Hello Michael and all Arachnids;

I finally made the time to compare version 1.6b1 to it's predecessors in terms
of local load times and have some interesting results.   
I had to load a mouse driver to make it work.<g>

This version is REALLY a pleasure to work with due to the automatic cursor focus
switch to textarea when in the editor. It is VERY easy to hit F4 (yes I finally
found out you don't have to view the source before editing it <g>), make a quick
change and F2 to see the result. Very fast and easy.

Strangely, this new version is measureably faster in all tested aspects of local
use EXCEPT in manipulating the html from home/arachne.cz in which case it takes
TWICE as long to load and refresh as 1.50b2. Hmmm ?  See the second test group.

As usual, all time trials are on a 33Mhz '486 with 8Mb ram and 640x480 VGA.
I have included other browsers to allow some perspective.

Opera was FULLY loaded on my ramdisk - cache included.
Arachne is on a ramdisk (with command.com) with cache on the harddrive.
TEMP is on the ramdrive and Cache2Temp is Yes.   FastJPEGS is No.
Netscape was 100% on the HARDDRIVE including the cache. The ramdisk was
allocated but unused except to act as a memory equalizer for Netscape.
 
All browsers had to retrieve image source files from the hard disk.
Times are seconds with accuracy better than 5%.

Browser       Opera 3.5   Arachne 1.50b2   Arachne 1.60b1   Netscape2.02

Load BMP
 610,696            134           3.8              3.0      Not possible
Load GIF
  73,559              8           4.5              4.0          4.5
 170,146             10           4.8              4.3          5.0
 231,849             12           5.0              4.4          5.0
 306,395             15           6.0              5.5          6.5
Load JPG
 185,935             33           26              24.6           19
  33,235             16           15              14.5            9

BMP
Bill.bmp        610,696 bytes      598x340 pixels
GIF
Satstorm.gif     73,559 bytes      800x500 pixels 256 colors
Mir.gif         170,146 bytes      576x473 pixels 256 colors
Nile.gif        231,849 bytes      522x522 pixels 256 colors
Cartweel.gif    306,395 bytes      800x535 pixels 256 colors
JPG
Weather.jpg     185,935 bytes      640x477 pixels
Allthree.jpg     33,235 bytes      400x499 pixels

All files available for YOUR testing - please just ask.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Group two: Timing measurements under 5 Sec were made electronically.

Browser       Opera 3.5   Arachne 1.50b2   Arachne 1.60b1   Netscape2.02

Reload GIF
from CACHE
  Cartwheel:        6.6           6.1              5.5             6.5
REFRESH DISPLAY
  Cartwheel:        0.9           6.3              5.5             0.36
GOTO PAGE END
  Cartwheel:        0.275         6.5              5.5             0.325
RELOAD JPG
from CACHE
  Weather:          1.04          3.8              3.0             0.60
REFRESH DISPLAY
  Weather:          0.92          3.8              3.5             0.36
GOTO PAGE END
  Weather:          0.275         3.5              3.0             0.325
RELOAD HTML
from CACHE
Arachne Home:       1.2 (old)     3.0 (new)        6.5 (new)       2.2
REFRESH DISPLAY
Arachne Home:       0.90          1.65             3.0             0.300
GOTO PAGE END
Arachne Home:       0.375         1.0              2.0             0.230
LOAD and DISPLAY
Options:            0.140         1.0          2.6/1.1/1.0         0.120
Preferences:        0.350       5.5/4.0        4.8/3.5/3.3         0.200

Modifications to page background:          None /erased/ "" (removed name)
Explanation:
I have found that modifying the html for the screens to set BODY BACKGROUND=""
produces a much faster screen load than just erasing the annoying .gifs.<g>

I tested this by replicating the line 20 times and comparing times with a
non-existant gif being searched for 20 times, with no search done 20 times.
This makes a VERY big difference on slow '386s.

I hope this is useful.

-  Clarence Verge
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