Hello, I am new to Interact Builder. I am noticing a significant lag in the builder of late. When adding elements or text or anything really. It takes a long time to load, select and the builder is acting erratically. Is this due to file size?

Hi again,
I just checked my app size and it is 78 MB. I haven't been very diligent yet about reducing graphic sizes. What is the usual size for a smooth running app?

Bernie

78 MB is pretty big from my experience. Most of my recent apps have been 5-13 MB each, depending on the amount of images and audio. Try opening the app folder in your file browser (Documents / InteractBuilder / [name of the project group you're using] / [name of your app]). If you have the file browser organize the files by size, you can see which files are taking up the most space, which can help you see if it's just a couple of files that could be causing the problem. Maybe there are a couple of files whose dimensions are larger than they need to be or an audio file that can be compressed without losing too much quality.

Hi Inna,
Thank you for your input. Can you tell me if there is a simple way to just replace and reload a png? My thought is that I just want to reload the original png I initially added to my project with some cosmetic changes but it creates another version of the png and then bloats my app size. I then need to go into my folder and clean up the older versions that are no longer being used.

Here's one alternative way to update an image:

1. Open the app folder to see the name of the file you want to replace. If you imported it as a layer in a Photoshop document, the file will have a prefix from the name of the Photoshop file, but if you imported the image as a png or jpg, then it will have the original name of the file.
2. Take the newly updated file, and give it the same name as the file in the app folder.
3. Drag the new file into the app folder (or copy and paste it into the app folder).
4. You'll get a dialog box that asks what you want to do about the two files that have the same name, and you can select the option that lets you replace the original file with the new file.
5. In InteractBuilder, when you refresh the page by selecting the page from the page menu, you'll see the new image.
6. The element will retain the same dimensions of the original image, so if the new image is a different size, you can change the dimensions of the element by entering the values into the element's info panel.

Hmm. I understand the way to do it but it seems that I should be able to cosmetically change the png file in the app folder itself. Is that not possible?
I encounter another issue when I do copy over the files into the app folder. It seems that they don't always get updated when I run the app. I looked around in other folders and found a folder called "assets" in the player folder. The images don't seem to be getting updated in here. Does this sound familiar?

Ohh I see what you mean. Yes, if you'd like to update the image that's in your app folder, you can, and it should update, as long as the name remains the same. So for example, you could find the image file in your app folder, right-click on it, and select "Open with..." > Photoshop (or any image-editing program). Then once you make the changes, just make sure it saves as the same format (png or jpg) as the original instead of a psd, and the image in the app will be updated.

If I do not see an image get updated when I preview it in InteractBuilder, I clear my browser's history, because sometimes it uses the image from before without checking for an update in the file, since this saves loading time.

I hope this helps!
Inna

Hi Inna,
I have made cosmetic changes to my images directly in the app folder. The changes appear in the builder but when I upload to test, the changes have not registered. I did as you suggested. I deleted my browser history, including cached images but still the same old images show up. Is this a known bug?

Hmm ok thank you for letting me know. I guess the best workaround would be to replace the image with a new file (so that a file gets added to the app folder with a new name) and delete the original file from the app folder. If it's a file that doesn't take up too much file space, you don't need to worry about deleting the original from the app folder. The final app will only upload the files that are used in the app.