Hey, MarsEdit, lay off my CPU already
This has to stop. MarsEdit - the blog-posting software from Ranchero - has a bug, a bad bug (or else I’m just cursed). I’m using v1.1.2, the most recent.
Here’s what happens. You can compose a post, and MarsEdit will (if you like) give you a preview window showing how your brilliant thoughts are going to appear online. It’s an HTML window that uses the Safari Webkit HTML engine.
And it sucks - CPU, that is. That screenshot above is a little section from top, showing what processes are using what percent of CPU.
In MarsEdit when you start a new post and have a preview window open, it updates even if you don’t have “Live Preview” (which ought to show how your post will look as you type) selected.
Result of all this: my CPU locks up. That’s unreasonable for a start. But what’s worse is that I’ve got no Javascript or Java in the post that’s being previewed. There’s no active links to outside stuff, just passive links.
And what’s even worse is that there seems to be a bug which stops one from stopping the live preview. You can click that little box in the window all you like - it still updates, live.
It is, to say the least, disappointing. Look, guys, I’m buying your software (see VoodooPad there, Gus? I use it each day). But it’s abusing my CPU. Please, let’s sort it.
Update: what makes this problem even worse is that once you post something and go away, it sometimes pops up a preview window - without you asking - for any other post you’ve been editing. Until you notice that the machine is running slow as hell, and come back to MarsEdit…
Further updated: Gus Mueller acknowledges that there’s a problem already found with preview windows here. Still chasing the rest..
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- Tagged": my five top social media/ blogging tools: actually, the top one is Applescript (17 July 2006; score: 25.62%)
- Didn't Led Zeppelin do a song about it? (6 November 2007; score: 24.88%)
- Gus Mueller on watching the money not come in (11 January 2006; score: 23.81%)
![[Valid RSS]](wp-includes/images/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
March 30th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Gus Mueller works for Ranchero?
VoodooPad rocks my tiny little world.
March 31st, 2006 at 12:31 am
While it is developed using a different development tool, I found with Style Master that webkit plus a popup menu on the same window = huge CPU suckage.
I don’t know whether that is also what is going on here.
john
March 31st, 2006 at 6:26 am
To diagnose this further, you might want to try running the sample command from the terminal. This will give a tree showing the functions that are being called by the program.
% sample MarsEdit 10
Sampling process [some pid] each 10 msecs 1000 times
Sample analysis of process [some pid] written to file /tmp/MarsEdit_[some pid].sample.txt
% open /tmp/MarsEdit_[some pid].sample.txt
Once that is open, you can take a look at it, and try to figure out what it is doing (there might be a lot of WebKit-related stuff). I’d also pass it on to Brent/Gus.
March 31st, 2006 at 11:55 am
Gus doesn’t work (full-time) for Ranchero; he was hired to update MarsEdit from 1.0, though he still seems to be helping out around the house - he responded when I posted on the forums (www.newsgator.com/forums). I agree, Voodoopad is great - I use it to plan the Tech section. Wish that I could figure out how to make it output HTML pages with my own templates, but it’s pretty terrific generally. And you’ll note its CPU usage in the screenshot - that’s with multiple windows open.
Thanks Jonathan for the advice - I’ll have a try.