BUG: 3.0 WAIT WINDOW Display Performance Much Slower than 2.6

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Macintosh, version 3.0b

SYMPTOMS

The display speed difference of WAIT WINDOW under Visual FoxPro 3.0 may be many times slower than under FoxPro 2.6a. When using the WAIT WINDOW command to display status data, such as within a loop, the overhead time in displaying and updating the WAIT WINDOW may be substantial and may degrade overall performance.

WORKAROUND

Use SET MESSAGE to display text in the status bar.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

The following table illustrates the times to completion for the following code loops, all run on a Power Macintosh 9500/132. Each loop cycles 1000 times, with each pass displaying a string up to 9 characters in length:

    Loop           Product                         Time
    -------------- ------------------------------- --------
    WAIT WINDOW    Visual FoxPro 3.0 Power Mac      31.4
    WAIT WINDOW    FoxPro 2.6 Power Mac              3.1
    SET MESSAGE    Visual FoxPro 3.0                 4.2
    SET MESSAGE    FoxPro 2.6 Power Mac              3.3

Sample Code

   * WAIT WINDOW
   nStart = SECONDS()
   FOR x = 1 to 1000
     WAIT WINDOW REPLICATE( 'X', MOD( x, 10))  NOWAIT && cycling string
   ENDFOR
   ? "Time in seconds to run 1000 WAIT WINDOWs: "
   ?? SECONDS() - nStart

   * SET MESSAGE
   nStart = SECONDS()
   FOR x = 1 to 1000
     SET MESSAGE TO REPLICATE( 'X', MOD( x, 10))  && cycling string
   ENDFOR
   ? "Time in seconds to run 1000 SET MESSAGEs: "
   ?? SECONDS() - nStart