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order of loading modules Thread last updated on 2003-06-21 21:28:03

Posted by member 13552 on 2003-06-15 21:55:41

Hey I was just thinking, since it matters what order some modules are loaded (lsbox for example), if my modules aren't being loaded in the best order. So uh, if anyone wants to suggest any rearranging please do!! Thanks! Here's the order:

LoadModule "$LitestepDir$desktop2.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$FolderView.dll"
LoadModule "$LitestepDir$shortcut2.dll"
LoadModule "$LiteStepDir$hotkey.dll"
LoadModule "$LitestepDir$popup2.dll"
LoadModule "$LitestepDir$systray2.dll"
LoadModule "$LitestepDir$ckhotspots.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$taskbar3.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$rabidvwm.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$label.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$lsxcommand.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$lsslider.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$geekamp.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$mzscript.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$one.dll"

Posted by member 2112 on 2003-06-16 01:28:56 link

If your theme is already working then I wouldn't think that changing the order will make it any difference.

Posted by member 13552 on 2003-06-16 12:25:24 link

Well, litestep is never perfect. There's always some tiny little thing..... you might be able to get a little better performance or stability by rearranging the order or something like that.

Posted by member 910 on 2003-06-17 21:39:06 link

performance or stability tends not to depend upon module order. if you're having stability or performance issues, it's most likely due to the sheer number of modules you're loading. I have extremely stable litestep themes and very good performance with them, but i tend to load about 5 or 6 modules at most.

Posted by member 13552 on 2003-06-17 23:18:19 link

Yeah, i try to keep it down to a minimum, too

Posted by member 1316 on 2003-06-18 08:57:15 link

apberzerk, what pika was trying to say is that 15 modules is a bit much. if you need all of them, fine, but it will degrade performance having them all loaded. just fyi

Posted by member 2112 on 2003-06-18 18:03:30 link

Is this the opinion of most experianced themers? That "15 modules is a bit much"? My theme uses 21. The current release uses 19. Simplicity uses 18.

Posted by member 37809 on 2003-06-18 23:31:57 link

ideal answer when I assume the role of superthemer:

Currently my theme has 15, uses 14 (personally a modest amount). I guestimate it could use at least 5 more by the time it is done (ETA: Never). I try to theme completely, putting in as much effort as I can. Instability is not an issue. I wish not to sacrifice functionality and usability just because modules don't play nice. I only stop because of theming limits, my being overambitious when trying to implement my ideas, always faulting a bad design. With every theme I think it gets better, and as far I can tell, the bloat trend shall continue. In the end it won't be so bad if modules are stabler and Moore's law still holds.

Posted by member 27450 on 2003-06-19 13:53:13 link

Hehehe I'm something of an anti-minimalist too. My Theme runs 21 modules and is completely stable. In my experience load order has a lot to do with Litestep startup times and z-ordering issues, and also can fix crash on recycle problems, but I don't think it does much for running stability.

Posted by member 1316 on 2003-06-19 14:03:28 link

sorry, let me try this again. it's not that 15 is a huge amount of modules to have loading, it's just that when you DO have 15 modules loading, it's not a minimalist theme. the theme I'm currently using (a modified visual-17) has 12 starting, and I could easily see taking that down to around 10. however, a minimal theme also has light graphics usage, which is another thing to consider. too many graphics (like the sputnik rmx theme, which looks cool, but is a graphics hog) just bogs down performance.

Posted by member 13552 on 2003-06-19 22:08:44 link

Yeah, i know what you guys mean, and i see from both points of view i guess. Right now, however, i am in fact working on ways to eliminate certain modules (like replacing label's job with shortcut2). One.dll has only one purpose: to give me a hotkey to bring AIM to focus, so i might get rid of that. I can't see myself getting rid of many others, except lsslider. Also, I am testing chkvwm and i may use it instead of rabidvwm. In my opinion, the former has less features but better performance. I'm also working on ways to cut down on the graphics. Am I correct in assuming that PNGs are much better than BMPs?

Posted by member 2112 on 2003-06-19 23:21:39 link

PNG's will take up less disc space but I assume that they would be uncompressed before displaying so I don't think they would take any less resources.

(note: I've found that BMP's will ZIP compress as small as PNG files will ZIP compress. So for distributing your theme on the internet the file type you choose won't make a significant difference to the size of the overall zip file.)

Posted by member 13552 on 2003-06-19 23:24:23 link

interesting... can someone else verify this?

Posted by member 910 on 2003-06-21 21:28:03 link

i don't mean to knock the number of modules you're using, and i hope it didn't come out like that. i just meant that anytime i run a theme with those kind of module numbers, i have stability and performance problems. a lot of this is due to the fact that there are very, very few modules that people will run together that are coded by the same person. as for module stability, my modules are stable. if you load them with 14 other modules, all of them might take a stability hit. it's not that the individual modules aren't stable, it's just issues with them all running at the same time.

as for the BMP compressed size vs. PNG compressed size, i've actually gotten some BMP files to compress to sizes smaller than PNG files, let alone the same size. PNG files, apparently, are already compressed, so compressing them again doesn't do very much for them. but they do take up less disk space once they're unzipped depending upon settings.