inkscape unbelievably slow

Maybe http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2005/tn2133.html is partly responsible. Applying the workaround described in the subsection "A last resort" improved things, even though it still does not feel too snappy.

More precisely: adding CGDisableCoalescedUpdates true to X11.app's Info.plist improved things, since Inkscape uses X11 for drawing.

Thank you for trying to figure out possible solutions for your performance issues with Inkscape on OS X. Since this seems more X11/XQuartz related - have you considered asking on the related mailing lists? Here are the links to their achives:
- X11-user <http://lists.apple.com/archives/X11-users/2009>
- Xquartz-dev <http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/xquartz-dev/>

There are efforts ongoing to build Inkscape with the native OS X GTK+ version, the thread <http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-0.47pre0-to23993114.html> on the inkscape-devel mailinglist might help you to find ways to contribute to get a mac-native Inkscape ASAP? ;-)

hth, ~suv

There was a recent problem on Jaunty (Ubuntu 9.04) where any remote X11 or VNC launch would slow down apps significantly. To reproduce it on a single system, just doing ssh -XYC 127.0.0.1 was enough to show it. Also the problem was not in the app binary, but the libs (X11 and/or GTK) on the system.

BTW, X11 is not really so "prehistoric", most Hollywood effect studios currently use it, etc. It's actually staying cutting edge in many areas.

So, is this solved or not?

Quoting myself:

"Maybe http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2005/tn2133.html is partly responsible. Applying the workaround described in the subsection "A last resort" improved things, even though it still does not feel too snappy.

More precisely: adding CGDisableCoalescedUpdates true to X11.app's Info.plist improved things, since Inkscape uses X11 for drawing."

So no, this is far from solved.

Inkscape worked fine on my netbook in Intrepid and Jaunty, but now in Karmic it takes ~40s to start, ~6s to resize the inkscape window, and all other interface actions like changing the color palette, showing the layers window etc also take way too long.
Doing the actual work like drawing etc. however is not slower than with Janty afaict
Is there any log stuff that I could provide?

I, too, have seen a severe (several seconds) slowdown of Inkscape while in Karmic. I've tried both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. It is extremely frustrating.

>> So, is this solved or not?
> So no, this is far from solved.

Reverting 'Incomplete' status change.

Inkscape is slow on my computer, too, if many fonts are installed (PC withUbuntu). Mainly startup time, but the overall experience is affected, too. => Mark this bug as a duplicate of Bug #488247? Or is this a different issue, as improvement by the tweaking of other system components supposes this?

@Peter Pall - this is a different issue about the osx port of Inkscape, please do not mark it as duplicate of a more generic issue.

Another question: I have noticed that on Ubuntu was that that setting "Preferences/Misc/Pre-render named icons" would increase speed a lot. If I understand things right the real issue for this bug lies on a completely different place. But maybe this setting will increase speed for you, too at least a little bit.

> "Preferences/Misc/Pre-render named icons" would increase speed a lot.
> (…) But maybe this setting will increase speed for you, too at least a little bit.

The time needed to scale and render SVG icons affects opening of new windows (with toolbars) and dialogs (usually only once per session, after that the icons are cached), but not an issue as originally reported (with a dialog window that doesn't have any icons):
«I have never ever seen an application which needs _several seconds_ to paint its about screen»

I have seen extreme issues with the speed of updating the canvas in Inkscape under X11/Xquartz on a few occasions as well: Suddenly, when dragging a single rectangle on the otherwise empty canvas, the selection bounding box got detached from the object, stayed behind and only followed the mouse drag with a noticeable delay, no filters or path effects involved. At the time I was under the impression that a native osx application (iirc iTunes) seemed to have triggered the performance loss of screen-updating in X11 applications. Only a reboot restored normal performance, just restarting X11 or logging out and back in didn't help.

The about screen from 0.47 paints almost instantly, the one from 0.48 is somewhat slower due to SVG filter effects but still renders in less then a second. This is on a MacBookPro (late 2008) 2.4 GHz Intel C2D, 2GB RAM, OS X 10.5.8, Xquartz 2.4.0.

Tobias: what is the current situation with 0.91 or 0.92?

Am experiencing the same. Slow enough I would move to another app if available.

Inkscape 1.0 no longer requires XQuartz, closing.

Closed by: https://gitlab.com/Qantas94Heavy