portindex ignores (filters out) unchanged port

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Monday December 28 2015 17:35:52 Daniel J. Luke wrote:

> If you're going to make a statement about usability like that, it would be helpful if you referenced a study (or more clearly indicated that it's just your opinion instead of stating it as a fact).

If I were writing a scientific publication for my peers I might indeed dig out a standard reference. I'm prepared to stand corrected if anyone here has a better (or more uptodate) working knowledge in visual and/or cognitive neuroscience. For the rest, quite frankly and without intending to sound arrogant: just take my word on it, or take my example and increase the prefix. I'd presume you don't actually have to do it in order to "see" that that will decrease the SNR ratio.

Since you asked: type "visual search" or "visual clutter" into your favourite search engine. Mine turned up this article from JOV that at first glance seems perfectly relevant : http://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2122001 (I haven't read it beyond scanning the summary & introduction).

> 
> um?
> 
> Rainer just wrote: "To decide wether we need to reindex we need the port's name to look it up in the index

Yes, and I wrote

> > Assuming the portfile is parsed when it has to be (re)indexed,

Ahah! Proof in the xmas pudding! The relevant difference here is a single word hidden in a sentence (one that has a typo in Rainer's statement, something I missed until now) :))

The Portfiles *are* scanned if and when they have to be (re)indexed; without that there would be no support for subports, and using a different portdir name would be *impossible* rather than discouraged (or forbidden if you prefer).

R.