[chandler-users] why I use Chandler and what would make me stop

[Rick Rawson]

Sheila,

I saw this response in the online listserve last night but, oddly, it 
has yet to show up in my InBox. Regardless...

I hope that my long email was not taken as a diatribe. I truly believe
that Chandler has huge potential and I am finding it to be extremely
useful. Please let me know how I can help the effort as a user. As for
your specific requests:

1. The machine on which I use Chandler the most is a Dell Dimension
DXP061 with a Core 2 CPU at 2.40 GHz, with 2.0 Gb of RAM.

2. Collections: 6, plus one Scratch collection. Four are published; two 
are subscribed; Scratch is neither published nor subscribed

The Scratch collection is empty. I use it to import calendar information
(.ics file) that was exported from Corporate Time, the "official"
calendar at my institution. If something goes wrong with import, I
haven't messed up a calendar with thousands of items in it. Further,
when I import an .ics file, Chandler does not seem to retain the EST
times. All times on the imported events reset to UTC and I have to 
manually change the time zone for all imported entries. Using a Scratch 
collection keeps imported items separate from others, allowing me to 
easily figure out which ones need to be fixed. Yes, I have File >> 
Use_Time_Zones checked.

3. items: 5176 (...if that's the right number; this is the value
reported when I "Export Collections and Settings..."

4. Task Manager reports that memory usage by pythonw.exe right now is
193,820 K. When I "purge," memory usage skyrockets to ~450,000K. Both
values represent higher memory usage than any other application that I
run, save Firefox after loading several pages with videos.

5. Chandler does not always load slowly. First thing in the morning,
it's always like cold molasses. If I close the application, and then 
reopen it, it reloads faster and many times reloads very fast (<5 
seconds). This makes me suspicious that my antivirus software (Symantec) 
is doing an initial virus check that takes a long time but is only done 
once per boot. Is that possible?

6. Today, I have had very little problem with slow response to mouse 
clicks. I "purged" first thing this morning and that took between 10 and 
12 minutes. Yesterday, even multiple "purgings" did not rectify the slow 
mouse response time. I mention this because the notice that I receive 
when I start to "purge" promises to "make the application run faster." 
If there is anything you would like for me to try, I'm game.


Rick




Rick Rawson said the following on 2/6/2008 4:57 PM:
> Rick,
> 
> Thanks for trying out Chandler and we really appreciate the detailed
> feedback! Addressing performance is an ongoing issue and we feel your
> pain since it's come up many times on this list. There are a few
> things we are trying in the short-term to provide better user feedback
> that may help, although truly addressing the performance issues
> involves a much bigger re-architecture project which is unfortunately
> not in the short-term plan. We are planning to have a 1.0 version
> before we address the major architecture issues.
> 
> In the meantime, we would be interested to know more about your
> configuration ie: what platform you are using as well as the number of
> collections and items.
> 
> Thanks again for you two cents!
> 
> Cheers,
> Sheila
> 
> 

-- 
Richard E. Rawson, DVM, PhD
Senior Lecturer
T8-008C Veterinary Research Tower
Department of Biomedical Sciences
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University | Ithaca | NY | 14853
T 607-253-3748 | E: rer1 at cornell.edu <mailto:rer1 at cornell.edu>