React component hide OR re-create? - performance

I am building a reactjs application, I have two options for rendering the components
One is hiding the component and appending the other component on top
of it with the same space and different layout.
The other option is re-render and re-create DOM for both the components
separately.
React uses diff algorithm to compare and change the states of the DOM, as the component is already present in the DOM so the first solution may work faster. But it will have more amount of in-memory data than the second solution.
On the other hand in the second solution, we have to remove the DOM of one component, render the other component and create the DOM for it again. That looks like a lot of work!
I am confused, which approach should I follow?
This can be depicted as:
<Component1/>
<Component2/>
Solution 1: Hide <Component1/> and Append <Component2/> in the same space.
Solution 2: Remove <Componen1/> and Append <Component2/> in the same space

You are prematurely optimizing. You've probably already spent more engineering time on this problem than it is worth. Option 2 is simpler to implement, simpler to reason about, and is the happy path when working with React.
If, after you've built it, you feel it is performing too slowly, then you should do some performance profiling and find the bottlenecks. Don't worry about Option 1 until, and only if, this profiling suggests that the recreation of the DOM elements is the bottleneck.

Related

Vaadin 23 Excel like grid

I'm in the need of an Excel like grid in an attempt to convert an "application" written in Google Calc to a real application. I've got one implementation using Vaadin, but it (also) suffers from a long page construction. The screenshot below uses a CSS flex grid with individual divs, and given 6 weeks, there are over 5000 individual divs.
Constructing this page takes over 20 seconds, not something users will be happy about. I'm working on a version based on a table, but it does not seem to improve much. In the end the same amount of cells need to be constructed, whether they are DIVs or TDs does not seem to matter much.
Is there a way to construct such a grid in a more speedy way? I'm more than happy to solve "where did the user click?" on the server side. To be aware of: besides the number of cells themselves, each also has specific content, so just getting a grid shown is not enough.
Each component (div, or something else) is managed by the server. So when you have 5000 of them it's quite slow. You need to reduce the number of components managed by the server.
I can't give you a better answer since I don't know the requirements. But the idea is to try to combine some elements.
You have an example of a table generated ( instead of each element one by one) here: https://cookbook.vaadin.com/grid-details-table.
You can also create or own component. There is also a paid add-on: spreadsheet which seems to fit your needs. It's still in preview: https://vaadin.com/roadmap
The problem here is the complexity of the UI itself. Rendering 5000+ cells will be slow what ever method you use and what ever framework you use. There will be big amount of elements in the DOM and you need to load also lot of data upfront. And as you see the result is huge, and it wont fit most screens. So I would recommend further design of the UI. Is it really necessary to show all the weeks at once? Your UI's complexity will already reduce a lot if you show only one week at the time and add buttons to browse the weeks forwards and backwards. But even with that optimization you will have lot of columns. I would consider adding another browsing direction by day. Further knowledge of the actual purpose of the UI will naturally give more insight how to develop it further.

using FlexboxLayout in each other is slow in iOS

I have a lot of FlexLayout element in my template and it is so slow on iOS devices.
i replaced that with StackLayout and now it became little fast than before.
I'd like to know which Layout Container is fastest layout in Nativescript.
There is never one right solution for all various needs, which is why we always have options and that applies to layouts in {N} too.
Learn more about layouts interactively at nslayouts.com and choose the one that suits your use case.
If you show use what exactly you are trying to achieve, we may able to give you some suggestion. There are some general guidelines you may have to follow for better performance,
Avoid nested layouts
Use GridLayout when you need known number of partitions in your UI, the less the number of partitions are, the better the performance would be. Use FlexboxLayout otherwise.
If you just want to stack items in vertical or horizontal order, StackLayout may be a good option. Use FlexboxLayout only when you want to use flex box specific features, like when items has to be wrapped to next line, change order of items etc.,
Try to not use StackLayouts just for the shake of borders around, since you can add border to the component itself.
If you have really complicated heavy UI components, you may load it once the page has completed navigation, that may be faster.
Prefer ListView over Repeater / for loop as much as possible.
By following the above at least I can confirm, I don't hit performance issues in my apps where I have 100s of elements and 10s of partitions on screen. If you still face issues, try creating a Playground example where we can see the issue.
I noticed this same thing with FlexboxLayouts on IOS where I was doing animations with the layouts. It worked great on Android, but was very slow on IOS. I switched it to a GridLayout, and things worked a lot better.

