Dealing with old unwanted templates

[David_Long]

Good morning Martin,

Since the uploading of 244c the performance of Templot seems to have slowed considerably. Loading a layout file is now taking 15-20 seconds whereas previously it was almost instantaneous. Even requested actions seem to take much longer. Also, and this may not be relevant, files seem to be growing in size and consuming more of the kbs. I don't draw large complicated layouts so this seems a little strange.
I've been using Templot since the old disc days and this seems to be a rather odd turn of events.

David

 

[Martin Wynne]

Good morning Martin,

Since the uploading of 244c the performance of Templot seems to have slowed considerably. Loading a layout file is now taking 15-20 seconds whereas previously it was almost instantaneous. Even requested actions seem to take much longer. Also, and this may not be relevant, files seem to be growing in size and consuming more of the kbs. I don't draw large complicated layouts so this seems a little strange.
I've been using Templot since the old disc days and this seems to be a rather odd turn of events.

David

@David_Long

Hi David,

Welcome to Templot Club.

There are several reasons for the above.

1. the new 3D plug track functions have added massively to the amount of data to be saved for each template.

2. the chairing, timber shoving and chair heaving data is now saved in the BOX file in XML text format instead of the previous binary format. This massively increases the file size and the time taken to read it. But it is the only way I can release part-finished functions while maintaining forward and backwards compatibility with existing BOX files.

3. I have been concentrating on getting new functionality available as soon as possible, because I know many folks are waiting for it. In the old days I would have spent far more time optimizing the code to eliminate unnecessary operations and data, before releasing a program update with significant new functions. I'm intending to go back and do some optimizing when plug track has reached a suitable breathing space.

However, I'm a bit surprised that a BOX file should take 15-20 seconds to load, unless your system is very old or slow or close to memory capacity.

I have done some tests on a BOX file containing 200 templates. The degradation is about 3 or 4-fold in file size and timing. File size has gone from about 1500KB to about 4500K. Loading time has gone from about 1 second to about 4 seconds. This is using Windows11 on a computer about 2 years old. Most BOX files are much smaller than that, containing fewer templates.

This degradation is unfortunate of course, but I judged it not too limiting on modern computers. A BOX file still takes no more file space than a single photograph, and loading it takes no longer than a single sip of coffee.

But 15-20 seconds is not really acceptable. Can you attach your BOX file so that I can test it here? Thanks.

For the future I want to get to a situation where users who are not interested in plug track are able to do track-planning with the same speed and program response as was possible before the plug track options were added. But that could be a lot of work. If you convert a tea trolley to a combine harvester, using it still as a tea trolley can be tricky.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[David_Long]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the comments. I did wonder if the plug track may be having some effect. I am running Templot a two year old Acer laptop with 64-bit Windows 10. This is quite adequate for my requirements and ran all previous versions of Templot without problem.
How do I attach the boxfile to my reply as I haven't done it before?

Regards

David

 

[Martin Wynne]

How do I attach the boxfile to my reply as I haven't done it before?

@David_Long

Hi David,

Click the Attach files button, on the left below where you are typing your reply. Navigate to the BOX file, which is probably at

C:\TEMPLOT_DEV\BOX-FILES\

cheers,

Martin.

 

[David_Long]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the comments. I did wonder if the plug track may be having some effect. I am running Templot a two year old Acer laptop with 64-bit Windows 10. This is quite adequate for my requirements and ran all previous versions of Templot without problem.
How do I attach the boxfile to my reply as I haven't done it before?

Regards

David

"The uploaded file is too large for the server to process" 1m long with five turnouts. 18188kb!

 

[Martin Wynne]

"The uploaded file is too large for the server to process" 1m long with five turnouts. 18188kb!

@David_Long

Hi David,

I did wonder about that when you said 15-20 seconds. My guess is that you have accumulated a large number of duplicate or unused templates. If you go to the storage box, how many templates are in there?

cheers,

Martin.

 

[David_Long]

Hi Martin,

Figure is 368. It is an old plan which I have reworked numerous times. Still haven't built it! Thanks for the information.

Regards

David

 

[Hayfield]

@David_Long

Hi David,

Welcome to Templot Club.

There are several reasons for the above.

