even it is transparency.

 

True, although I would expect the complexity to increase when objects overlap, since the rendering engine has to figure out the z-axis priorities. It can get even more complex if the front object has varying opacity. Gradient fills are also more processor-intensive.

OTOH, I believe Filemaker farms this out to the OS and with any half-decent hardware the differences should be negligible. Unless you go really overboard with the "design" - in which case you will face more serious issues than rendering time...

 

 

@Charity:

Be careful not to optimize yourself out of useful features.

[Ocean West]

 

Be careful not to optimize yourself out of useful features.

 

well said

[Charity]

Hi Stephen,

 

It may be well said.  Knowing Comment the little I do as of yet but what I know so far says it must be well said.  But I did not understand it.  I have read and studied and read and tried to put it into context to understand where I should apply caution and I keep coming back to this thread and I still miss it.  

 

Hi Comment,

 

Should I not be spending time questioning these things?  Don't or didn't you at one time?  So I do not think you are cautioning against the questions but rather something within them. Am I doing something wrong or dangerous with turning things off that I do not yet see? 

 

The only 'useful features' I see discussed and which I am probably wrong is Quick Find and Spell Check.  I leave spell check on fields with sentences not sure how best to say that.  But most fields are a single word or meaning or well not sure how to say that either but the computer does not know those words we use so it is worthless and it irritates to see it red all the time in fields.  Something I am missing there please?  

 

Quick Find I would want at times but not most layouts since I make layouts to do finds.  Since they will not be able to find unless I give them a button it could not be activated so my question was about behind the scenes like 'what is fm having to do to make this layout ready for me'.  I believe it is called rendering?  Anway and if it had to 'prepare that field for quick find' and knowing I would not need it, then I should stop it from doing that work.    Otherwise I am respectfully at a loss as to how to apply your caution unless you nudge me a bit more and I will try to UP my caution meter a notch just in case.  Usually I can figure you out so I know it is me.

 

Hello Wim,

 

Thank you for the pointers.  Since most times I do not need the commit I have been unchecking it.  It would be nice if it was the default but I guess it is the apple way I reading guidelines about where the default is always the safest selection.  I started do that too in my program.  Help should at least say to uncheck if not needed.  There are probably thousands of people sucking up wasted nano bits because of that lack of clarity in the documentation.

 

On 3 and 4 about layout drawing, thank you both for the discussion.  I have to say it sucks that now we can make pretty rounded gradients in FM and that oh and by the way - do not use them because they take energy and buttons will not fire through them and web direct does not like them.  It just is not fair.  I have been reading that FLAT is in but it is BORING.  Life is not flat.  I have one beautiful background 2mb.  It is carbon fiber and really sick!!

[comment]

I think you may be reading too much into this. Quite simply, it's all a matter of balance. If your users can use spell-checking, then turn it on (on those fields where it is useful) and pay the price. Spell checking, BTW, is very cheap. At least I believe so - we can't really be sure, not being privy to Filemaker source code - but there are some reasonable assumptions one can make.

 

Also, make the savings where they really count, which is first and foremost in network traffic. Now here is something you should know: the amount of traffic necessary for the server to tell the client "draw a gradient-filled rectangle" is practically the same as "draw a solid-color rectangle". The pressure then is put on the client's graphic card to render (i.e. rasterize) the command - but as I said, any modern hardware should be able to cope with this without too much sweat. OTOH, the amount of traffic necessary to tell the client "draw this picture" is significantly larger, and you can really speed things up by eliminating bit-mapped objects (i.e. images of types .bmp, .jpg, .png and .gif) from your layouts, esp. large ones.

 

The other big performance eater is unstored calculations. I believe you'll find some differences between Wim and myself on this topic, but certainly the less, the better.

 

Finally, for the ultimate in database optimization see here:

http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/90756-specialized-tables-versus-multi-purpose-tables/?p=416778

[Charity]

Funny Comment; the zingers keep on coming 

 

So are there any picture formats that are not 'bitmaps' of .bmp .jpg .png or gif that I can convert a picture to so I can use it?  I saw another kind of image where it comes in sheets. I could never figure out how to get one of those pictures off the sheets anyway.  I can't find one for example now but maybe you know them.  And do you know what I mean and how to get a picture off the sheet?

 

I think my pictures might be too big.   The smallest I can get them to be is still over 1mb.  Is that too big?  And yes they are pictures that we all loved and wanted to use and then my carbon fiber for highlights.  I may have to give them up.  I notice that when clicking from one record to the other, these images show a circle with an arrow I think, it happens very fast, and it annoys me.  It is like it is having to take time to render.  Is that because they are too big?  I sure hope not.

