Agenda is pretty slow

Hi, I’m trying out and liking the app so far, and my main concern is about speed. Scrolling is clunky and overall it feels heavy to use, maybe too much for a note taking application. I hope it gets better with time, but so far I like the idea :slight_smile:

Have heard this from a few other testers, and we will be looking at performance before the final release to see what we can do to make it feel it snappier.

Drew

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Yes, I’d suggest this should be a high priority. I’ve been using Agenda intensively over the Christmas break, and find the jerky/slow scrolling increasingly irritating. If that was sorted, it would undoubtedly be a top-ranking notes app. As it stands, it’s not really up to the mark.

But I’m sure Agenda will stun the world in 2018! A very happy and successful New Year to all those hard-working developers – keep up the good work.

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@billmasien quick question, do you feel that the app is more responsive if you restart it? Also, do you have iCloud syncing enabled?

What I’ve noticed is:

  • Agenda scrolls much more smoothly on my MacBook Air (non-Retina) than on my MacBook Pro (2015 version, running latest macOS) – so possibly Retina display-related?
  • The latest beta (1.0c2) does scroll more smoothly on both machines (excellent on the MBA, still slightly jerky on the MBP).

Yes, I always have iCloud syncing enabled. For me, it’s vital (will become even more so when the iOS version of Agenda appears!)

Having now played with the new beta (1.0c2) for a while, I can confirm that scrolling is significantly better on a Retina display. I’m going to try a bit of note saturation, to see whether it deteriorates with lots of notes in a project, but I’m hopeful it won’t!

Scrolling

I’ve re-copied multiple (lengthy) notes in a single project, and can confirm that Agenda is handling them a great deal better than before – almost no stickiness at all.

But I have noticed that scrolling becomes stickier if you have the right-hand “Related” sidebar open (which I do almost 100% of the time). If you close it, scrolling speeds up and smooths out.

Also good to see that the pop-up menu has been sorted – that’s a very nice feature.

Additional formatting options

It would be lovely to add two extra functions to the formatting menu: a horizontal line (stretching right across the note) and a “comment” format (differentiated formatting for comments interspersed with other text; maybe some kind of subtle highlighting?). Again, Bear has excellent examples of both features.

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Thanks @billmaslen, good to hear it’s better already, we have another set of performance improvements coming in the next update, also affecting the related panel.

Additional formatting options

It would be lovely to add two extra functions to the formatting menu: a horizontal line (stretching right across the note) and a “comment” format (differentiated formatting for comments interspersed with other text; maybe some kind of subtle highlighting?). Again, Bear has excellent examples of both features.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, we’ll see what we can do.

Today’s c3 update should improve scrolling performance significantly, please let us know if you notice an improvement and how you rate performance after this update. You can update the app using Check for Updates under the Agenda menu.

Certainly significantly better on a MacBook Air – as is the folding (closing) of notes. Great stuff!

I’ll report on the MacBook Pro a.s.a.p.

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Huge improvement of scrolling performance on the MacBook Pro, too – it’s now smooth, without the slight jerks and occasional vertical jumping that plagued scrolling before. Accompanied, I’m delighted to see, by considerably faster “folding” (and reopening) of notes. I’m also pleased that scrolling remains smooth even if you’ve got a mixture of closed and open notes. I’m currently testing on a couple of large projects (collections of notes) to make sure this stays consistent.

Bravo! This is really very good, responsive work!

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Ah, I’ve discovered one scenario in which scrolling once again slows down: searches.

If you carry out a search and then scroll through the results, you’re back to jerky behaviour (on a MacBook Pro, at least). Could you work the same magic on search results?

In fact, scrolling is still (very) jerky – at least on a MacBook Pro Retina display – in all “virtual” categories, i.e. On the Agenda, Today, Searches etc. It gets worse the more items you have in the virtual folder. But I’ve only got five in my On the Agenda folder, none of them very large, and it’s really quite tricky/unpleasant to scroll up and down.

Given your success in resolving the scrolling in projects, I’m hoping this is a relatively quick fix!

@billmaslen I saw your comment in Automatic opening expanding notes during search, does this mean indeed the scrolling is now better here too? Also, are you using today’s c4 update and if not does it make a difference?

Yes to both of those – having cleaned down my MacBook Pro’s cache/junk, scrolling seems to be back to normal (i.e. smooth). The latest update is even more elegant, so kudos all round.

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Slow scrolling still haven’t been fixed. It’s still choppy and because of the speed issues the app, whilst great and pretty, feels clunky. Hope performance makes a big jump in future updates. This is certainly not hardware related since I have a 15" 2016 MBP.

You’ll be happy to hear that we believe to have further improved scrolling behaviour, you should notice a significant improvement (up to 3x) in the next update, due out soon.

A quick note that we just released the beta version with the scrolling improvements.

I second the request for a Horizontal line and comment option.

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