Re: toward a more efficient event loop

Hi all --

Yes, we should improve wheel-scrolling for macOS platforms. User-input 
event folding might work, also without compromising the experience on 
other platforms.

I like to see an implementation that does not check for a specific 
platform but works for all our targets. :-)

(For me using Windows and a Razer Viper Mini mouse with noticable clicks 
in the wheel, I what to have consistent effects in the image, whenever I 
experience click in the wheel. At the time of writing, this is 3 items 
in a text list in Squeak.)

Best
Marcel

Am 23.08.2026 um 01:38 schrieb Lauren P:
> Hi List,
>
> Smooth scrolling is the bane of my existence on a Mac, especially with 
> cross-platform tools. (Blender is still unusable on the trackpad 
> because of that! I had to buy a mouse just for a real, discrete scroll 
> wheel.) However, I've never really noticed an issue in Squeak with the 
> event timing unless I'm idling, spinning the metaphorical wheel while 
> thinking, and then I do see it play catch-up. Maybe the computers at 
> work keep my expectations at Y2k? Maybe I do more thinking than inputing?
>
> I'd like to second Nicolas' idea of folding consecutive events in the 
> buffer anyways. If we poll the event queue and there are 50 ScrollDown 
> events in a 10ms window or whatever the delay is, do we really need to 
> process them all, a frame at a time? I know it's helpful to have 
> software events so close to the hardware events that make them, but a 
> noise filter of some sort would be useful in that case.
>
> Think how there's REPSPEED and KEYTIME because you're dwelling on a 
> keystroke while typing slowly and hooooooooooolding the key down to 
> send the input continuously, and how fast typists need really short 
> dwell times or the software misses keystrokes. I haven't done hardware 
> events since the TI-84, but maybe there's an OS call that can tell the 
> difference between smooth and regular scrolling, like how it does the 
> same for keystrokes?
>
> On Sat, Aug 22, 2026, 15:41 <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>     If there is a better strategy in Cuis, we should adopt it if
>     possible. There is a lot of good design thinking in Cuis.
>
>     Do you have a pointer (class/method) to where this is implemented
>     in the Cuis image?
>
>     Thanks,
>
>     Dave
>
>
>     On 2026-08-22 19:18, Nicolas Cellier wrote:
>
>>     Hi all,
>>     if you compare Cuis morphic feel to Squeak morphic feel, the
>>     former looks snappy, the latter sluggish.
>>     Especially if your trackpad generates a bunch of MouseWheelEvent
>>     (MouseScrollEvent in Cuis) whenever you're willing to scroll.
>>     Why is that?
>>     Squeak World goes through an interCyclePause:  at every mouse event.
>>     Indeed, when the hand *processEvents* it stops at first mouse
>>     event encountered.
>>     Hence, unless you are ready to sacrifice some battery life with a
>>     PreferenceshigherPerformance,
>>     the event buffer might take several seconds to drain with such
>>     strategy, especially on mac.
>>     It makes the user experience somehow catastrophic.
>>     Cuis has a different strategy:
>>     - processEvents drains the event buffer.
>>       however, it only processes one mouse move event per cycle, and
>>     drops the other ones.
>>     - the world cycle doesn't pause if (lastCycleHadAnyEvent or: [
>>     deferredUIMessages isEmpty not ])
>>     - it also does not pause further than the next morphic step or alarm
>>     - the pause grows gradually from 20 to 200ms whenever there is no
>>     activity
>>       but at least %)ms in server mode
>>      Maybe it's time to revise our strategy too !
>>     Nicolas
>>
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