 

Good news about gradients.  I think they are completely bomb!

[comment]

So are there any picture formats that are not 'bitmaps'

 

Yes, there are vector graphics formats that are not bitmap images. Unfortunately, they are not as easy to work with as the "standard" JPEGs, PNGs and GIFs, especially if you need them cross-platform.

• on the Mac, PDF works flawlessly - but Filemaker does not support the format on Windows;
• in theory, the .wmf and .emf formats should work on Windows (only) - but I don't know if anyone has ever managed to get it to work;
• the one format that is supported on both platforms is EPS - but the format itself has platform-specific variants, and I don't know where this stands ATM.

As you can see, there is still work to be done here in researching and testing.

    

 

---

Caveat: both PDF and .wmf/.emf files may contain embedded bitmap images in addition to vector graphics; the file format alone does not guarantee that the contents are all vector based.

 

 

 

 I saw another kind of image where it comes in sheets.

 

I am afraid I haven't got a clue. But I could say something about ... ah, never mind.

 

 

 

 

and then my carbon fiber for highlights.

 

Could you post the image or a link to it?

[Charity]

the orange image is my bosses and it matches our vans and when it is stretched sideways it is beautiful.  Our artist quit so I am supposed to use it instead of letting him do this part.  When I stretch it is is very pretty but it is very big.   I optimized them both all they can be done.  I consider taking a slice like with solid but it does not work and it makes sense why on the picture but if I could take part of the carbon fiber and then match the corners.  It is just too difficult.

 

I tried crapping it but then when I use it across the layout it stretches out of shape and looks terrible.

cropping not crapping

 

oh that strikes me as funny 

 

anyway forgot the file sorry Comment.  Here it is.  And I ran imageOptim on them three times and it won't go smaller.

stuff.zip

[Charity]

Oh the sheets thing is that the images come all on a single page and I think vector was their name.  I could not get them anyway.  I even tried drawing around one and copying it but no.  It sounds like images are very deep like colours and above my ability right now.  I shall try to find a class on it this summer.  Thank you again for answering and helping me.

 

Hey.  I can give up the image.  It is beginning to get over my head.  And now the sales force thinks they should get a vote since they take in half the profits of this place.  I step aside and let the spit fly in our meetings.  Two people might even quit over it.  Over a colour?  A picture?  Makes no sense to me but hey what do I know.

[LaRetta]

Hey Charity, I've had similar happen to me when I let the office decide the colours.  

 

And.  I doubt anything is over your head if you decide to take it on.

[Charity]

WOW.  You know what I think of you so that means a lot.  I talk big but most times I'm clueless and fake my way through things.      And learning about graphics stuff is on my list for sure.

 

I have two smaller carbon fiber images which are down in 500 kb range I think but this is the one the owner liked.  Ok.  I liked' it too.  Our designer had it and was doing something I do not know what.  Then I tried to optimise it using three different programs; one make it larger.  This needs to be on iPad for Parts Manager and team.  I did read recently that two UI files is fine like one for desktop and one for iPad so I have options.  Thing is this:  I am not crazy about wanting to keep up two different design styles.  It is not that I am lazy but because our staff will be using both in the parts department, the yard and maybe at home and I would like to feel consistent for them. 

 

It might not seem to matter if the desktop one has pretty carbon fiber and the iPad does not because it would be too slow but still it means I have to do twice the considering and conjuring so I would like them to be more the same.  So Comment, if this picture, the orange and silver one, were set as the body of our layouts to slide in and out the right side about half layout width and set as part of the theme, is it as bad as containers or better?  Or if I squished it into a side bar?  Or my carbon as opening layout and then as section parts?

 

Well this is a last-ditch, know what I mean?  Then I will just tell them it can not be done.  I have to practice that anyway.  Right LaRetta?

 

I might be too carried away with how pretty it is.  Our whole office may be.

[comment]

Re the orange image, there's not much you can do except lower the quality and hope it's not too noticeable. I have squeezed it down to 88KB, anything below that and it's truly horrible. In any case, I think this would look really nice when framed on a wall of the boardroom - but I would not use it in a database application.

 

 

Re the carbon fiber, a horizontal slice could work, I think (needs testing). You can't stretch it, you need to tile it.

 

 

---

P.S. I am judging quality by comparing it to what you posted; if that's already been processed, then I don't know.

