# Performance best practices for IceCat front-end engineers

This guide will help IceCat developers working on front-end code
produce code which is as performant as possible—not just on its own, but
in terms of its impact on other parts of IceCat. Always keep in mind
the side effects your changes may have, from blocking other tasks, to
interfering with other user interface elements.

## Avoid the main thread where possible

The main thread is where we process user events and do painting. It's
also important to note that most of our JavaScript runs on the main
thread, so it's easy for script to cause delays in event processing or
painting. That means that the more code we can get off of the main
thread, the more that thread can respond to user events, paint, and
generally be responsive to the user.

You might want to consider using a Worker if you need to do some
computation that can be done off of the main thread. If you need more
elevated privileges than a standard worker allows, consider using a
ChromeWorker, which is a IceCat-only API which lets you create
workers with more elevated privileges.

## Use requestIdleCallback()

If you simply cannot avoid doing some kind of long job on the main
thread, try to break it up into smaller pieces that you can run when the
browser has a free moment to spare, and the user isn't doing anything.
You can do that using **requestIdleCallback()** and the [Cooperative
Scheduling of Background Tasks API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Background_Tasks_API),
and doing it only when we have a free second where presumably the user
isn’t doing something.

See also the blog post [Collective scheduling with requestIdleCallback](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/11/cooperative-scheduling-with-requestidlecallback/).

As of [bug 1353206](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1353206),
you can also schedule idle events in non-DOM contexts by using
**Services.tm.idleDispatchToMainThread**. See the
**nsIThreadManager.idl** file for more details.

## Hide your panels

If you’re adding a new XUL *\<xul:popup\>* or *\<xul:panel\>* to a
document, set the **hidden** attribute to **true** by default. By doing
so, you cause the binding applied on demand rather than at load time,
which makes initial construction of the XUL document faster.

## Get familiar with the pipeline that gets pixels to the screen

Learn how pixels you draw make their way to the screen. Knowing the path
they will take through the various layers of the browser engine will
help you optimize your code to avoid pitfalls.

The rendering process goes through the following steps:

![This is the pipeline that a browser uses to get pixels to the screen](img/rendering.png)

The above image is used under [Creative Commons Attribution 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/),
courtesy of [this page](https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/rendering/avoid-large-complex-layouts-and-layout-thrashing)
from our friends at Google, which itself is well worth the read.

For a very down-to-earth explanation of the Style, Layout, Paint and
Composite steps of the pipeline, [this Hacks blog post](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-engine-quantum-css-aka-stylo/)
does a great job of explaining it.

To achieve a 60 FPS frame rate, all of the above has to happen in 16
milliseconds or less, every frame.

Note that **requestAnimationFrame()** lets you queue up JavaScript to
**run right before the style flush occurs**. This allows you to put all
of your DOM writes (most importantly, anything that could change the
size or position of things in the DOM) just before the style and layout
steps of the pipeline, combining all the style and layout calculations
into a single batch so it all happens once, in a single frame tick,
instead of across multiple frames.

See [Detecting and avoiding synchronous reflow](#detecting-and-avoiding-synchronous-reflow)
below for more information.

This also means that *requestAnimationFrame()* is **not a good place**
to put queries for layout or style information.

## Detecting and avoiding synchronous style flushes

### What are style flushes?
When CSS is applied to a document (HTML or XUL, it doesn’t matter), the
browser does calculations to figure out which CSS styles will apply to
each element. This happens the first time the page loads and the CSS is
initially applied, but can happen again if JavaScript modifies the DOM.

JavaScript code might, for example, change DOM node attributes (either
directly or by adding or removing classes from elements), and can also
add, remove, or delete DOM nodes. Because styles are normally scoped to
the entire document, the cost of doing these style calculations is
proportional to the number of DOM nodes in the document (and the number
of styles being applied).

It is expected that over time, script will update the DOM, requiring us
to recalculate styles. Normally, the changes to the DOM just result in
the standard style calculation occurring immediately after the
JavaScript has finished running during the 16ms window, inside the
"Style" step. That's the ideal scenario.

However, it's possible for script to do things that force multiple style
calculations (or **style flushes**) to occur synchronously during the
JavaScript part of the 16 ms window. The more of them there are, the
more likely they'll exceed the 16ms frame budget. If that happens, some
of them will be postponed until the next frame (or possibly multiple
frames, if necessary), this skipping of frames is called **jank**.

