TC 10 x64 Interface slowdown in dark mode

[Infector]

In TC 10 I faced with strange behavior
TC deleting files extremely slow.
I take some measures:

5GB - 248 files

TC10
Deleting from hhd\ssd in foreground ~ 2m
Deleting from hhd\ssd in background ~ 3sec

TC9
Deleting from hhd\ssd in foreground ~ 6sec

There are illustration how TC deleting files in foreground and background
Image: https://tinypic.host/images/2022/01/23/slow-delete-w11.gif

Reproduced with 100% result.

I use the default settings for copy\delete operations
Image: https://tinypic.host/images/2022/01/23/image.png

[ghisler(Author)]

Some third party program must be interfering with the delete process. Please try the Explorer delete method.

[Infector]

Huh, it took me half a day to find the problem.

I don't use any third party plugins with TC, but I tried Explorer delete method and it works pretty fast, like TC in background mode ~2-3 sec to delete all files.

To ensure the problem somewhere inside TC I deleted wincmd.ini to try it clean and I got a speed of ~2-3 sec to delete all files.

Then I started playing around with different options and I got this!

White mode ~ 3sec
White mode with disabled option calculate space before copy\delete ~ 5sec

Use black mode ~ 20sec
Use black mode with disabled option calculate space before copy\delete ~ 40sec

I then restored wincmd.ini and got the old slow behavior again.

Switching to White mode and enabling calculate space before copy\delete returned default behavior ~3sec to delete files

[Hacker]

Infector,
That is very strange.

Roman

[petermad]

Infector,
That is very strange.

Roman

Indeed very strange that Dark mode should have any influence on the file operations

[Infector]

Hacker,
yes, but it's true. I checked twice with stopwatch .

[Hacker]

petermad,
My guess would be that it's not the file operations that are slow but the updating of the panel (or some other part of the GUI). It is also my experience that deleting lots of files in the foreground is slower than in the background but I have never suspected dark mode.

Roman

[Infector]

Magic is here Image: https://i.postimg.cc/Nf12bPxp/dark-side-of-TC.gif

[petermad]

2Infector

Impressive difference - is it also like that if you are using Full View (Ctrl+F2) instead of Brief View.

Hint - you can switch between Dark and Normal mode directly from the Configuration menu, you don't have to open the Configuration dialog for that.

EDIT: I have now tested it with a setup as you described, and I can confirm that there is a considerable difference in the speed when using Dark mode, and even more considerable if I disable calculating of space before copying/deleting.

It also seems to be a little slower i Brief mode, but I haven't thoroughly tested that.

Tested with TC 10.00 x64 under Windows 10 21H2 and Windows 7

EDIT 2:
I have now also tested with TC 10.00 32bit, and here there is almost no difference in speed between Dark and Normal mode.

I can also add, that if I instead of marking and deleting all files in the directory instead go up one dir and delete the dir and its content itself, then the speed is normal in Dark mode also with 64bit TC.

Instead of deleting *.jpg files I also tried with 0-byte txt files, and it is the same problem.

[Infector]

I just noticed that the Options window opens for 4 seconds in dark mode and about 20 ms in white mode. So the slowdown is a common problem in dark mode.

[ghisler(Author)]

I found the problem with deleting! In dark mode, TC 64-bit was re-drawing all listbox items instead of just the changed one! This was done because the Lazarus library sent an uninitialized PAINTSTRUCT to the paint function in some cases. After fixing this, the delete function is as fast as in normal mode or in the 32-bit verison. It's not a big problem when using "Full" view with all file details, so I never noticed it myself. If you have this problem, you may consider using the 32-bit version.

I just noticed that the Options window opens for 4 seconds in dark mode and about 20 ms in white mode. So the slowdown is a common problem in dark mode.

I have made some speed measurements - on my slowest PC (a laptop with Core i5-3317U two core) it takes about 1.5 seconds longer in dark mode. The difference mainly comes from the calls to SetWindowTheme(handle,"DarkMode_Explorer",null) needed for the following controls:
- listboxes
- comboboxes (dropdown part)
- scrollbars (mainly used as spinners to change numbers)
- edit boxes with scollbars
to make the scrollbar dark too.

However, I found a way to make this faster: call it only when switching to a tab with such controls. I will use this in the next version.

[Hacker]

Christian,
Great, thank you! Did you please check if the same problem exists with other functions which update the file list? Copy, Move, etc.?

TIA
Roman

[ghisler(Author)]

Great, thank you! Did you please check if the same problem exists with other functions which update the file list? Copy, Move, etc.?

It doesn't matter because the error was not in the delete function but in the handling of WM_PAINT, WM_PRINTCLIENT and WM_ERASEBKGND. Therefore my fix will handle all similar situations.

[Hacker]

Christian,
Ah, I see, thank you.

Roman

[nsp]

@ghisler(Author)
Christian, do you have any date for a bugfix version ?