Realm/iOS: Bumpy scrolling performance for UICollectionView - ios

Question

I am using Realm as the alternative for coredata for the first time.
Sadly, I had this bumpy scrolling issue(It is not too bad, but quite obvious) for collectionView when I try Realm out. No data were downloaded blocking the main thread, I use local stored image instead.
Another issue is when I push to another collectionVC, if the current VC will pass data to the other one, the segue is also quite bumpy.
I am guessing it is because of the way I write this children property in the Realm Model. But I do not know what might be the good way to compute this array of array value (merging different types of list into one)
A big thank you in advance!!
Here is the main model I use for the collectionView
class STInstitution: STHierarchy, STContainer {
let boxes = List<STBox>()
let collections = List<STCollection>()
let volumes = List<STVolume>()
override dynamic var _type: ReamlEnum {
return ReamlEnum(value: ["rawValue": STHierarchyType.institution.rawValue])
}
var children: [[AnyObject]] {
var result = [[AnyObject]]()
var tempArr = [AnyObject]()
boxes.forEach{ tempArr.append($0) }
result.append(tempArr)
tempArr.removeAll()
collections.forEach{ tempArr.append($0) }
result.append(tempArr)
tempArr.removeAll()
volumes.forEach{ tempArr.append($0) }
result.append(tempArr)
return result
}
var hierarchyProperties: [String] {
return ["boxes", "collections", "volumes"]
}
}
Here is how I implement the UICollectionViewController:
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
self.collectionView?.alwaysBounceVertical = true
dataSource = STRealmDB.query(fromRealm: realm, ofType: STInstitution.self, query: "ownerId = '\(STUser.currentUserId)'")
}
// MARK: - datasource:
override func numberOfSections(in collectionView: UICollectionView) -> Int {
// #warning Incomplete implementation, return the number of sections
return 1
}
override func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, numberOfItemsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
// #warning Incomplete implementation, return the number of items
guard let dataSource = dataSource else { return 0 }
return dataSource.count
}
override func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell {
let cell = collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: reuseIdentifier, for: indexPath) as! STArchiveCollectionViewCell
guard let dataSource = dataSource,
dataSource.count > indexPath.row else {
return cell
}
let item = dataSource[indexPath.row]
DispatchQueue.main.async {
cell.configureUI(withHierarchy: item)
}
return cell
}
// MARK: - Open Item
func pushToDetailView(dataSource: [[AnyObject]], titles: [String]) {
guard let vc = storyboard?.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: STStoryboardIds.archiveDetailVC.rawValue) as? STArchiveDetailVC
else { return }
vc.dataSource = dataSource
vc.sectionTitles = titles
self.navigationController?.pushViewController(vc, animated: true)
}
override func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
guard let dataSource = self.dataSource,
dataSource.count > indexPath.row else {
return
}
let item = dataSource[indexPath.row]
self.pushToDetailView(dataSource: item.children, titles: item.hierarchyProperties)
}
Modification(more codes on configureUI):
// configureUI
// data.type is an enum type
func configureUI<T: STHierarchy>(withHierarchy data: T) {
print("data", kHierarchyCoverImage + "\(data.type)")
titleLabel.text = data.title
let image = data.type.toUIImage()
self.imageView.image = image
}
// toUIImage of enum data.type
func toUIImage() -> UIImage {
let key = kHierarchyCoverImage + "\(self.rawValue)" as NSString
if let image = STCache.imageCache.object(forKey: key) {
return image
}else{
print("toUIImage")
let defaultImage = UIImage(named: "institution")
let image = UIImage(named: "\(self)") ?? defaultImage!
STCache.imageCache.setObject(image, forKey: key)
return image
}
}

Answer 1

If your UI is bumpy when you're scrolling, it simply means the operations you're performing in collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, cellForItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UICollectionViewCell are too heavy.
Realm itself is structured in such a way that reading data from objects is very fast, so you shouldn't be seeing substantial dropped frames if all you're doing is populating a cell with values from Realm.
A couple of considerations:
If you're calling item.children inside the cellForItem block method, since you're manually looping through and paging in every Realm object doing that, that will cause frame drops. If you are, it'd be best to either do that ahead of time, or re-desing the logic to only access those arrays when absolutely needed.
You mentioned you're including images. Even if the images are on disk, unless you force image decompression ahead of time, Core Animation will lazily decompress the image at draw time on the main thread which can severely kill scroll performance. See this question for more info.
The cellForItemAt method call should already be on the main thread, so configuring your cell in a DispatchQueue.main.async closure seems un-necessary, and given that it's not synchronous, may be causing additional issues by running out of order.
Collection views are notoriously hard for performance since entire rows of cells used to be created and configured in one run loop iteration. This behavior was changed in iOS 10 to spread cell creation out across multiple run loop iterations. See this WWDC video for tips on optimizing your collection view code to take advantage of this.
If you're still having trouble, please post up more of your sample code; most importantly, the contents of configureUI. Thanks!

Answer 2

Turned out I was focusing on the wrong side. My lack of experience with Realm made me feel that there must be something wrong I did with Realm. However, the true culprit was I forgot to define the path for shadow of my customed cell, which is really expensive to draw repeatedly. I did not find this until I used the time profile to check which methods are taking the most CPU, and I should have done it in the first place.