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VTune 2017: Option to "Expand All" in context menu seems to be missing

Michael_F_4
Beginner
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Hello, I started using VTune Amplifier XE 2017 now - downloaded and tried the Update 1.

One of the first things that I noticed:
The option "Expand All" seems to be gone in the context menu that appears when right-clicking into the function listing.

In my case I had done "Basic Hotspot" analysis and opened the "Top-down Tree" view.
The context menu only shows "Collapse All" and "Expand Selected Rows" now - previously there had always been an "Expand All".

This was very helpful for me to quickly get to the proper hotspot that I needed to investigate further.
Sometimes this is nested somewhere several levels deep (10+).
Now it is a very tedious task to open all branches until enough folds have been opened.

Am I missing something?
Is there any alternative now to open all folds at once?


Best Regards,
Michael

 

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6 Replies
Stas-Neverov-Intel
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Hello, Michael,

Thanks for reaching out and sorry for the inconvenience.

We did remove Expand All command from the context menu. We believe it was doing more harm than good, especially for larger profiling results. Could you please elaborate a little more on how do you choose the hotspot you want to explore? Maybe we could come up with a better ways than using Expand All... Also if you could tell how you would ideally do this (regardless of the current VTune capabilities) that would be extremely valuable.

A couple of things you could try if you do not use them already:

  • View Stacks as Chain button in the top-right corner of the Top-down Tree - that would probably make your top-down tree more flat and easier to navigate.
  • On Caller/Callee tab there is a flat list of functions that you could search (Ctrl+F). You can then work with the Callee table which is a top-down view that starts from the function you are interested in.

Regards,
Stas

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Michael_F_4
Beginner
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Hello Stas,

Thanks for your reply.

At least, now I know that it is missing on purpose :-)

Maybe I'll try to use the Caller/Callee tab more often now.
It should be a decent alternative to what I did before.
(Mainly I used "Expand All" in the "Top-Down Tree", searched for the the routine I was working on, e.g. by searching for the range of cpu times that I was remembering that it and its callers approximately had, and then used "Filer in by selection" to hide the unnecessary stuff.)
Viewing the Stacks as Chains makes the tree slightly less deep - but not by much.

What I have also noticed and dislike:

The left/right arrow keys do not seem to work in the tree view for "Top-Down Tree" and "Bottom-up" anymore.
Previously, I could easily open/close the tree as needed using the arrow keys - which was a lot faster than clicking the little arrow symbols. IMHO, at least these keys should work again as they did previously.
Whenever possible, I prefer keystrokes over mouse clicks since it usually is much faster once you know them.
And currently in the 2017 version it is very cumbersome to go to the desired position in the "Top-Down Tree"

What I would also approve:
Some kind of filtering option by name/regex.
When you are optimizing the same code basis for a long time, you know the names of your hotspots or at least of the one you are currently working on. It would be nice if you could filter the "Bottom-up" and "Caller/Callee" views quickly by typing in some letters from the function names while it would update the visible functions to the matching ones.
Currently there is some kind of search that does highlighting only - but filtering would be better sometimes IMHO

Thanks very much in advance for considering my suggestions.

Regards
Michael

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Stas-Neverov-Intel
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Hi Michael,

VTune Amplifier XE 2017 Update 2 that was released a couple of days ago has the left/right arrow keys fixed. You can now use arrows to expand and collapse rows.

Re filtering grid data by pattern - what you've described makes total sense and I've added this request to our backlog.

Regards,
Stas

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Bernd_Oerding
Beginner
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Hi all,

I have basically the same problem with VTune2017: a top-down view which doesn't expand automatically is a no-go from my point of view. I have tried caller/callee, but can't see that this is an alternative, as it also doesn't show an analysis of the whole call stack.

I have also created a support ticket for this: 02716139.

Regards,
Hagen

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Gaedke-Luetjens__Hag
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(I was previously using the account "Bernd Oerding", cf. above; now using my own one, "Hagen Gaedke-Luetjens".)

I am using VTune 2016 until today, because I am missing the auto-expand of the top-down view very much. Here is my workflow:

1. advanced hotspots analysis
2. pick one of the top hotspots
3. go to bottom-up view (hotspot is selected)
4. go to top-down view (auto-expanded) and get a good impression of what's going on

Why top-down view? When I see a certain bottleneck in our software, the problem typically isn't the implementation of that specific function. Instead, the question is why and how often that function is called in which call sequence/stack by which other function, and how much time is spent along that call stack in the calling functions. In many cases I then find O(n²) problems (too many calls) or even calls which are completely unnecessary and can be "optimized away" (e.g. Qt slots, render updates, ...).

Can you help me finding another way of achieving this rather than using the ancient VTune 2016 with it's nice top-down view?

Regards, Hagen

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Wallraff__Marcel
Beginner
947 Views

Hey all,

we are using 2 licenses of VTune 2015, we just got two additional licenses of VTune 2018.
I have to agree 100% with Hagen, we are dealing with similar algorithmic problems.

In 2015 our workflow looks similar:

  1. Summary
  2. Bottom-up view
  3. Select dll / function
  4. Go to Top-down Tree

Vtune 2015 would expand until the dll /functions are shown in the top-down tree.

It is so annoying with the 2018 version to expand the top-down tree 40-100 times until i see the function i want.
At least with expand all I got an overview much quicker.

We also would like to have an option to expand the top-down view until a certain % or time, like expand everything until 5% of the total time.

I regret not checking the trail version of 2018 before adding the new licenses, as for the Amplifier of the Vtune Studio we will keep using the 2015 version.

kind regards
Marcel

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