javascriptangularngzone

Angular change detection slow


I have a large array that I am using in a component (component A) with *ngFor with a nested *ngFor.

Component B initialises a jquery plugin which registers a document mousemove event handler, I am using this.zone.runOutsideAngular to init the plugin and I am calling this.ref.detectChanges() in the callback as I need to update the UI on mousemove inside the component B.

Component A is not a child of component B.

As soon as the component A is rendered change detection becomes very slow. the array does not change and I am using the ChangeDetectionStrategy.OnPush strategy for component A but when I fire ref.detectChanges() inside component B, ngDoCheck gets called on component A and I can see a noticeable jank on mousemove.

Is there a way to tell angular to completely ignore the large array of items in component A and allow me to handle when the UI should be updated? I thought that using ChangeDetectionStrategy.OnPush would give me what I need but I have tried removing all @Input()s from component A and anytime I call this.ref.detectChanges() inside component B it is still firing ngDoCheck and it is obvious that this is very slow.

I can scroll through the list of items no issue, but it is when I am triggering the detectChanges inside the mousemove on component B that is causing the issue. I know I could manually update the DOM but I think this would just be a workaround as it would only address the jank on mousemove and not the issue around the change detection being slow.


Solution

  • I have got to the bottom of this issue.

    The problem was that inside component A for the nested *ngFor I was using a child component to render each sub item which meant that although I was using the ChangeDetectionStrategy.OnPush strategy, it still required a ref check for each item.

    I have now moved the html from the child component into component A directly and this has had a huge impact on performance.