Android Question TabStripViewPager - How to speed up layout loading

[ernschd]

Hello,

in my app I use the AHViewPager library in combination with AHViewPagerTabs to display content in Tabs. The displaying of 23 entries takes about 0.8 seconds.
I am in the process of modernizing the app and wanted to switch to TabStripViewPager. Unfortunately loading and displaying the 23 entries here takes between 1.6 and 2.4 seconds, so 2-3 times as long.
This is not reasonable for my users.

Is there a way to speed up the process? A sample project is attached.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Erel]

I made the following tests, in release mode of course:

1: with TabStrip

Sub Button1_Click
    Dim n As Long = DateTime.Now
    For i = 0 To 23
        tabs.LoadLayout("gerdat_content", i)
    Next
    Log(DateTime.Now - n)
End Sub

2: without tabstrip

Sub Button1_Click
    Dim n As Long = DateTime.Now
    For i = 0 To 23
        Dim p As B4XView = xui.CreatePanel("")
        p.SetLayoutAnimated(0, 0, 0, 200dip, 200dip)
        p.LoadLayout("gerdat_content")
    Next
    Log(DateTime.Now - n)
End Sub

3: with TabStrip, loading an empty layout.

The results on my device are:
1: 350ms
2: 250ms
3: 55ms

My conclusion is that TabStrip is not the problem. Loading your complex layout 23 times is the slow part (which is not too slow on my device).

The solution is simple. Don't create 23 full tabs immediately. Load the first one and load the others when needed. You can start with empty tabs and later load.

 

[ernschd]

Thank you, I already thought something similar. I will try that.

 

[ernschd]

I have another question on this topic: I create the tabs with an empty layout. Then I load the correct (complex) layout in the first tab.
If another tab is called, I would like to use a copy of the layout of the first tab for the current one (because loading of this layout takes quite a long time).
For this purpose, I load the layout once into another panel and created an array of panels with the same dimension as the number of tabs, for example

DIM PanelArray(23) AS Panel

When calling a tab I wanted to load the panel with the layout using

PanelArray(X).AddView(PanelWithComplexLayout, 0, 0, 100%x, 100%y)

Unfortunately I get the message "The specified child already has a parent. You must call removeView() on the child's parent first" . Unfortunately this does not work.

How do I do it correctly?

 

[Erel]

Loading of a single layout doesn't take quite a long time. You are optimizing things that don't need to be optimized. Measure it (in release mode).

Dim Panels As List

Dim pnl As B4XView = Panels.Get(X)
If PanelWithComplexLayoutWhichShouldAlsoBeB4XView.Parent.IsInitialized Then PanelWithComplexLayoutWhichShouldAlsoBeB4XView.RemoveViewFromParent
pnl.AddView(PanelWithComplexLayoutWhichShouldAlsoBeB4XView, 0, 0, pnl.Width, pnl.Height)

 

[ernschd]

Sorry, I do not understand the example.
When (and with what) will the Panels list be filled?
And how can I create a layout as B4XView? Are there links to read about this topic?

 

[Erel]

And how can I create a layout as B4XView? Are there links to read about this topic?

[B4X] [XUI] Cross platform & native UI library

 

[ernschd]

Ok, I've got it now. The speed is definitely better then my Version.
I hope I have understood the concept.

 

[ernschd]

Unfortunately, there is still a small problem with this solution: when swiping through the individual tabs, the next tab is only displayed when it is completely loaded.

Usually you can see the content already before that. I'm not sure if my users like this so much.
Does anyone have an idea?

 

[Erel]

Make sure that page x, page x + 1 and page x - 1 are ready when the tab changes.

 

[ernschd]

I switched to TabLayout from corwin42s DesignSupport-Library. It is fast enough to load all tabs in advance.
It also makes it easier to port the existing code. I thank you anyway for your efforts!

 

[Erel]

It is good that you solve it, however you did something wrong with TabStrip as the bottleneck is not in the tabs creation but rather in the loading of the 24 layouts.