Slow Comboboxes and GUISetState(@SW_DISABLE, $hGUI) still updates GUI

[Blaxxun]

Hello forum!
Merry Christmas!

I have this little loop here and I want to stop the GUI update until the comboboxes are populated.
I want to do this because it takes around 3 seconds to draw 10 comboboxes.
They all hold the same $sText (1200 items).
But for some reason i can still see how they get created.

; Comboboxes create _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
        GUISetState(@SW_DISABLE, $hGUI)
        For $i = 1 To $iCoCo
            $hCombo[$i - 1] = _GUICtrlComboBox_Create($hGUI, $sKeys, $aPosX[$i], 37, $aColWI[$i] - 1, 500, BitOR($CBS_DROPDOWNLIST, $WS_VSCROLL))
            $iCombo[$i - 1] = _WinAPI_GetDlgCtrlID($hCombo[$i - 1])
        Next
        GUISetState(@SW_ENABLE, $hGUI)

Thanks!!

[Danp2]

Have you tried using @SW_LOCK / @SW_UNLOCK instead of @SW_DISABLE / @SW_ENABLE?

[Blaxxun]

@Danp2

Yes, this stops the GUI from updating. Thanks for that.
Unfortunately, it does not speed up the creation of the comboboxes.

I thought if I provided a delimited string @ creation, it would generate faster than when I use _GUICtrlComboBox_AddString one by one.
Turns out they are both the same slow speed.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Blaxxun

[Danp2]

Using a delimited string won't improve the speed because internally it just splits the string and performs the _GUICtrlComboBox_AddString in a loop. You may want to take a look at _GUICtrlComboBox_InitStorage.

 

[mikell]

On 12/25/2023 at 11:49 PM, Blaxxun said:

I want to stop the GUI update until the comboboxes are populated

It seems that you need this : _GUICtrlComboBox_BeginUpdate 

[Blaxxun]

@Danp2
Hello, and thanks for the tip. Unfortunately _GUICtrlComboBox_InitStorage did not speedup the process.

@mikell
Hello, thanks a lot.
I could swear that I tested this with beginupdate / endupdate and it did not make a difference.
BUT now with _GUICtrlComboBox_BeginUpdate it shaved off 1.5 seconds of 2.8 seconds.

Great, thank you guys! 👍

[Nine]

@Blaxxun You should consider giving solution to mikell instead of yourself...if you understand what I mean.

[Blaxxun]

@Nine You are absolutely right!

[Blaxxun]

I was able to shave off a little more time by using the DLL call directly.
 

; Comboboxen Dropdown List fill _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Local $iLen = UBound($aINI_KeyList)
Local $hDll = DllOpen("user32.dll")
For $x = 0 To UBound($hCombo) - 1
    _GUICtrlComboBox_BeginUpdate($hCombo[$x])
    For $i = 0 To $iLen - 1 ; INI Keys durchgehen
        ; _GUICtrlComboBox_AddString = _SendMessage
        DllCall($hDll, "lresult", "SendMessageW", "hwnd", $hCombo[$x], "uint", 0x143, "wparam", 0, "wstr", $aINI_KeyList[$i]) ; = _SendMessage
    Next
    _GUICtrlComboBox_EndUpdate($hCombo[$x])
Next
DllClose($hDll)