Wondering if there is any way to get a report (or at least see in the console) the amount of TIME it takes to load each Extension.
The reason is, I have a lot of extensions loaded, due to the nature of our design process.
Even though I’m using the Sketchucation Extension Manager to disable the ones I only need rarely, I do have enough of them that it takes a significant amount of time to open each (blank) instance of Sketchup, when I need to work on multiple files.
In web development, there’s a concept of a “Waterfall Test”, where the site is analyzed from the viewpoint of “which resources take the longest, and what’s dependent on what”:
I basically need to do a waterfall test on my Sketchup setup, so I can decide, for example, “OK, this extension adds 0.1 seconds, I don’t care” or “this one adds 3.2 seconds, and I only use it rarely so it should be disabled”. Right now, I have no way to see what’s “heavy” and what’s “light” and no way to compare that to their usefulness.
I don´t really know if a tool or an script can be written that helps you to see the heaviest extension you have included. By experience, the rendering plugins that run directly on sketchup like V-Ray, Enscape, Brighter 3D and the death Twilight, the importer to external rendering engines aren´t that heavy, I´m not a developer so don´t take my word as an official one, but by logic I guess that plugins that require an own library to add features to the software could probably take more time to load than more simpler plugins that use the native libraries of the software, in that category the plugins from Thom Thom and Fredo6 require to install their libraries to be able to make their plugins work. and the most logical way to know what plugin is heavier is the time it take for you to be installed.
There´s something you can try to make it a bit faster tha launching of the program without having to uninstall all your plugins, using either the native extensions manager or the sketchucation plugins manager that is better imo, there you can activate them or deactivate them, you can make some test until youhave a clear knowledge of the plugins that are making the launching times longer.
I think, the delay of loading time is almost about the connection from the extension to their dependencies. For example, connect to a cloud library or checking the license to a server. Some extensions are required checking license when startup, some just checking when being called to implement. And the longest time is the time waiting for the response of the server.
Nathan, I think I’m getting real times with this little chunk of code. Drop this file into your plugins folder and start Sketchup. The ! in the file name causes this file to be loaded early in the startup sequence (on Windows only?).
