How Google Chrome for Mac appears to launch so fast

http://www.shipsomecode.com/software/what-dropzone-learned-from-google-chrome/

by johnw • 17 years ago

103 20 17 years ago

Oompa• 17 years ago

A brilliant hack on Google's part. And it obviously works if the zero bounce is mentioned by others and used as an example of it's speed.

enomar• 17 years ago

"What’s interesting is that the Chrome developers are actually doing this to workaround a completely unrelated issue involving the WebKit UI and it has even been filed as a bug. And to think we all thought they had done it deliberately to give the impression of a faster launch. Shame on us all."

tumult4• 17 years ago

It's important to point out that doing this is a bad idea (as the author of the article notes.) The behavior specified by this plist value is meant for daemon processes. Google is using it because they run daemon processes for the window renderers in Chrome. The daemons need some of the Cocoa application stuff to render things like form inputs with native widgets, so they have to use some 'real' (NSApplication) Cocoa application stuff to get that that, which normally creates a dock icon for you (instead of just running a UNIX process.) This Info.plist value suppresses that behavior, along with the dock icon bounce and some other important stuff.

The author then goes on to ignore his own advice, and shows us demoing the trick in his own application.

jodrellblank3• 17 years ago

It's important to point out that doing this is a bad idea

You've explained why it's done to get Cocoa components, but you haven't pointed out why it's a bad idea. It seems faster, which is good. Does it do any harm?

tumult4• 17 years ago

Its behavior for applications which use a GUI is unspecified by Apple (afaik) which means it could break at any time. Among other problems: Dock icon weirdness (no bouncing, status changes are strange) your app won't show up in the "Recent Applications" menu, your app won't be registered correctly in the process list, and likely some other stuff I can't name off the top of my head. Don't do it. You aren't an exception.

pygy• 17 years ago

It makes sense for the author to use it, since he wants to emulate the behaviour of the "Recent Applications", etc. Dock folders. A bounce is unwelcome in this case, and the other benefits of the normal application startup (like being registered in the "Recent Apps" list) are useless for him.

tumult4• 17 years ago

It does make sense in his case. It's still a hack, and he's still ignoring his own advice :)

jodrellblank3• 17 years ago

So, while I’m certainly not recommending people start adding this code to their apps to provide the illusion of a faster launch

Do. I want the illusion of a faster launch almost as much as I want a faster launch.

What is it people rave about when they try SSDs? Is it the shock resistance? The power use? The noise? No. It's primarily "Wow, everything starts so much faster!".

tumult4• 17 years ago

It doesn't start any faster. It doesn't even appear to start any faster. The dock icon just doesn't bounce. People obsessed with application first-launch times but unwilling to run actual benchmarks measure "launch time" by whatever their monkey-eyes happen to be fixated to at moment. In this case, the dock icon they just clicked on. Oh man, it didn't even bounce once! It launched so fast!

Meanwhile, normal users click the Chrome icon and the window appears, and they start using it, instead of continuing to stare at the dock icon. Or even more likely, the app was already running.

jonknee• 17 years ago

It doesn't matter if it's real or not. If something is perceived to be faster, for all intensive purposes to the end user it is faster. You can provide a stop watch, but the user won't care--they will go with the appearances.

jdbeast00• 17 years ago

um...i would imagine that if SSDs provided the illusion that applications loaded faster without actually improving performance, people wouldn't be shelling out $$$ for them.

philwelch• 17 years ago

You'd be surprised. CVT's (Continuously Variable Transmissions) in cars will smoothly adjust upwards in engine power, RPM, effective gear ratio, and audible pitch instead of pitching down and jerking at upshift like a traditional transmission. Supposedly, people had the illusion that CVT's weren't powerful because they didn't have audible "shifts", so CVT's were actually redesigned to provide the illusion of behaving more like traditional automatic transmissions.

jodrellblank3• 17 years ago

I was using SSDs as an example that people care about startup speed to back up my assertion that improving startup speed is a good thing.

I wasn't suggesting SSD startup speed changes are illusory.

kingsley_20• 17 years ago

Lookup UI feedback times. Bouncing the icon will actually make it appear more responsive. Same reason that for the few seconds that a web page takes to load you see some kind of spinning icon or page load indicator. Not having those reponse animations make the software look unrespinsive, not fast.

How Google Chrome for Mac appears to launch so fast

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