Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 57984
Frequent flicker of document after load
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:38:26 UTC
After opening a document with many OOoMath formulas the document area flickers with a period of less than 1 sec for a long time. With a document of ca. 100 pages this lasts about 2 minutes. During this period it is almost impossible to work with the document because the flickering is very disturbing. There seems to be exactly one flicker per formula. It is possible to follow the flicker in the navigator window: at the beginning, all formula objects are grayed and the turned to active one by one. The flicker stops when all are active. This behaviour could be reproduced on Suse Linux and Win XP on a number of different systems. When the document is opened by OOo1.1.5 there is no flicker at all. Attached there is a document to demonstrate the effect.
Created attachment 31540 [details] Document to demonstrate flicker
I can reproduce this with Ooo 2.0.0, W2K-SP4 Looks as if the system has to parse all formulas
I can also reproduce this with Ooo 2.0.0, My System : Intel 1100Mhz 512MB suse 9,3 aktually patched
MRU->FME: this sounds quite similar to issue 52205. But here it looks, that the update/formatting of the Math objects leads to a flickering of the screen. This can be seen best when scrolling to a page with Math objects right after opening the document.
Confirmation for 2.0.0-3 Linux P4M 2GH 1GB 32MB graphic card. Reproducible with such a simple document *without* formulars or embedded object like Andrew Pitonyak's free macro document (will attach document). I'm loading this in read-only mode, and this screen irritation lasts a minute or so. Switching to edit-mode (toolbar button "edit file") does not cure. When loading multiple documents all of them are affected. If you close one the remaining document flickers. Note: total page number of test document in status bar starts with 365 and is re-calculated according to the flicker down- and upwards, sometimes exceeding the starting number. End calculation of pages is 360. I did not observe this behaviour on opening a large spreadsheet.
Created attachment 31572 [details] Andrew Pitonyak's free macro document as test file (contains no macros)
I just wanted to file this bug. But I found this existing one. I encounter this bug after loading my diploma thesis. It contains much formulas. But I don't know if this is the reason.
I confirm this behavior in 2.0.3. Doesn't occur in 1.1.5. I'm on a Dell Dimension 2400, WinXP Home. I never use math formulas, so I'm sure that's not causing the issue in my case. It occurs with a 305 page document. The lower half of the document area flickers, then the lower one-third. Doesn't seem to happen in short cdocuments - but I'm not sure, as I've gone back to 1.1.5 to avoid it. :-(
Hi. I just found out that this is NOT a formula specific bug: Please open the attached file "flicker.odt". It flickers, although it contains nor formulas. But it contains many pictures that are anchored as characters. And this anchor-mode is default for formulas. So this is a bug that happens with objects that are anchored as characters, not only with formuals. I think the summary should be changed to: "Documents with objects that are anchored as characters show frequent flicker after loading"
Created attachment 42832 [details] flicker.odt
I experience this screen flicker issue on v2.1 with any large document, it doesn't need to contain formulas, both when the document loads and when switching between print layout and web layout. As the page count changes some part of the displayed text will flicker. Related issue #: 58348 has more details on the cause. To fully experience how annoying this problem can be download the ascii version of Pride and Prejudice or whatever from http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1342, open it with OO, change the font to arial or verdana, switch to web layout and start reading. On my system the document in web layout will eventually (a minute or two) be 6 pages long (bug?) and every adjustment on the way to that number causes a flicker, the same thing will happen if I switch back to print layout. An option to make the re-pagination happen right away on open or layout changes would fix this.
Confirming the behaviour again with OOo2.2-RC3, WinXP Also confirming the behaviour as described by norbert2 Can anyone please check if this is happening only with objects that are anchored as characters ?