As you see here the text highlighted in orange represents the currently selected match.
Be sure to give it a try.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Step Through Regex Matches
This feature has been on my list of "must haves" for awhile. It's simple, but very useful at times. I've added a couple buttons that allow you to step through your regex matches...
As you see here the text highlighted in orange represents the currently selected match.
Be sure to give it a try.
As you see here the text highlighted in orange represents the currently selected match.
Be sure to give it a try.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Improving Perceived Performance
Ah yes, perceived performance: it can be such an underrated thing. I thought Regex Hero was still loading a little slow for a ~50KB application.
In fact I looked at this a couple months ago and found that my initialization code was preventing the Regex Hero UI from appearing until it was done. As such, you'd actually be looking at a blank screen a little longer than you should.
When talking about perceived performance, a blank screen like this is just about the worst user experience possible because in the back of the user's mind they might be thinking, "Did this application just hang?" Even if they don't think that, any kind of prolonged stillness can be perceived as slowness and that's the last thing I want. So at the time I tried a few things to correct this but couldn't find a good solution that worked well and didn't cause any other problems.
Today I took another crack at it and finally solved the problem. You'll notice now that when it loads you'll briefly see the default Silverlight loading animation as you always have. And then where you'd normally see a blank screen, you'll instead see this loading box on top of the Regex Hero app for about half a second.
To be sure I actually made some progress with this I made some crude measurements. I measured the load time until you actually see the Regex Hero UI with the old method vs the time until you see the new loading box in the new method. After multiple tests and averaging the results here's what I came up with:
Before: 1.6 seconds
After: 1.1 seconds
(Note that this test was done with a cached copy to take bandwidth variances out of the equation.)
All that work for half a second of improved "perceived" performance may seem like a waste of time. After all, the time it takes before you're able to actually use Regex Hero hasn't changed. It's still going to be around 2 or 3 seconds on the first load and about 1.6 seconds once it's cached (actual mileage may vary).
But in my mind, seeing a glimpse of the Regex Hero UI half a second sooner is huge. I think when you work with applications that load quickly and respond immediately to your input, people tend to take notice. And from the beginning this app was intended to save time when working with regular expressions so performance will always be a priority for me.
You can see the speed now by checking out the Regex Hero Tester. Don't blink. ;)
In fact I looked at this a couple months ago and found that my initialization code was preventing the Regex Hero UI from appearing until it was done. As such, you'd actually be looking at a blank screen a little longer than you should.
When talking about perceived performance, a blank screen like this is just about the worst user experience possible because in the back of the user's mind they might be thinking, "Did this application just hang?" Even if they don't think that, any kind of prolonged stillness can be perceived as slowness and that's the last thing I want. So at the time I tried a few things to correct this but couldn't find a good solution that worked well and didn't cause any other problems.
Today I took another crack at it and finally solved the problem. You'll notice now that when it loads you'll briefly see the default Silverlight loading animation as you always have. And then where you'd normally see a blank screen, you'll instead see this loading box on top of the Regex Hero app for about half a second.
To be sure I actually made some progress with this I made some crude measurements. I measured the load time until you actually see the Regex Hero UI with the old method vs the time until you see the new loading box in the new method. After multiple tests and averaging the results here's what I came up with:
Before: 1.6 seconds
After: 1.1 seconds
(Note that this test was done with a cached copy to take bandwidth variances out of the equation.)
All that work for half a second of improved "perceived" performance may seem like a waste of time. After all, the time it takes before you're able to actually use Regex Hero hasn't changed. It's still going to be around 2 or 3 seconds on the first load and about 1.6 seconds once it's cached (actual mileage may vary).
But in my mind, seeing a glimpse of the Regex Hero UI half a second sooner is huge. I think when you work with applications that load quickly and respond immediately to your input, people tend to take notice. And from the beginning this app was intended to save time when working with regular expressions so performance will always be a priority for me.
You can see the speed now by checking out the Regex Hero Tester. Don't blink. ;)
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The Permalink Feature
I made several changes yesterday. You'll notice that I've changed the layout a bit, moving "Generate .NET Code", "Benchmark", and now "Permalink" under Tools.
Permalink is new. I've seen it plenty of times in blogs and forums and such. But the idea with Regex Hero is that it'll actually save the state of Regex Hero into a database, generate a GUID, and then return a permanent link.
There's an example of that here:
http://regexhero.net/tester/?id=8dc11baa-c96c-4362-9469-eecd431ebfb4
The motivation for this comes from all the questions about writing regular expressions I see all the time. These questions are asked all over the place but lately it's looking like StackOverflow is the most popular place to ask. This permalink feature could prove useful to the person asking the question, or even the person answering it. That way it becomes that much easier to see the regular expression in question and what regex options are required to make it work.
Permalink is new. I've seen it plenty of times in blogs and forums and such. But the idea with Regex Hero is that it'll actually save the state of Regex Hero into a database, generate a GUID, and then return a permanent link.
There's an example of that here:
http://regexhero.net/tester/?id=8dc11baa-c96c-4362-9469-eecd431ebfb4
The motivation for this comes from all the questions about writing regular expressions I see all the time. These questions are asked all over the place but lately it's looking like StackOverflow is the most popular place to ask. This permalink feature could prove useful to the person asking the question, or even the person answering it. That way it becomes that much easier to see the regular expression in question and what regex options are required to make it work.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Optimizing a Silverlight XAP File
I took another hard look at Regex Hero to see if there was any way I could remove the two remaining assemblies I still had in it. I did something similar once before by removing the Linq assembly a couple months ago.
But still, the Regex Hero XAP file was 170 KB and I knew these assemblies were taking up most of that. So I tried to find a way to remove the System.Windows.Controls and System.Windows.Controls.Toolkit assemblies. After all, I was using only a small fraction of their features anyway.
Well I was indeed able to remove the toolkit by getting rid of the expanders and dockpanels. I found that I didn't really need them. That saved 60 KB.
But I still needed the GridSplitter out of the System.Windows.Controls assembly so I wasn't willing to get rid of it. So I asked this question on StackOverflow. It seems that Microsoft released the source for all of Silverlight 2's controls. So I downloaded the source, pulled everything out necessary for the GridSplitter and made a new project out of it. After rebuilding it and including it in the RegexHero project, that removed another 60 KB. That brought the Regex Hero XAP file down to 51 KB.
So yesterday Regex Hero was 170 KB. Today it's 51 KB. That's what I'm talking about. You can see how fast it loads now by clicking here.
But still, the Regex Hero XAP file was 170 KB and I knew these assemblies were taking up most of that. So I tried to find a way to remove the System.Windows.Controls and System.Windows.Controls.Toolkit assemblies. After all, I was using only a small fraction of their features anyway.
Well I was indeed able to remove the toolkit by getting rid of the expanders and dockpanels. I found that I didn't really need them. That saved 60 KB.
But I still needed the GridSplitter out of the System.Windows.Controls assembly so I wasn't willing to get rid of it. So I asked this question on StackOverflow. It seems that Microsoft released the source for all of Silverlight 2's controls. So I downloaded the source, pulled everything out necessary for the GridSplitter and made a new project out of it. After rebuilding it and including it in the RegexHero project, that removed another 60 KB. That brought the Regex Hero XAP file down to 51 KB.
So yesterday Regex Hero was 170 KB. Today it's 51 KB. That's what I'm talking about. You can see how fast it loads now by clicking here.
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