Poor ListView performance on Gluon

I have a custom ListCell implementation, shown in the picture below.
The left side, which represents the date, consisting of 3 labels, put in a VBox and the "CounterContent" consisting of the counter, with a TextField for each digit, contained in a HBox, and two Hboxes containing labels for kWh, kWh/day and so on. And that seem to be just too much, to be running performantly.
I've tried to load the data in a background task, showing a progress indicator, while the task is running, but unlike on desktop, on android the performance is very poor. Whenever I switch to the listview, the garbage collection kicks in, and blocks the ui thread, so that the progress indicator never shows up.
I've tried it on a Huawei Y-300, Android 4.1.1, javafxports 8.60.6 (because javafxports 8.60.7 causes a bug, that makes TextField unusable), and on a Samsung S5 mini, Android 5+. On the Samsung phone the performance in general is way better, just like expected, because of the Ahead-of-Time compilation I guess, but there is still the garbage collection issue. Furthermore after the listview has been populated with cells, the scrolling is not very smooth.
Is the listcell to complex or what else could be the matter for the poor performance?
UPDATE:
After running a lot of tests it seems the unsmooth scrolling is not caused by performance problems. At least on the S5 (javafxports 8.60.7).
I removed all css styling, and replaced the textfields by a single label (the counter node is already a custom control(forgot about that), which lays out the textfields in 2 Regions(not HBoxes) and the nodes of the ListCell are instantiated in the constructor). Furthermore I switched the ListView for a CharmListView and set android.monocle.input.touchRadius=1.
None of these steps resulted in considerable improvement.
Just to clarify: In contrast to the Huawei phone, the scrolling on the S5 and android 5+ is usable, but it's not very smooth, which makes for a unsatisfactory user experience.
On the Huawei (javafxports 8.60.6), changing the counter textfields for a label, gave a significant improvement, but not to the point where the scrolling became usable. Until I set this magical experimental switch: gluon.experimental.performance=true, which makes the listview scrolling lightning fast(after a little warmup delay), but still not really smooth.
There are many reasons why the performance of a complex scene is reduced, so this is just a list of possible ideas that might help improving it, in any order.
ListCell
For starters, the number of nodes in the cell is really high. Notice that every single scroll you make means the full rendering of the virtual flow that holds the visible cells. And for every cell, that means recreating its content all over again.
Without viewing your code I can't tell, but you should avoid creating new instances of every node in the cell all the time, by having just one single instance, and in the updateItem method only change the content of the nodes.
Have a look at this sample. The NoteCell class is a custom cell, where a ListTile is used.
Number of nodes
Have you tried using just a Label to replace the 8 textfields and 3 boxes?
Cache
If you use images downloaded from Internet, use Gluon Charm Down Cache to avoid the same image being downloaded over and over again.
Have a look at this sample. Without the cache, even on desktop the performance is really affected.
Also use the JavaFX built-in cache for any node, trying different cache strategies.
CSS
Complex CSS requires long CPU time. Try to simplify it. Even you can remove the whole CSS for a quick test. Then decide what you may or may not use.
The same goes for animations: Avoid animations, transitions or even CSS effects, if possible.
Custom Control
The counter complex node could probably be replaced by a custom control that optimizes the rendering.
CharmListView
Have you tried using the Gluon Charm CharmListView control instead of the ListView?
There's a new experimental flag that you can use to test a possible optimization that might improve performance while scrolling the list. Set gluon.experimental.performance=true on the java.custom.properties file, and give it a try.
JavaFXPorts version
You mentioned you are using 8.60.6 because of the TextField bug. In this case, are your TextField nodes editable? If not, I'd suggest replacing them with other nodes and running with 8.60.7, since it contains a lot of performance improvements.
Performance tools
Use performance tools like Monitor and use its profiling options so you can trace down any possible bottle neck.
CPU
Last but not least: your mobile device specs are always critical.
Trying to render a complex scene on a Cortex A5, given that "it is the smallest, lowest cost and lowest power ARMv7 application processor", or using a very old Android 4.1.1, can't perform as well as running it on a brand new device with higher specs.
As you also mentioned, running on a Cortex A7 performs "way better". Have a look at this comparison, and find the right architecture for the job.
Anyway, there's always room for improvement, and a lot of effort is put into it. Your feedback is always welcome.

Optimize UI layers in a listview (+screenshots)

I'm analyzing my approach with Gmail's android developer's team approach in order to optimize drawing times and generally create more efficient apps.
My approach:
Below is the hierarchy inside a listview. It's quite straightforward. ExpandableListContentItem extends a Relative layout which has 3 Views:
Gmail app:
The following screenshot is how the listview in Gmail app works (SwipableListView). It's interesting to see that there is only one View (I guess aY extends ConvertationItemView) which in reality is quite more complicated than mine (I see 3 texts, 1 photo, 1 icon/button).
Question:
I would assume that this is a more lightweight approach to get rendered, is it so? Even if it takes me more time to code an optimal single customview per listview item it is worth the performance that it offers?
Finally the only way I know so far is to inflate an existing view inside another which is basically the first approach. I guess now my challenge would be to combine that relativeLayout with the 3 nested views into one. Is that correct?
PS:examples, open source code are welcome.
I would assume that this is a more lightweight approach to get rendered, is it so?
Yes it is. When you consider hierarchy, every parent measures their dimensions and passes it to child views from top to bottom. Reducing layers and having more flat view will save time.
Even if it takes me more time to code an optimal single customview per listview item it is worth the performance that it offers?
Depends on application you are developing. Depends on number of items in a list and how you get them. When you scroll through the list, if you think it is slow you might want to try that approach. I tried it on my previous applications and I could see the difference.
I guess now my challenge would be to combine that relativeLayout with the 3 nested views into one.
I don't know what you mean by combining them but the way Gmail does it that they have their Custom View. You can create your custom view.
Besides that, another thing to consider is overdraw. It is as important as having flat views. If you activate GPU Overdraw from developer tools and look at Gmail app row, you will see 0 overdraw. Make sure your code has no overdraw.
For further reading I would recommend you to check these blogs :
Performance Tuning On Android
Android Performance Case Study

Best way to fit a lot of stuff onto one page

I have created a webpage, but my boss came back saying that the page is too busy. I was just wanting some ideas of how to split up the page e.g. Accordian, tabs etc. What tactics have you implemented to break up a page into different sections?
You already named 2 of the most popular ones: accordions and tabs. The other one you're missing is "rotators".
Here's an example of one: http://www.zurb.com/playground/jquery_image_slider_plugin (also happens to be a good jQuery plugin).
Keep in mind that you can also reduce clutter by using more vertical space and embracing scrolling. Not everything has to be above the fold.

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