Generally speaking, you force a synchronous style flush any time you
query for style information after the DOM has changed within the same
frame tick. Depending on whether or not [the style information you’re
asking for has something to do with size or position](https://gist.github.com/paulirish/5d52fb081b3570c81e3a)
you may also cause a layout recalculation (also referred to as *layout
flush* or *reflow*), which is also an expensive step see [Detecting
and avoiding synchronous reflow](#detecting-and-avoiding-synchronous-reflow) below.

To avoid this: avoid reading style information if you can. If you *must*
read style information, do so at the very beginning of the frame, before
any changes have been made to the DOM since the last time a style flush
occurred.

Historically, there hasn't been an easy way of doing this - however,
[bug 1434376](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1434376)
has landed some ChromeOnly helpers to the window binding to
make this simpler.

If you want to queue up some JavaScript to run after the next *natural*
style and layout flush, try:


    // Suppose we want to get the computed "display" style of some node without
    // causing a style flush. We could do it this way:
    async function nodeIsDisplayNone(node) {
      let display = await window.promiseDocumentFlushed(() => {
        // Do _not_ under any circumstances write to the DOM in one of these
        // callbacks!
        return window.getComputedStyle(node).display;
      });

      return display == "none";
    }

See [Detecting and avoiding synchronous reflow](#detecting-and-avoiding-synchronous-reflow)
for a more advanced example of getting layout information, and then
setting it safely, without causing flushes.

bestpractices.html#detecting-and-avoiding-synchronous-reflow


*promiseDocumentFlushed* is only available to privileged script, and
should be called on the inner window of a top-level frame. Calling it on
the outer window of a subframe is not supported, and calling it from
within the inner window of a subframe might cause the callback to fire
even though a style and layout flush will still be required. These
gotchas should be fixed by
[bug 1441173](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1441173).

For now, it is up to you as the consumer of this API to not accidentally
write to the DOM within the *promiseDocumentFlushed* callback. Doing
so might cause flushes to occur for other *promiseDocumentFlushed*
callbacks that are scheduled to fire in the same tick of the refresh
driver.
[bug 1441168](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1441168)
tracks work to make it impossible to modify the DOM within a
*promiseDocumentFlushed* callback.

### Writing tests to ensure you don’t add more synchronous style flushes

Unlike reflow, there isn’t a “observer” mechanism for style
recalculations. However, as of IceCat 49, the
*nsIDOMWindowUtils.elementsRestyled* attribute records a count of how
many style calculations have occurred for a particular DOM window.

It should be possible to write a test that gets the
*nsIDOMWindowUtils* for a browser window, records the number of
styleFlushes, then **synchronously calls the function** that you want to
test, and immediately after checks the styleFlushes attribute again. If
the value went up, your code caused synchronous style flushes to occur.

Note that your test and function *must be called synchronously* in order
for this test to be accurate. If you ever go back to the event loop (by
yielding, waiting for an event, etc), style flushes unrelated to your
code are likely to run, and your test will give you a false positive.

## Detecting and avoiding synchronous reflow

This is also sometimes called “sync layout”, "sync layout flushes" or
“sync layout calculations”

*Sync reflow* is a term bandied about a lot, and has negative
connotations. It's not unusual for an engineer to have only the vaguest
sense of what it is—and to only know to avoid it. This section will
attempt to demystify things.

The first time a document (XUL or HTML) loads, we parse the markup, and
then apply styles. Once the styles have been calculated, we then need to
calculate where things are going to be placed on the page. This layout
step can be seen in the “16ms” pipeline graphic above, and occurs just
before we paint things to be composited for the user to see.

It is expected that over time, script will update the DOM, requiring us
to recalculate styles, and then update layout. Normally, however, the
changes to the DOM just result in the standard style calculation that
occurs immediately after the JavaScript has finished running during the
16ms window.

### Interruptible reflow

Since [the early days](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=67752), Gecko has
had the notion of interruptible reflow. This is a special type of
**content-only** reflow that checks at particular points whether or not
it should be interrupted (usually to respond to user events).

Because **interruptible reflows can only be interrupted when laying out
content, and not chrome UI**, the rest of this section is offered only
as context.

When an interruptible reflow is interrupted, what really happens is that
certain layout operations can be skipped in order to paint and process
user events sooner.

When an interruptible reflow is interrupted, the best-case scenario is
that all layout is skipped, and the layout operation ends.

