SAPUI5 is a versatile and robust framework for building enterprise-grade web applications. However, as applications grow in complexity and scale, performance issues may arise, impacting user experience. Profiling SAPUI5 applications to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks is critical to ensure smooth, responsive, and efficient applications.
This article guides SAPUI5 developers through techniques and tools to profile UI5 applications effectively, pinpoint performance issues, and optimize their apps.
Profiling helps you:
- Identify slow rendering components.
- Detect expensive data-binding operations.
- Pinpoint memory leaks.
- Monitor network latency and payload sizes.
- Improve application startup time.
Effective profiling enables developers to focus their optimization efforts where it matters most.
The most widely used tool to analyze front-end performance.
- Performance Tab: Records CPU usage, scripting, rendering, and painting times.
- Memory Tab: Detects memory leaks and excessive garbage collection.
- Network Tab: Monitors HTTP requests and response times.
- Coverage Tab: Identifies unused JavaScript and CSS.
- Support Assistant: SAPUI5 built-in diagnostics tool that flags common performance issues.
- F12 Diagnostics Tool: Provides insights on control lifecycle and event handling.
An extension that allows inspection of UI5 controls, models, and event handlers in runtime.
- Boot time: Time taken to load UI5 libraries.
- Component initialization: Time to initialize root components.
- View rendering: Duration to render initial views.
- Use Chrome DevTools Performance recording.
- Look for long tasks and scripting times.
- Analyze the network waterfall to check large or blocking requests.
- Use component preload (
Component-preload.js).
- Load only required libraries.
- Defer loading of non-critical controls using lazy loading.
Rendering can be expensive when:
- Large control trees are rendered.
- Controls have complex aggregations.
- Re-rendering occurs unnecessarily.
- Use Performance Tab to observe frequent reflows/repaints.
- Enable UI5’s internal logging:
sap.ui.getCore().attachEvent("renderingFinished", ...)
- Use Chrome DevTools’ Layers and Rendering tools to visualize repaints.
- Minimize use of heavy controls like tables with large datasets.
- Use Fragments instead of full views for reusable UI parts.
- Optimize binding expressions and formatters.
- Use One-way binding where possible instead of two-way.
¶ 5. Monitoring Data Binding and Model Usage
Binding large datasets or complex OData queries can slow down the app.
- Use Aggregation Binding with filters and sorters on the backend.
- Limit the number of bound items in controls like
sap.m.List or sap.ui.table.Table.
- Use Deferred Groups in OData v2 to batch requests.
- Use OData v4 model with improved caching and batch features.
Memory leaks cause degraded performance over time.
- Use Chrome DevTools Memory snapshots.
- Take heap snapshots before and after user interactions.
- Look for retained objects that shouldn’t exist anymore.
- Detach event handlers when controls are destroyed.
- Avoid global variables referencing UI5 controls.
- Use
destroy() method on controls and models no longer needed.
Slow or large payloads can delay UI updates.
- Analyze network requests using Chrome DevTools Network tab.
- Check payload sizes and number of requests.
- Use SAP Gateway tools to analyze OData service performance.
- Use
$select and $filter to reduce payload size.
- Implement pagination (
$top and $skip).
- Cache frequently used data.
- Compress payloads (GZIP).
| Area |
Recommendation |
| Startup Performance |
Use component preload and lazy loading |
| Rendering |
Reduce control tree size and avoid unnecessary re-renders |
| Data Binding |
Optimize OData queries and use aggregation binding |
| Memory Management |
Clean up event handlers and destroy controls |
| Network |
Minimize payload size and batch requests |
Profiling SAPUI5 applications is indispensable for delivering high-performance, responsive, and scalable enterprise apps. Leveraging browser tools like Chrome DevTools combined with SAP-specific diagnostics tools allows developers to identify bottlenecks efficiently. Following best practices in rendering, data binding, memory management, and network optimization ensures an exceptional user experience and maximizes application efficiency.