February 22, 2008

Our Speed Improvement Project : Springnote keeps getting faster!

Hello, this is the Springnote team.

It's been difficult utilizing Springnote for our users due to slow load times.

It's too slow~ I really like everything about Springnote, but the speed makes me not want to use it - grae

Uploading speeds are too slow and it sometimes cuts off. I hope there will be a fix soon. - desk830 

The speed is causing me frustration - capippo 

Please fix the speed problems. Springnote will fail as a product if this doesn't get fixed - youngdoc 

(translated from Korean)

We have gotten a lot of feedback, along with serious complaints, about slow speeds when using Springnote from many of our faithful Springnote users. Our Springnote team is happy from all the strong feedback that we have received, but at the same time we feel embarrassed. Therefore we decided to concentrate strictly on improving the overall speed of Springnote. 

Here's a list of things that we have been working on to create a faster, more user efficient Springnote.

• Cutting down resources for Springnote functionality: We have been working on Springnote for over a year and realized that there was a lot of unnecessary, unused coding. Therefore, we have examined the structure of Springnote from the inside-out and removed all these items that have caused slower processing and loading times. When opening Springnote, Springnote now only calls necessary code to function. Our original goal was to cut the code by half and we have successfully met results near half.
• Optimization for shorter loading times: In our last release, we had scripts calling elements grab your screen's location after the initial loading had finished. Considering browser compatibility, this was our only choice.. and the result was that the loading times were longer when loading initially loading to the point where users are able to have functionality. In this release, without scripts, we have rewritten the code so that the entire screen loads together. We think that this optimization alone has been the biggest factor in speed improvements. (However, we are still using our previous code in Internet Explorer 6. If you are an Internet Explorer 6 user, we advice that you upgrade to Internet Explorer 7
• Load only the things YOU use: In our previous version, we had all functions and basically our whole application loaded. In this release, we have allowed only the essential necessary parts of Springnote that allow it to have basic functionality to load. Other functions and parts of Springnote will load when clicked or called for. Through this we have seen more slight speed improvements.
• Cache utilization: We have now allowed Springnotes scripts and images to be left in the user's computer cache for a longer period of time. This has been done so that when you are revisiting Springnote, your computer does not have to redownload items. 

Besides the above, we have also worked and checked up on other minor issues to create a faster Springnote.

We are still continuing to work hard in improving speed and the overall user experience in Springnote.

We want to thank you for all of your feedback and also we thank all our supporters and users.

Thank you