The worst-case scenario is that none of the layout can be skipped
despite being interrupted, and the entire layout calculation occurs.

Reflows that are triggered "naturally" by the 16ms tick are all
considered interruptible. Despite not actually being interuptible when
laying out chrome UI, striving for interruptible layout is always good
practice because uninterruptible layout has the potential to be much
worse (see next section).

**To repeat, only interruptible reflows in web content can be
interrupted.**

### Uninterruptible reflow

Uninterruptible reflow is what we want to **avoid at all costs**.
Uninterruptible reflow occurs when some DOM node’s styles have changed
such that the size or position of one or more nodes in the document will
need to be updated, and then **JavaScript asks for the size or position
of anything**. Since everything is pending a reflow, the answer isn't
available, so everything stalls until the reflow is complete and the
script can be given an answer. Flushing layout also means that styles
must be flushed to calculate the most up-to-date state of things, so
it's a double-whammy.

Here’s a simple example, cribbed from [this blog post by Paul
Rouget](http://paulrouget.com/e/fxoshud):


    div1.style.margin = "200px";        // Line 1
    var height1 = div1.clientHeight;    // Line 2
    div2.classList.add("foobar");       // Line 3
    var height2 = div2.clientHeight;    // Line 4
    doSomething(height1, height2);      // Line 5

At line 1, we’re setting some style information on a DOM node that’s
going to result in a reflow - but (at just line 1) it’s okay, because
that reflow will happen after the style calculation.

Note line 2 though - we’re asking for the height of some DOM node. This
means that Gecko needs to synchronously calculate layout (and styles)
using an uninterruptible reflow in order to answer the question that
JavaScript is asking (“What is the *clientHeight* of *div1*?”).

It’s possible for our example to avoid this synchronous, uninterruptible
reflow by moving lines 2 and 4 above line 1. Assuming there weren’t any
style changes requiring size or position recalculation above line 1, the
*clientHeight* information should be cached since the last reflow, and
will not result in a new layout calculation.

If you can avoid querying for the size or position of things in
JavaScript, that’s the safest option—especially because it’s always
possible that something earlier in this tick of JavaScript execution
caused a style change in the DOM without you knowing it.

Note that given the same changes to the DOM of a chrome UI document, a
single synchronous uninterruptible reflow is no more computationally
expensive than an interruptible reflow triggered by the 16ms tick. It
is, however, advantageous to strive for reflow to only occur in the one
place (the layout step of the 16ms tick) as opposed to multiple times
during the 16ms tick (which has a higher probability of running through
the 16ms budget).

### How do I avoid triggering uninterruptible reflow?

Here's a [list of things that JavaScript can ask for that can cause
uninterruptible reflow](https://gist.github.com/paulirish/5d52fb081b3570c81e3a), to
help you think about the problem. Note that some items in the list may
be browser-specific or subject to change, and that an item not occurring
explicitly in the list doesn't mean it doesn't cause reflow. For
instance, at time of writing accessing *event.rangeOffset* [triggers
reflow](https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/6bfadf95b4a6aaa8bb3b2a166d6c3545983e179a/dom/events/UIEvent.cpp#215-226)
in Gecko, and does not occur in the earlier link. If you're unsure
whether something causes reflow, check!

Note how abundant the properties in that first list are. This means that
when enumerating properties on DOM objects (e.g. elements/nodes, events,
windows, etc.) **accessing the value of each enumerated property will
almost certainly (accidentally) cause uninterruptible reflow**, because
a lot of DOM objects have one or even several properties that do so.

If you require size or position information, you have a few options.

[bug 1434376](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1434376)
has landed a helper in the window binding to make it easier for
privileged code to queue up JavaScript to run when we know that the DOM
is not dirty, and size, position, and style information is cheap to
query for.

Here's an example:

    async function matchWidth(elem, otherElem) {
      let width = await window.promiseDocumentFlushed(() => {
        // Do _not_ under any circumstances write to the DOM in one of these
        // callbacks!
        return elem.clientWidth;
      });

      requestAnimationFrame(() => {
        otherElem.style.width = `${width}px`;
      });
    }

Please see the section on *promiseDocumentFlushed* in [Detecting and
avoiding synchronous style flushes](#detecting-and-avoiding-synchronous-style-flushes)
for more information on how to use the API.

