WISHLIST: interruptible rendering

[Krešimir Tonković]

Rendering can be slow a times, and that is a known problem. Right now I'm waiting 30 minutes for a fully zoomed object with bevel button filter to render. I understand filters are a recent feature and are not well optimized yet...

I suggest a keystroke to interrupt rendering. When somebody runs into a problem like me, hitting for example ESC could stop all rendering operations and let me zoom out, remove the filter, change view to outline or do whatever would help.

New features will be added to inkscape and some will be slow at first. Interruptible rendering could give users a way out of trouble no matter what new feature is involved.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

loosely related wishlist reports that ask for a subset of actions to be canceled at will:

Bug #169054 “Filters cannot be interupted”:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/169054>
Bug #170745 “cancel button for for tile cloning”:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170745>
Bug #367017 “Can't cancel object blurring”:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/367017>
Bug #459774 “Button to abort ongoing operation”:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/459774>

@JazzyNico - duplicate of bug #459774 or #169054 or none?

[Krešimir Tonković (kresimir-tonkovic)]

I would say that 169054, 170745, 367017 are subsets of my report.

For 459774 I'm not sure - is working with many clones slow in manipulating the object model or in rendering?

In 169054 Buliabyak mentions:
...things on canvas are redrawn in strips, you can always interrupt the redraw between strips...

This helps, but in my case even redrawing a strip took about 4 minutes. And while rendering is going on, the UI is unresponsive. I tried pressing - (minus key) to zoom out of the problematic object and it worked but it is far from obvious that it is possible.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

If I understand correctly, this report is mainly about rendering (and filters), but I'm not sure Bug #169054 is related (maybe a confusion between filters and extensions).
Bug #459774 also deal with gradients, and is probably more generic.

I'd say let's keep the reports unchanged (no duplicate) and group them in a new blueprint.

[Krešimir Tonković (kresimir-tonkovic)]

This is a question for someone with knowlegde of inkscape internals: these operations - filters, extensins etc... are they slow in the phase model manipulation or in the rendering phase or both?

As I understand other bug reports, problems only arise at zoom levels where the problematic object occupy a significant portion of the screen (it is certainly the case with my bug report). Thus, my guess is that in all these cases the problem is with rendering.

[Rena Kunisaki (i-am-inuyasha)]

I don't see this issue in 0.47. During rendering I can still zoom out, turn filters off, etc to speed it up. Perhaps only with extremely complex renders?

On the other hand, the "cancel" button on bitmap export doesn't seem to work. Possibly that's what the issue refers to?

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Marking duplicate of Bug #169054 “Filters cannot be interrupted” <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/169054>.
Don't hesitate to comment if you think it's a different issue.