The dashboard particle preset built a fresh createRadialGradient + arc-fill for all
50 glows every frame. But each glow's gradient is a fixed size/colour for the
particle's life — only the pulse ALPHA changes per frame, and canvas multiplies
image alpha by ctx.globalAlpha. So bake the gradient once into a per-particle
offscreen canvas (full alpha) and drawImage it each frame with globalAlpha = pulse
(times the incoming globalAlpha, so transition fades stay identical). Rebuilt only
when the accent colour changes.
Pixel-identical output: same colour, same linear falloff, same source-over; sprite
rendered at ceil(glowSize) then downscaled to exact glowSize. Drops 50 gradient
allocations + arc-fills per frame to 50 cached blits. Scoped to the dashboard
preset only (smallest blast radius); other presets untouched.
Navigation & sidebar feedback:
- Show legacy pages optimistically on pointerdown + CSS :active so the
sidebar reacts instantly instead of waiting for the click/router cycle.
- Defer heavy per-page init via requestIdleCallback so a page becomes
scrollable before its init work runs.
Scroll smoothness:
- Cache particle canvas dimensions (no forced reflow per navigation).
- Pause particle + worker-orb canvas redraws during active scroll so the
scroll gets the full frame budget.
- content-visibility:auto on discover shelves and search/wishlist/library
list items to skip off-screen layout.
Dashboard:
- Run the independent initial loads in parallel (Promise.all) instead of
six sequential awaits, collapsing the reflow cascade.
Settings:
- Wire input listeners once instead of rescanning the ~960-node subtree
on every visit.
- Suppress auto-save while the form is programmatically populated on load,
fixing a spurious full save (4 POSTs + backend service re-init) that
fired on every Settings visit.
Reduce Visual Effects = full performance mode:
- Also halts particles, worker orbs and all filters; hides the static
sidebar aura circles that looked broken without their blur/animation.
Global search bar hidden on settings/help/issues/import pages.
