slow Pmw dialogs

[Brian Moyle]

I'm new to Python, Tkinter, and Pmw, and while playing around with Pmw
dialogs, I've noticed that they seem to display themselves very slowly.
 
I did some searching around and found the following thread back in
August of last year:
 
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/python-list/message/99720
 
I've encountered the problem with Pmw 0.8.4 and 0.8.5, and it sounds as if
0.8.0 did not exhibit the same problem.
 
A proposed work-around by Georg Mischler seemed to fix the problem for
me, and I'm including it below.
 
I'm currently using a RedHat 7.0 distribution with kde 2.1.1, python 1.5.2,
tk 8.3.1, and Pmw 0.8.5.
 
Here's the gist if Georg's suggested change...
 
Pmw_0_8_5/lib/PmwBase.py, setgeometryanddeiconify()
===================================================
from the original (slower version)
   window.deiconify()
   window.tkraise()
 
to the following (faster -- swapped order)
   window.tkraise()
   window.deiconify()
 
A simple program to demonstrate:
   import Tkinter, Pmw
   root = Tkinter.Tk()
   root.withdraw()
   testDialog = Pmw.MessageDialog(root, message_text = "test")
   testDialog.withdraw()
   print "press return to continue: ",; raw_input()
   testDialog.activate(geometry = 'centerscreenalways')
 
I looked at some of the Pmw mailing lists and discussion groups on
SourceForge, but they seem a bit sparse, so I thought I'd try sending a
message here first.  Is there some place else I should be sending this?
 
Also, does anybody know if there are plans to fix this, or whether
there have been any investigations into the underlying cause?  (as
mentioned in the discussion link above, it seems to be related new
desktop environments, like KDE and Gnome)
 
Sincerely,
 
Brian