[Charity]

Hello Comment,

 

I took it on and still failed, studying images like we talked.  I cannot figure how you can make a 1 MB file only 2 KB.  This is amazing and I have been reading everything about imaging for three days now.  So now I can use the file and yes we will use it but it is being used squished.  Set it in container to reduce or expand, make it 25 pt high and 960 wide.  That is what it will look like.  Not sure how they came up with wanting to use it that way but they did.

 

The image when put next to the 1 MB is identical in looks even zooming in. Amazing.  It does not lose quality at all even when full size and not stretched like we will use it.

 

I want this secret, Comment.  Can you tell me how you did it?  It will help me in more than a single image, you see?  It will mean all things I do with pictures will be better.  Thank you again.  I do not need the whole secret but links or hints would help for sure.

[LaRetta]

The file here shows 98 KB but Charity said it produces 2 KB so I downloaded it and in list view it displays 2 KB in Maverick.  When I get info on it, it says it is 4 KB.  I notice that on Mac, files unzip when downloaded.  Might it also perform an optimisation of some sort?  Also the 2 KB display vs the 4 KB 'Get Info' still strikes me as imprecise and not at all Mac-like.  Interesting.

[comment]

When I download it, it's 100KB - which is strange, because it was 88KB when I uploaded it. Perhaps it ate something while staying here - I will attach a zipped version to this post. Re 2KB or 4KB - did you perhaps download the thumbnail?

 

 

it is being used squished.  Set it in container to reduce or expand, make it 25 pt high and 960 wide.  That is what it will look like.

 

If so, then it's a waste of bandwidth to send the full-height picture down the line. You should take the original (ideally: uncompressed) image, scale/crop it to the desired size and compress the result - and only then hand it over to Filemaker.  That's how you'll get the best quality/size ratio.

 

 

 

I want this secret, Comment.  Can you tell me how you did it?

 

It's no secret. There are many applications that will compress an image in varying ratios. I used GraphicConverter (Mac only, I am afraid).

 

626_37.jpg.zip

[Charity]

What I sent you had ImageOptim used and it had reduced it already to the 1 MB from something like 4 MB.  But it would not reduce further than 1 MB.  So GraphicConverter is a better program.  I am saving for my own Mac and I will get that program too. Yes I was using the file named thumb.  

 

I get same thing that LaRetta gets.  I am on Maverick right now.  In the folder it shows 2 KB but info says:  1,953 bytes (4 KB on disk).  Why different?  Shouldn't the folder show same thing as Get Info?  

 

I have to wait until Monday to get the original image and I will try with both the 101 version and the thumb version.  To get the squished effect I will put it in the 25x960 container then copy it and save as png then optimise then copy it back to container.  Wish me luck!  Thank you again.

[comment]

 In the folder it shows 2 KB but info says:  1,953 bytes (4 KB on disk).  Why different?

 

The difference between "file size 1,953 bytes" and "4 KB on disk" is due to a minimum disk space that must be assigned to a file. The 2 KB, I think, is just 1,953 bytes rounded off for convenience.

 

 

 

To get the squished effect I will put it in the 25x960 container then copy it

 

That's not a good idea, because Filemaker will compress the image when storing it. Thus you are subjecting the file to an unnecessary cycle of compression/decompression (read: loss of quality). Use graphics software for graphics stuff.

[LaRetta]

I uncompressed your file and Get Info shows:  84,208 bytes (86 KB on disk).  Upload must tag 10 KB on.   I think I will order GraphicsConverter as well.   Thanks! 

 

I was looking at the thumb, yes.  

[Rick Whitelaw]

Graphic Converter can be run in Demo mode to try it out to see if it does what you want. I'm sure it will!

[Charity]

Thank you everyone for helping.

 

I haven't done this yet but if I have an icon which says it is 128x128 can I make it around 30 instead, Comment?  And would I use the 128 size for iPad so would I make two different sizes then stack them and hide one depending upon the opening scripts determination of the device?  Or is that where I use thumbnail instead?  Can I change dpi?  It is dpi isn't it?

[comment]

These are not Filemaker questions. Can you resize a 128x128 icon to 32x32? Sure you can. Should you? I don't know.

 

 

Can I change dpi?  It is dpi isn't it?

 

No, not really. 128x128 is the size in pixels. The dpi parameter determines the resolution. If the screen resolution is 72 dpi, then a 128x128 image will occupy 1.778x1.778 inch when displayed on it.