what's this LQ-Android connection all about?
 

In a recent response to a post by me, Jeremy mentioned that LQ code update is posted at http://www.androidquestions.org/forum.php . Until I looked, I wasn't even sure my assumption that "android" referred to Android cellular phones was correct, but I guess it is--I looked at the site. I can see what UNIX/Linux has to do with Android (I vaguely remember hearing that it uses Linux or other open source software), but how or why is LQ connected with Android in such a way as to make LQ news belong on an Android website? (Which, I guess, makes my question probably equally appropriate to post on either site.) Why would Jeremy direct me there instead of here regarding LQ code updates?

You'll have to excuse me: I don't carry a cell phone and have never used one of these "smart" types (my last brief period of carrying a cell phone--a plain-vanilla one--was three or four years ago), so I have no reason to keep up with developments in the world of cell phones beyond peripherally hearing of them.

From what I've read, Jeremy is going to eventually merge the code on the 2 sites to make linuxquestions.org look more like the androidquestions.org site, I could be wrong on that. So AQ is the future codebase of LQ. LQ and AQ are sister sites if I may make that analogy. Android is a smart phone operating system and is open source and uses the Linux kernel, although does not have much else related with desktop linux. Hope that sheds some light on it

AndroidQuestions.org is a sister site of LQ, running on a newer code-base. This newer code-base will become the code-base of LQ in the future, but if you want to have a look at the improved code you can already look how it works on AQ.

Before people chime in complaining, the design of LQ will not be changed, the changes are purely in the underlying code.

Appearance wise it's much the same thing, performance wise it's a downgrade (I think vb 4.x is horrible (not to mention proprietary) but let's leave that out of it for now), but it does depend on templates... People on lower end systems will benefit greatly if some of the effects and eye candy are disabled.

AQ is indeed the second member site of The Questions Network (with LQ being the first and a third site due to be launched in the near future: see http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ch-4175459144/ for more information about that).

--jeremy

If you have specific recommendations or examples of where the new code is slower than the old, we're happy to address them. The new code should render faster across all types of systems/browsers (especially mobile), is more scalable and modular and we should ideally be able to roll it out without losing any functionality.

--jeremy

It's the drop shadow and the rounded corner rendering more than anything else. If you look here, you'll see that it's not drawn on the actual post bit, but is drawn on the "tags for this thread", "posting permissions" and the side bar. As you scroll down towards bottom you should see a significant spike in CPU usage and slightly jerkier scrolling. If someone is browsing from a lower end system, they may get worse symptoms. If you just use a theme where the drop shadows and the rounded corners are not included, it should be as fast as ever. In my experience of VB 4.x boards, the main index page, with the side bar showing, is the most cpu intensive as it draws those affects on pretty much every object. If you then throw some ads, especially flash into the mix, it's going to slow down even more. Before VB upgraded their own support forum to VB 5.x they had the drop shadows and round corners disabled throughout.

What browser/OS are you seeing this with (and just what do you mean by "lower end system")? We'll look into it closer, but I'm not able to reproduce any CPU spikes or jerkier scrolling even on machines I'd consider quite old.

--jeremy

Note that I've disabled all drop shadow and border radius definitions on a test bases. Feedback on both look and performance is appreciated.

--jeremy

I'm using Firefox 17.0.5 ESR on windows XP 32 bit (at work). The machine is a Pentium Dual core 1.8GHz with 3GB of RAM - I consider that as somewhat "low end". It gets the slight judders when scrolling the AQ index with the corners and shadows enabled. Now with them disabled at AQ it's almost as smooth as LQ's VB 3.x.

It does depend on browser also - I've always found that firefox/seamonkey suffers the most when compared to opera and chromium.

Personally I think it looks far better with square corners and no shadows anyway.