SoftMaker.com

Hello,

I referred these problems to our developers and will inform you here as soon as I have more information.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Can I add that this also happens on my eee 701 and 901?

Running Easy Peasy (basically Ubuntu 9.1) and I have all the symptoms in this thread. You can type far faster than TM can display text, and scrolling is jerky and the screen distorts as you try to scroll. Basically, it is not usable in page-viewing mode, and in continuous, it gets slower and slower as you type, by page 4 of a document, it is too slow to use or to insert new text earlier in the document.

OOo has none of these problems - TM seems to want far more power than the device can deliver.

I have noticed the same effect using TM on Windows Mobile, but thought no more about it as the devices are low-powered anyway. This does not happen using TM in Windows, but then again my Windows machines are so powerful it would be unlikely.

I hope this gets early attention.

rjstep3

Would be nice to hear from the developers about this... I suppose my refund period has passed quite a while ago, and I'd certainly prefer this working, but if it won't work, then unfortunately I won't really have the need for the Softmaker office as Textmaker is the part of the office suite I use 99% of the time. With the delay Textmaker is too annoying to work with comfortably.

Unfortunately we could not reproduce this with the original Xandros distribution on our Eee. The typing has no delay and further investigation is necessary in this case. If you want a refund, please write directly to our sales department (sales(at)softmaker.de).

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Hmm. OK, thanks, sven! I'll have to investigate a bit further I suppose. Weird that there's a difference. I'll have to check a bit more and see if I'll have to ask for the refund.

Thanks for your reply!

I've recently installed TextMaker on my Toshiba NB100, which came with Ubuntu Netbook Remix (Hardy Heron version) installed. I'm getting a lag when typing too. Not as bad as some people here seem to be experiencing, but its definitely there, especially when the text gets beyond a couple of pages. On some documents, if I hold down one key, the cursor will move across the screen, but the letters won't appear until I take my finger off the key.

But the odd thing is, it's not consistent. I've got some really short documents which have a typing lag, but then I've got a 200 page manuscript with photos which doesn't show any lag at all. Beats me!

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carandol

That's really too bad. My girlfriend wants me to teach her how properly to use a word processor and I'm postponing as much as I can lest I'll have to teach her with OpenOffice, but I won't be able to make her wait much longer. ;-)

I just reinstalled, just to see if it made any difference. It didn't, but I did notice the following message as it was installing:

It made me wonder if there's something about TextMaker that doesn't like the Intel Atom chip? The standard version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 won't run at all with an Atom chip, and you have to get the specially tweaked Ubuntu version.

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carandol

I'm running SoftMaker Office on an Acer aspire one (Atom) without any problems. System is Linpus/Fedora.

Do you know if it's got the special Linux kernel (lpia) that's tweaked for the Atom processor? (Don't ask me how to check, I've no idea! )

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carandol

Ahh... lpia... OK... No, there's no lpia. Lpia is ubuntu-specific and for Netbooks only. It is (under normal circumstances) impossible to install a i386-Application on a lpia-System... DEB-Packages need to be repackaged (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=962835).

But lpia shouldn't make any sense if the application is installed. So the reason for typing-lags must be something different.

Ah well, it was a good theory while it lasted!

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carandol

I don't know whether this will be of any use or not, but ...
I had the slow typing problem when build 503 first came out. It was so bad that I couldn't use the program at all and reverted to 501.

What I noticed was that if I checked the process list before and after launching Textmaker, with build 503, a new process was started. It was Xorg and used about 80% of processor time.

I tested it recently and something that I have updated since then has eliminated the problem.

I'm using MEPIS Linux 6.0.1

Don

Good news I recently reinstalled Crunchbang Linux (Lite), based on Ubuntu Jaunty, and there's no lag now. I don't really know what caused the lag and why it's not there now, but at least it works. I'm very much a Linux noob, but is it possible that the file system can have something to do with this? Previously I used ext2, but with the latest install I use ext4 instead on my Eee901. Completely unqualified guess, mind you

But I certainly don't need to go looking for a refund or use the free alternatives now.

I can confirm that it's Xorg that's eating the processing time in both Mepis 8 and Ubuntu Jaunty when typing in TM. It gets up to 80-90 of the processor as I type and then drops back to nothing when I stop. (Xorg doesn't load especially for TextMaker though, it's there all the time). This doesn't happen in OpenOffice, AbiWord or KWord, nor indeed typing this in Firefox. This on my Toshiba NB100 netbook. The lag is enough to make using TextMaker a less-than-ideal experience, and I find myself using Abiword for everyday stuff and only resorting to TextMaker when I really need to be Word compatible -- which is a shame, as I'd much rather be using TM all the time. I hope this can be sorted out for TM 2010, or I shan't be bothering to upgrade.

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carandol