gnome-canvas, large items, and MOTION_NOTIFY handling question

[Jan Hlavacek <jhlavacek sf edu>]

Hi everybody,

I hope this is the right place to ask.  I am writing a little
application that uses AA gnome canvas with rulers to track mouse
position.  It works fine as long as I don't use too complicated items.
However, in my application I need to use lines with several hundreds
control points.  Every time mouse cursor enters the bounding rectangle
of such item, the rulers start seriously laging behind the actual mouse
cursor.  If I move the cursor several times accross the bounding
rectangle, I can see the marks on the rulers slowly move around several
seconds after the mouse cursor stoped. 

>From what I could figure out, I believe that this is caused by the fact
that gnome canvas is trying to figure out whether a mouse cursor is over
the line or not,  which is slow for complicated lines.  What I would
like to know is this:  Is there any way to stop canvas from trying to
send mouse events to its items?  Or is there some other way how to speed
the canvas mouse tracking?  

BTW, i was able to recreate the same problem in sodipodi.  When you
create very compicated free-hand line a move mouse cursor over it, the
marks on the rulers slow down considerably. 

Thanks for any advice.

-- 
Jan Hlavacek                                            (219) 434-7566
Department of Mathematics                             Jhlavacek sf edu
University of Saint Francis               http://www.sf.edu/jhlavacek/