+1
Fixed

Text entry sluggish

Matthijs van Polen 13 years ago updated by Alexander Blach (Developer) 13 years ago 11
Not sure if it's a bug, but text editing is quite laggy. I type the characters (Bluetooth keyboard or on screen, doesn't matter) and then I slowly see them appear. This is especially annoying when deleting text.

Answer

Answer
Fixed
Textastic uses the CATiledLayer class to draw the text in background threads. This is the same class that is used in the Maps app which fades in Google Maps layers as soon as they are loaded from the internet.

So, the text isn't displayed immediately, but drawn in the background and then faded in. This makes it look slightly sluggish, especially because the screen is drawn in tiles and several tiles have to be drawn and faded in. This is especially noticable with external keyboards, because then there's a bigger screen areay that has to be drawn.

But, this makes scrolling and zooming very fast even with big text files and CATiledLayer makes good use of the limited memory available on the iPad.

I see what you mean, but I think it's acceptable. I'll see if I can improve drawing in a future version, but right now it's not a priority.
Well, I don't really see how you can think this is acceptable. It's really annoying to not see what you type appear immediately. Especially when using the on-screen keyboard, making a mistake while typing is somewhat common. However I won't see my mistake until a few keystrokes later. This annoys me to no end ;-)

PS: English is not my first language, and I'm not really fluent at it. Please don't take my comments the wrong way, I hope I don't sound too harsh.
Well, this certainly doesn't sound like the sort of delay I see. I was talking about tenths of a second.

What kind of file (file size, file type) are you editing?
I started with a 10.9KB LaTeX file. However it also happens when I edit the GettingStarted file. I'll see if I can make a movie, if that would help? I'm on iOS 4.2.1 by the way.
A movie would certainly help!
Alright! I only have a crappy camera though, so it'll have to wait 'til tomorrow, when it's light out. Thanks for helping sorting it out!
Hiya, started making a movie today. However, the lag seems to be lessening.. Dunno how that happened. When I first experencied the lag (and complained about it) I made sure there were no other apps running in the background, so I don't think that should be it.

Now, size of the file I'm editing does seem to be a factor. When I edit thet GettingStarted-file, the delays are like you said, 10ths of seconds. Acceptable indeed. When I edit the previously mentioned LaTeX file, the delay is a bit bigger but still not nearly as annoying as before. Weird. I know that Android can take a couple of days to start running smoothly sometimes, because of it learning what you tend to do and stash those apps in good positions. Maybe iOS does something similar? I don't know.

Anyway; delays like this are certainly acceptable. Thanks for listening to my whining ;-) If you find the time to smooth out the last bits of delay that'd be great, but I see how it is not a priority. Thanks!
I have no explanation for the fact that it seemed to be more sluggish at first.

But it's good to hear that it's better now :)
Answer
Fixed
Textastic uses the CATiledLayer class to draw the text in background threads. This is the same class that is used in the Maps app which fades in Google Maps layers as soon as they are loaded from the internet.

So, the text isn't displayed immediately, but drawn in the background and then faded in. This makes it look slightly sluggish, especially because the screen is drawn in tiles and several tiles have to be drawn and faded in. This is especially noticable with external keyboards, because then there's a bigger screen areay that has to be drawn.

But, this makes scrolling and zooming very fast even with big text files and CATiledLayer makes good use of the limited memory available on the iPad.

I see what you mean, but I think it's acceptable. I'll see if I can improve drawing in a future version, but right now it's not a priority.
I'm seeing this as a problem too, on Textastic 2.0 as bought and installed today. I'm working on a 21K text/markdown file, in editing prose. Why that may be relevant is of course that the *logical* lines (ie: separated by newline characters in the text) equate to paragraphs, and as such are soft-wrapped (using 80-column width) and can take up tens of lines; then editing in the middle of that is quite sluggish. On the plus side, while touch-typing on a wireless keyboard, it doesn't seem to lose keystrokes as it catches up, so buffering is working.

There's still a noticeable delay when typing at the end of text; early days to tell for sure if it's faster than or as bad as editing long paragraphs higher up.
Thanks for your feedback. I'll see if I can improve this in the future.
I just bought Textastic and at first I was really disappointed with the first file I tried. It was a large file and the delay was unbearable. However, coming to this site gives me hope! Looks like the developer here is trying hard to get updates out. Want to let you know if you would like a copy of the php file I was working on so you can work out the delay issues I can send it to you. The delay is between 5-8 seconds before I can type again. Usually happens majorly in the php file after typing the $ symbol. Let me know if you need any bug testing or help. Keep up the great work!
Can you please send me the file to support@textasticapp.com? 5 to 8 seconds is indeed not acceptable in any way. I have not seen such delays in my own files.