[WS-689] minimize white flashes #101
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src/createWindow.ts
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| // Bypass the browser's cache when initially loading the remote URL | ||
| // in order to ensure that we load the latest web build. | ||
| // See: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/1360#issuecomment-156506130 | ||
| window.loadURL(url, { extraHeaders: "pragma: no-cache\n" }); |
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can test this later today but I don't think we should be loading the URL before we set the listeners below. feels like bad practice given that events can in theory come in at any time.
we should figure out what about this is the bottleneck here? is it the finding and setting bounds? if so, we should just move it before that because I doubt setting the listeners takes a noticeable amount of time
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ah good catch, yea let me move this after we set the events, one sec -> done ✅
we should figure out what about this is the bottleneck here? is it the finding and setting bounds? if so, we should just move it before that because I doubt setting the listeners takes a noticeable amount of time
not sure what you mean by bottleneck here:
- if you're asking about using the
ready-to-showevent linked above, then the bottleneck is network connection + how fastrepl-it-webloads -- we're basically waiting for the website to load before we show the window, which is perceivable and feels as if the app was sluggish - if you're asking why we still get white screen even though
backgroundColoris set, then I guess it's platform (as in Windows) specific, but I couldn't find very clear answer anywhere really
Why
We got feedback that on Windows we can see a white box flash before the app loads.
The reason is that when we create a new window it defaults to being visible, and we set the size and other properties later on. This PR modifies it so new window starts invisible, and we flip it to visible after we go through the initialization process.
In my non-scientific tests on Windows VM this doesn't show a white box flash, but we still get a white window before we start loading the app. As far as I can tell we're doing everything correctly with
backgroundColorset from the start, and this might be a Windows thing -- it's not only us and the Electron GitHub is full with issues like this one electron/electron#861Another solution would be to keep the window hidden until we load the URL and go through the first render as described here https://www.electronjs.org/docs/latest/api/browser-window#using-the-ready-to-show-event but in my tests it takes a while and makes the app feel slow to load.
What changed
Made the window hidden on start, and show after we set up the size etc.
Test plan
Open the app on Windows, notice that we don't flash a white box before the Window opens properly.