What is the most efficient between IF and showWhen=False ?

RE: What is the most efficient between IF and showWhen=False ?

cedric02 — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 17:57:55 GMT

Thanks a lot David for your reply

RE: What is the most efficient between IF and showWhen=False ?

davel001150 — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 14:23:53 GMT

Premature optimization is the root of all evil. I just use showWhen quite extensively. I did find one case, however, where showWhen didn't behave as I intended, but if condition worked quite well. I think there can be a difference between when a component and related code is hidden from the user, and when the if returns false so absolutely NONE of the associated code even runs.

Unless you need to if(), a good example is when the component doesn't have a showWhen, I would use showWhen. It probably is the tiniest bit better, and certainly more maintainable, or Appian wouldn't have bothered inventing it.

RE: What is the most efficient between IF and showWhen=False ?

cedric02 — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 10:46:30 GMT

Thank you for your reply Stefan.

RE: What is the most efficient between IF and showWhen=False ?

Stefan Helzle — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 10:45:52 GMT

This is what I experienced in the past. Yes.

When doing Performance optimizations, I pick the big candidates first. Most of the time these are issues in DB access or slow web services.

RE: What is the most efficient between IF and showWhen=False ?

cedric02 — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 10:41:56 GMT

so Stefan you confirm, (leaving the readable aspect left aside) that the 1/ and 2/ cases (showwhen) are as much as efficient than the case 3/ (using the IF) ?

RE: What is the most efficient between IF and showWhen=False ?

Stefan Helzle — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 10:37:10 GMT

AFAIK this will not have any significant impact on performance. I try to create readable code. And putting showwhens into a larger number of components is not readable/understandable.

I created by own component which just takes a number of components and a showWhen. It does nothing else then showing/hiding a bunch of components. Works pretty well in cases where I do not want to add any layout or section.