S-L-O-W cursor movement in FrameMaker 9

[Mike Wickham]

> How much RAM are you running? And any other memory-hungry aps open at
> the same time?

I've got 4 GB of RAM (though XP reports on 3.25). Frame is the only program 
open. I've since done some experimenting with my template. Cursor speed was 
fine with this template when it was in FM6 and FM7.1. In FM8, cursor speed 
slowed if the Paragraph Designer, Character Designer, or Table Designer 
windows were open. In FM9, cursor speed is always very slow-- even with all 
windows, pods, and toolbars closed-- EXCEPT when using the Manage Graphics 
workspace. A line that takes 4 seconds to scroll across (using arrow keys) 
in Notepad or Word, takes 19 seconds in FM9 when using any other workspace.

Next, I created a new, blank FM document in FM9, and populated it with a 
paragraph of text. The cursor speed is normal and fast with this document in 
FM9 using the Manage Graphics workspace-- 4 seconds to scroll across a line. 
But using other workspaces, it drops to 6 seconds.

Next, I experimented over the weekend by importing various options from my 
template into this freshw FM9 document to see what effect there might be. 
Cursor speed changed drastically, depending on which options I imported. It 
turns out that importing paragraph, character, or table formats causes 
slowing of the cursor. Other format imports-- variables, page layout, etc. 
had no slowing effect.

This made me think that I had some corrupted paragraph, character, or table 
formats. But I don't think that's it. I took the same new, blank, empty 
document, with _nothing_ imported from my template. I created 30 new 
paragraph styles in FM9 (all the same as the body style, but with a new 
name, using Commands> New Format). Then I tried again. Lo and behold, the 
cursor speed slowed way down.

So it looks to me like this scrolling bug also has some relation to how many 
paragraph (or, character or table definitions) exist. The more there are, 
the slower the cursor. My template has about 100 paragraph styles and 60 
character styles.

Of course, there's still the issue that, using the Manage Graphics workspace 
causes the slowness to go away altogether. It only occurs when using the 
other workspaces.

This behavior is also reproducible on my laptop computer.

Mike Wickham