Auto-Refresh causes flickering of Message Flow

[dannycohen]

1. When Auto-Refresh is turned on and message flow is displayed:
   1. a very noticeable flickering occurs (even when nothing has changed in the flow)
      • Flickering (or any other transitional animation) makes sense when something has changed (like message flow structure or position) but not when nothing has changed (see Auto-Refesh support in Endpoint Explorer #31)
   2. When changing the zoom level or re-positioning the flow, the next refresh reverts to default zoom level / position.
      • I would argue that we need to maintain the user's zoom / position so that the user can focus easily on the requested part of the message flow diagram.

What do you think ?

// CC @joaquinjares

Tested on Particular.ServiceInsight-0.2.0-Unstable339

[dannycohen]

@HEskandari - I'd say this is relatively high prio; can you provide an estimate on options for fixing ?

[dannycohen]

@HEskandari - Based on our conversation:

Options to check for avoiding flickering (in order of presumed priority / effectivness)

1. Create a new flow in the Background and switch
2. Do not update the screen when refreshing the
3. Use animation instead of an outright change in order to make it less painful to the eye...

Regarding maintaining Zoom / Position - required, regardless of which option is taken on avoiding flickering.

[dannycohen]

@HEskandari - Any response from Mindscape on this ?

[HEskandari]

@dannycohen I'm trying a couple of things today, will keep you posted.

[dannycohen]

@joaquinjares -
Although there is a nice improvement in flickering and display - there's a bug in the implementation of the flickering override -

1. As discussed in Preserve Context Menu display on Auto-Refresh #173 (comment), there are several possible updates
2. For example: status changes are not updated on list
3. On refresh, the selected message is not "selected" in message properties / flow, so you do not get the expected display

//CC @HEskandari

[joj]

I will test tomorrow with a live SC (meaning, retries and stuff). I think that I included status in the change list, but I might have overlooked it. If the flickering is acceptable, I think this is the right approach regardless.

[dannycohen]

@HEskandari - please chime in on this since you were investigating this.

@joaquinjares - regarding the possible updates:
(see #173 (comment))
I'd consider any visible property (i.e. displayed in message list columns) as "can be changed", and also take into consideration the issue of order as a change.

Some flickering is acceptable and justified by a change in the underlying data. It is also worth it in order to compromise for complexity.

[joj]

I undestood. I'm checking the current message, but that is not the only message visible, so problems. I have to check the whole conversation for changes. It should be fast enough anyway. A conversation will always have (I assume) less than 50 messages or so.

[dannycohen]

A conversation will always have (I assume) less than 50 messages or so.

No, a conversation may span more than 50 msgs. Its easy to create such a conversation using SM. Ask Ezequiel.

What are you checking ?

[joj]

Status, Time Sent, Processing Time, IsDeleted, count of messages in conversation.

[dannycohen]

IsDeleted ?

also - sending+processing endpoint+machine, ProcessingStarted, ProcessingEnded

[joj]

Can the endpoints change? IsDeleted is something that was there :)

[dannycohen]

IsDeleted is something that was there :)

where ? do you mean IsDefered ?

Can the endpoints change?

On Retry, yes and likely in the near future.
Also - it may be the same message id sent to another endpoint.

[joj]

Nope. IsDeleted. It's a property of StoredMessage. I don't know if it's actually used, but it's there.

[dannycohen]

Does not make sense for Endpoint Explorer messages; May apply only to MSMQ messages. @HEskandari ?

[joj]

Reassigned to me, to solve the pending issues.

[joj]

Everything works correctly, except when there are changes. When something changes, I get a duplication of the diagram. I need to understand how the diagram gets created, to see where that is happening. @HEskandari, do you have some time to go over this?

[joj]

On the other hand, I'm getting correct refresh when no changes and something happening when there are changes. Both of those are ok. I just need to figure out how to clear before updating when there are changes.

[HEskandari]

@joaquinjares IsDeleted AFAIR should be part of MSMQ messages, which is set when a message that is loaded can not be found on a refresh. I believe with Queue explorer being phased out, this can be removed now since it is redundant (and along with it a few other bits and pieces like scratching the message on MessagesList if this flag is set, etc.) Ping me anytime on Skype if you think we need to talk.

[joj]

Closed with @HEskandari's latest fix.

[dannycohen]

@joaquinjares / @HEskandari - So the fix is for Flickering, or faulty data display, or both ?