Wondering if anyone else is having this problem? When I open DressShop Version 6.16 it takes forever to open, and any functions I perform or selections, it is very very slow. It takes about 15 to 20 seconds for anything to execute. I have My Pattern Design and its pretty zippy........

Ever since I upgraded to Version 6.0 and all the updates afterward, its slow. Even un-installed and reinstalled. No luck. Disabled all spyware scanners, virus detection, etc when installing.

Deborah C
Palmetto Florida

Have you cleared out your cache?may be full and slowing down things.Computer clean up is a good idea too.

My cache is cleaned automatically every time I log on my computer, and periodically while I am logged in. I have scheduled maintenance.



Deborah

quote:

Wondering if anyone else is having this problem? When I open DressShop Version 6.16 it takes forever to open, and any functions I perform or selections, it is very very slow. It takes about 15 to 20 seconds for anything to execute. I have My Pattern Design and its pretty zippy........

Ever since I upgraded to Version 6.0 and all the updates afterward, its slow. Even un-installed and reinstalled. No luck. Disabled all spyware scanners, virus detection, etc when installing.

The Dress Shop user interface is written in Javascript, a language that can run inside Internet Explorer documents. This permits rapid development and rapid changes, with the results visible on the screen instantly. It allows us to hand off most hardware support issues to Windows and to Internet Explorer and spend our development efforts on patterns and options and such, rather than on hardware support.

The downside of this type of interface is that it must be interpreted at run time by Internet Explorer. On recent systems with fast processors and lots of RAM, this process is fast enough to be tolerable. On older systems, it can bog down.

When Dress Shop first runs, the first thing it does is to configure your pattern menus with what you own and which patterns and features should be enabled and visible. There are hundreds of thousands of combinations of possibilities there. 4 versions of Dress Shop, 4 optional packages of tools, 13 optional pattern collections, and about 60 optional pattern packets. The activation codes for each of those must be checked and the menus and tool dialogs altered to match what you have.

It is a slow process. It gets slower as each new product is released. If we could abandon any of the older products, it could stay a bit faster, but we rarely succeed in abandoning anything without upsetting someone. So, it gets slower.

Dress Shop had one other problem limiting its performance. Many patterns were individually defined. There is a lot of code (more code = slower speed) devoted to each single Dress Shop pattern. In MPD, we moved away from that, defining classes or types of patterns, rather than defining each pattern individually. Hard to explain, but it just means that MPD can be faster than Dress Shop now and forever. Dress Shop just took a different path and it is reaching the bounds of what its menu and pattern definition system can deliver.

MPD started over with a different approach. So far, there are only 2 versions of the product, plus patterns. Ownership of the patterns is not handled in program menus. They are files saved on disk. If you have the file, then you can load it. MPD does not have to modify any menus at all. So, it is faster. Less to modify on the fly as it runs. This will not change.

Dress Shop just cannot ever do it that way. All of the old baggage must be supported, even as new patterns, new products, and new options are added. None of it can be simplified away. So, the more there is, the slower it will run.

In the future, with Dress Shop, you will have the choice. If you want more patterns and products and options, then you will get a program that runs a bit slower each time they are released.

Solutions include:

1. Stop taking updates. They are optional.
2. Speed up your system.
a. Defrag your hard drive.
b. Run registry cleaner tools.
c. Reinstall Windows (this one is drastic, but often the only solution to system slow down problems)
d. Get more RAM. That almost always helps speed up any application.
e. Get a newer computer. If your system is 4 or 5 years old, it was not designed with Windows XP in mind. It will always have speed issues.

MPD avoids this particular problem with its different approach to pattern activation and pattern definition. We are working now on moving most of the Dress Shop patterns into MPD format. But, it is a big job. Lots of baggage there. We do not know whether every bit of it can be handled in MPD or not. We are working on that, though.

I'm with you Bob, understood everything. I have a pentium 4, 640 mb ram, XP etc etc. Defrag and do maintenance every other day.

Sounds like I need to abandon DressShop. I must say, using MPD this weekend, I am sold on it. The pants fit perfect the first time. Have to work on the upper torso.....slightly off here and there.

Deborah Crum
Palmetto Fl