Node Search Cached before First Use

[LinasBeres]

Summary

It would be great if the node search was cached before the first time it was used.

User story

What

Node search (tab or right click on graph editor) was cached before the first use.

Why

I often open and close gaffer to test certain nodes. In some of these cases I am opening the search in the node editor just once. I've noticed that the first time it is open it takes a while, but consequent times it is much faster. However, due to the nature of how I use gaffer I don't realise the caching that happens after it is loaded. It's at the point where it takes 1 second and is fairly frustrating.

Feature proposal

Caching happen in the background whilst gaffer is opening.

[johnhaddon]

Have you tested with a vanilla Gaffer install, or one with lots of custom extensions? The search menu opens quickly enough for me on a vanilla install that I suspect it may be a custom extension that is causing a slow menu build. Or perhaps a very extensive set of shader search paths? Before we go to all the complexity of a background pre-caching step I'd like to establish that the problem isn't actually fixable just by speeding up the menu build in the first place.