1. the new 3D plug track functions have added massively to the amount of data to be saved for each template.

2. the chairing, timber shoving and chair heaving data is now saved in the BOX file in XML text format instead of the previous binary format. This massively increases the file size and the time taken to read it. But it is the only way I can release part-finished functions while maintaining forward and backwards compatibility with existing BOX files.

3. I have been concentrating on getting new functionality available as soon as possible, because I know many folks are waiting for it. In the old days I would have spent far more time optimizing the code to eliminate unnecessary operations and data, before releasing a program update with significant new functions. I'm intending to go back and do some optimizing when plug track has reached a suitable breathing space.

However, I'm a bit surprised that a BOX file should take 15-20 seconds to load, unless your system is very old or slow or close to memory capacity.

I have done some tests on a BOX file containing 200 templates. The degradation is about 3 or 4-fold in file size and timing. File size has gone from about 1500KB to about 4500K. Loading time has gone from about 1 second to about 4 seconds. This is using Windows11 on a computer about 2 years old. Most BOX files are much smaller than that, containing fewer templates.

This degradation is unfortunate of course, but I judged it not too limiting on modern computers. A BOX file still takes no more file space than a single photograph, and loading it takes no longer than a single sip of coffee.

But 15-20 seconds is not really acceptable. Can you attach your BOX file so that I can test it here? Thanks.

For the future I want to get to a situation where users who are not interested in plug track are able to do track-planning with the same speed and program response as was possible before the plug track options were added. But that could be a lot of work. If you convert a tea trolley to a combine harvester, using it still as a tea trolley can be tricky.

cheers,

Martin.

Martin

Thank you for a very well constructed and informative reply, which even I could totally understand and at the end made me smile,

 

[Paul Boyd]

Hi Martin,

Figure is 368. It is an old plan which I have reworked numerous times. Still haven't built it! Thanks for the information.

Regards

David

Hi David,

That's an astonishingly high number, unless you're modelling the approach to Newcastle Central or Clapham Junction!

You might want to try deleting unused templates - with the storage box open, click the box menu then delete unused templates (from memory - the wording might be slightly different). That might reduce the number and corresponding file size a bit.

You could also check that you don't have multiple identical templates stacked on the trackpad.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[David_Long]

Many thanks, Paul. I have just deleted 343 unused templates and the file size is a rather more manageable 971kb!

Regards

David

 

[Paul Boyd]

Many thanks, Paul. I have just deleted 343 unused templates and the file size is a rather more manageable 971kb!

Regards

David

I'm glad that helped! Assuming you're using the default dated filenames, you'll still have your old files if necessary.

I tend to wipe templates rather than delete them and then periodically purge the unused ones.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[Martin Wynne]

@David_Long @Paul Boyd

Prompted by David's issue above, I have added some new functions which are long overdue for easier housekeeping in a crowded storage box.

In 244d it will be possible to see the date and time at which a selected template was stored:

This will work for all BOX files going back to the beginning of time*.

Also there is a new sorting option to list the templates in date order. When templates are deleted to the control and stored again, they get a new date. So this sorting will usually mean that the templates at the top of the list are the old or unwanted ones:

In addition there is a new function to group templates by date. The usual Windows date-picker appears to set the date, then click whichever of the 3 buttons you want:

After which the group of templates can be deleted, or saved to a new BOX file, or whatever you want.

Will be in 244d soon.

N.B. normalizing templates causes them to be re-created with a fresh date, so these functions won't be much help after normalizing. Unless something has gone wrong there isn't usually any need to normalize existing templates.

*These functions won't work properly if BOX files have been moved between computers set up for USA date format and UK date format. Also, the Windows date-picker function is known to be flaky in some cases, for example when setting dates before the year 1752.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Paul Boyd]

That’s brilliant, thank you Martin. I can see that being incredibly useful.

Now that symbols work on opening a file again, I shouldn’t need to normalise templates any more!

A question - if you reset all ID numbers, will that also reset the date?

Cheers,
Pail

 

[Martin Wynne]

A question - if you reset all ID numbers, will that also reset the date?

@Paul Boyd

Hi Paul,

No that doesn't reset the date.

cheers,

Martin.