Performance Considerations

Performance considerations with Tables

@angular/flex-layout performs extremely well for most usage scenarios EXCEPT large tables.

Developers generating dynamic tables (using *ngFor) should be aware of performance impacts using flex-layout directives.

For small number of rows (eg. < 100), @angular/flex-layout is a excellent choice for layouts. Consider the table definition below were each row has column elements; each using a fxFlex. Since the directives apply styles inline for each element in each row, large tables may manifest performance impacts with dynamic inline stylings.

<div *ngFor="let obj of data" fxLayout fxLayout.xs="column">
  <div fxFlex="40" >{{obj.origin}}</div>
  <div fxFlex="40" >{{obj.destination}}</div>
  <div fxFlex="20" >{{obj.price}}</div>
</div>  

Note that both the initial and media-query-triggered layout phase manifest redraw-performance issues.

Impacts of "column" flex-direction

Dynamic-inline-styling performance impacts are especially noticeable for column layouts.

Developers should note that FlexBox CSS with flex-direction = "column" requires significantly more webkit engine processing to properly adjust column heights and layout the composition. Reduce the demo viewport size to < 600px (to force a column direction layout).

Use Responsive Class API for large Tables

For responsive table layouts with large number of rows, developers should use the responsive class API to specify a flexbox CSS style class instead of inline flexbox styles.

Below we are using the responsive class and class.xs API to specify class names. Notice that mobile devices will use a flow-direction == "column":

    <div *ngFor="let obj of data" class="flow row" class.xs="flow column">
      <div class="item_40"> {{obj.origin}}      </div>
      <div class="item_40"> {{obj.destination}} </div>
      <div class="item_20"> {{obj.price}}       </div>
    </div>  

Custom Flexbox CSS

.flow { 
  display: flex;  
  box-sizing: border-box;   
  -webkit-box-direction: normal;   

  .row { 
    flex-direction: row;      
    -webkit-box-orient: horizontal;   
  }

  .column { 
     flex-direction: column;   
     -webkit-box-orient: vertical;  
     height:100px;       /*  important for sizing of row heights */
     margin-bottom: 20px;   
  }
}

.item_40, .item_20 {  
  flex: 1 1 100%;   
  box-sizing: border-box;   
  -webkit-box-flex: 1; 
}

.row     .item_40 {  max-width: 40%; }
.row     .item_20 {  max-width: 20%; }

.column  .item_40 {   max-height: 40%; }
.column  .item_20 {  max-height: 20%; }

This class-based approach performs very well by leveraging stylesheets instead of inline-styles. Here is an online Plunkr - Flex-Layout Performance that demonstrates the issue (see Use fxLayout button) and solution (see Use CSS button).