Note that queries for size and position information are only expensive
if the DOM has been written to. Otherwise, we're doing a cheap look-up
of cached information. If we work hard to move all DOM writes into
*requestAnimationFrame()*, then we can be sure that all size and
position queries are cheap.

It's also possible (though less infallible than
*promiseDocumentFlushed*) to queue JavaScript to run very soon after
the frame has been painted, where the likelihood is highest that the DOM
has not been written to, and layout and style information queries are
still cheap. This can be done by using a *setTimeout* or dispatching a
runnable inside a *requestAnimationFrame* callback, for example:


    requestAnimationFrame(() => {
      setTimeout(() => {
        // This code will be run ASAP after Style and Layout information have
        // been calculated and the paint has occurred. Unless something else
        // has dirtied the DOM very early, querying for style and layout information
        // here should be cheap.
      }, 0);
    });

    // Or, if you are running in privileged JavaScript and want to avoid the timer overhead,
    // you could also use:

    requestAnimationFrame(() => {
      Services.tm.dispatchToMainThread(() => {
        // Same-ish as above.
      });
    });

This also implies that *querying for size and position information* in
*requestAnimationFrame()* has a high probability of causing a
synchronous reflow.

### Other useful methods

Below you'll find some suggestions for other methods which may come in
handy when you need to do things without incurring synchronous reflow.
These methods generally return the most-recently-calculated value for
the requested value, which means the value may no longer be current, but
may still be "close enough" for your needs. Unless you need precisely
accurate information, they can be valuable tools in your performance
toolbox.

#### nsIDOMWindowUtils.getBoundsWithoutFlushing()

*getBoundsWithoutFlushing()* does exactly what its name suggests: it
allows you to get the bounds rectangle for a DOM node contained in a
window without flushing layout. This means that the information you get
is potentially out-of-date, but allows you to avoid a sync reflow. If
you can make do with information that may not be quite current, this can
be helpful.

#### nsIDOMWindowUtils.getRootBounds()

Like *getBoundsWithoutFlushing()*, *getRootBounds()* lets you get
the dimensions of the window without risking a synchronous reflow.

#### nsIDOMWindowUtils.getScrollXY()

Returns the window's scroll offsets without taking the chance of causing
a sync reflow.

### Writing tests to ensure you don’t add more unintentional reflow

The interface
[nsIReflowObserver](https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/docshell/base/nsIReflowObserver.idl)
lets us detect both interruptible and uninterruptible reflows. A number
of tests have been written that exercise various functions of the
browser [opening tabs](http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/78cefe75fb43195e7f5aee1d8042b8d8fc79fc70/browser/base/content/test/general/browser_tabopen_reflows.js),
[opening windows](http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/base/content/test/general/browser_windowopen_reflows.js)
and ensure that we don’t add new uninterruptible reflows accidentally
while those actions occur.

You should add tests like this for your feature if you happen to be
touching the DOM.

## Detecting over-painting

Painting is, in general, cheaper than both style calculation and layout
calculation; still, the more you can avoid, the better. Generally
speaking, the larger an area that needs to be repainted, the longer it
takes. Similarly, the more things that need to be repainted, the longer
it takes.

If a profile says a lot of time is spent in painting or display-list building,
and you're unsure why, consider talking to our always helpful graphics team in
the [gfx room](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/%23gfx:mozilla.org) on
[Matrix](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix), and they can probably advise you.

Note that a significant number of the graphics team members are in the US
Eastern Time zone (UTC-5 or UTC-4 during Daylight Saving Time), so let that
information guide your timing when you ask questions in the
[gfx room](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/%23gfx:mozilla.org).

## Adding nodes using DocumentFragments

Sometimes you need to add several DOM nodes as part of an existing DOM
tree. For example, when using XUL *\<xul:menupopup\>s*, you often have
script which dynamically inserts *\<xul:menuitem\>s*. Inserting items
into the DOM has a cost. If you're adding a number of children to a DOM
node in a loop, it's often more efficient to batch them into a single
insertion by creating a *DocumentFragment*, adding the new nodes to
that, then inserting the *DocumentFragment* as a child of the desired
node.

A *DocumentFragment* is maintained in memory outside the DOM itself,
so changes don't cause reflow. The API is straightforward:

1. Create the *DocumentFragment* by calling
   *Document.createDocumentFragment()*.

2. Create each child element (by calling *Document.createElement()*
   for example), and add each one to the fragment by calling
   *DocumentFragment.appendChild()*.

