From 334688db815d9d69cf092417f5ebbdcba573d664 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Simon Tatham <anakin@pobox.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2021 19:59:21 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Apply UPDATE_DELAY in arrears, not in advance.

The original aim of the rate limit was to avoid having too many
updates per second. I implemented this by a deferment mechanism: when
any change occurs that makes the terminal want an update, it instead
sets a timer to go off after UPDATE_DELAY (1/50 second), and does the
update at the end of that interval.

Now it's done the other way round: if there has not been an update
within the last UPDATE_DELAY, then we can simply do an update _right
now_, in immediate response to whatever triggered it. And _then_ we
set a timer to track a cooldown period, within which any further
requests for updates will be deferred until the end of the cooldown.

This mechanism should still rate-limit updates, but now the latency in
normal interactive use should be lowered, because terminal updates in
response to keystrokes (which typically arrive separated by more than
UPDATE_DELAY) can now each be enacted as soon as possible after the
triggering keystroke.

This also reverses (in the common case) the slowdown of non-textual
window modifications introduced by the previous commit, in which lots
of them were brought under the umbrella of term_update and therefore
became subject to UPDATE_DELAY. Now they'll only be delayed in
conditions of high traffic, and not in interactive use.
---
 terminal.c | 32 +++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
 terminal.h | 14 ++++++++++----
 2 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/terminal.c b/terminal.c
index 52f8d5e2..7b4384e0 100644
--- a/terminal.c
+++ b/terminal.c
@@ -1187,41 +1187,58 @@ static void check_line_size(Terminal *term, termline *line)
 
 static void term_schedule_tblink(Terminal *term);
 static void term_schedule_cblink(Terminal *term);
+static void term_update_callback(void *ctx);
 
 static void term_timer(void *ctx, unsigned long now)
 {
     Terminal *term = (Terminal *)ctx;
-    bool update = false;
 
     if (term->tblink_pending && now == term->next_tblink) {
         term->tblinker = !term->tblinker;
         term->tblink_pending = false;
         term_schedule_tblink(term);
-        update = true;
+        term->window_update_pending = true;
     }
 
     if (term->cblink_pending && now == term->next_cblink) {
         term->cblinker = !term->cblinker;
         term->cblink_pending = false;
         term_schedule_cblink(term);
-        update = true;
+        term->window_update_pending = true;
     }
 
     if (term->in_vbell && now == term->vbell_end) {
         term->in_vbell = false;
-        update = true;
+        term->window_update_pending = true;
     }
 
-    if (update ||
-        (term->window_update_pending && now == term->next_update))
+    if (term->window_update_cooldown &&
+        now == term->window_update_cooldown_end) {
+        term->window_update_cooldown = false;
+    }
+
+    if (term->window_update_pending)
+        term_update_callback(term);
+}
+
+static void term_update_callback(void *ctx)
+{
+    Terminal *term = (Terminal *)ctx;
+    if (!term->window_update_pending)
+        return;
+    if (!term->window_update_cooldown) {
         term_update(term);
+        term->window_update_cooldown = true;
+        term->window_update_cooldown_end = schedule_timer(
+            UPDATE_DELAY, term_timer, term);
+    }
 }
 
 static void term_schedule_update(Terminal *term)
 {
     if (!term->window_update_pending) {
         term->window_update_pending = true;
-        term->next_update = schedule_timer(UPDATE_DELAY, term_timer, term);
+        queue_toplevel_callback(term_update_callback, term);
     }
 }
 
@@ -1940,6 +1957,7 @@ Terminal *term_init(Conf *myconf, struct unicode_data *ucsdata, TermWin *win)
     term->wcFromTo_size = 0;
 
     term->window_update_pending = false;
+    term->window_update_cooldown = false;
 
     term->bidi_cache_size = 0;
     term->pre_bidi_cache = term->post_bidi_cache = NULL;
diff --git a/terminal.h b/terminal.h
index 3841ef5a..c463f7a8 100644
--- a/terminal.h
+++ b/terminal.h
@@ -259,11 +259,17 @@ struct terminal_tag {
     bool in_term_out;
 
     /*
-     * We schedule a window update shortly after receiving terminal
-     * data. This tracks whether one is currently pending.
+     * We don't permit window updates too close together, to avoid CPU
+     * churn pointlessly redrawing the window faster than the user can
+     * read. So after an update, we set window_update_cooldown = true
+     * and schedule a timer to reset it to false. In between those
+     * times, window updates are not performed, and instead we set
+     * window_update_pending = true, which will remind us to perform
+     * the deferred redraw when the cooldown period ends and
+     * window_update_cooldown is reset to false.
      */
-    bool window_update_pending;
-    long next_update;
+    bool window_update_pending, window_update_cooldown;
+    long window_update_cooldown_end;
 
     /*
      * Track pending blinks and tblinks.