3. Once the fragment is populated, append the fragment to the DOM by
   calling *appendChild()* on the parent element for the new elements.

This example has been cribbed from [davidwalsh’s blog
post](https://davidwalsh.name/documentfragment):


    // Create the fragment

    var frag = document.createDocumentFragment();

    // Create numerous list items, add to fragment

    for(var x = 0; x < 10; x++) {
        var li = document.createElement("li");
        li.innerHTML = "List item " + x;
        frag.appendChild(li);
    }

    // Mass-add the fragment nodes to the list

    listNode.appendChild(frag);

The above is strictly cheaper than individually adding each node to the
DOM.

## The Gecko profiler add-on is your friend

The Gecko profiler is your best friend when diagnosing performance
problems and looking for bottlenecks. There’s plenty of excellent
documentation on MDN about the Gecko profiler:

-  [Basic instructions for gathering and sharing a performance profile](reporting_a_performance_problem.md)

-  [Advanced profile analysis](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/Profiling_with_the_Built-in_Profiler)

## Don’t guess—measure.

If you’re working on a performance improvement, this should go without
saying: ensure that what you care about is actually improving by
measuring before and after.

Landing a speculative performance enhancement is the same thing as
landing speculative bug fixes—these things need to be tested. Even if
that means instrumenting a function with a *Date.now()* recording at
the entrance, and another *Date.now()* at the exit points in order to
measure processing time changes.

Prove to yourself that you’ve actually improved something by measuring
before and after.

### Use the performance API

The [performance
API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API)
is very useful for taking high-resolution measurements. This is usually
much better than using your own hand-rolled timers to measure how long
things take. You access the API through *Window.performance*.

Also, the Gecko profiler back-end is in the process of being modified to
expose things like markers (from *window.performance.mark()*).

### Use the compositor for animations

Performing animations on the main thread should be treated as
**deprecated**. Avoid doing it. Instead, animate using
*Element.animate()*. See the article [Animating like you just don't
care](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/08/animating-like-you-just-dont-care-with-element-animate/)
for more information on how to do this.

### Explicitly define start and end animation values

Some optimizations in the animation code of Gecko are based on an
expectation that the *from* (0%) and the *to* (100%) values will be
explicitly defined in the *@keyframes* definition. Even though these
values may be inferred through the use of initial values or the cascade,
the offscreen animation optimizations are dependent on the explicit
definition. See [this comment](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1419096#c18)
and a few previous comments on that bug for more information.

## Use IndexedDB for storage

[AppCache](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/IceCat/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Using_the_application_cache)
and
[LocalStorage](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Storage/LocalStorage)
are synchronous storage APIs that will block the main thread when you
use them. Avoid them at all costs!

[IndexedDB](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/IndexedDB_API/Using_IndexedDB)
is preferable, as the API is asynchronous (all disk operations occur off
of the main thread), and can be accessed from web workers.

IndexedDB is also arguably better than storing and retrieving JSON from
a file—particularly if the JSON encoding or decoding is occurring on the
main thread. IndexedDB will do JavaScript object serialization and
deserialization for you using the [structured clone
algorithm](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers_API/Structured_clone_algorithm)
meaning that you can stash [things like maps, sets, dates, blobs, and
more](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers_API/Structured_clone_algorithm#Supported_types)
without having to do conversions for JSON compatibility.

A Promise-based wrapper for IndexedDB,
[IndexedDB.sys.mjs](http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/modules/IndexedDB.sys.mjs)
is available for chrome code.

## Test on weak hardware

For the folks paid to work on IceCat, we tend to have pretty powerful
hardware for development. This is great, because it reduces build times,
and means we can do our work faster.

We should remind ourselves that the majority of our user base is
unlikely to have similar hardware. Look at the [IceCat Hardware
Report](https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware) to get
a sense of what our users are working with. Test on slower machines to
make it more obvious to yourself if what you’ve written impacts the
performance of the browser.

## Consider loading scripts with the subscript loader asynchronously

If you've ever used the subscript loader, you might not know that it can
load scripts asynchronously, and return a Promise once they're loaded.
For example:


    Services.scriptloader.loadSubScriptWithOptions(myScriptURL, { async: true }).then(() => {
      console.log("Script at " + myScriptURL + " loaded asynchronously!");
    });
