Bad Windows Phone 8.x performance

[BeOne Stuttgart]

Anyone using KendoUI mobile listview to build an app running on the three major device types? (iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8.x)

At the moment we are frustrated about the poor Windows Phone 8.x performance. The listview is pretty much unuseable. Terrible slow scrolling. No feedback on pressed rows an so on. 

We are using version of KendoUI. (2014.2.716)

The only device where it runs perfect is an iPhone. But if we only want to target iOS devices, we would go for a native application! ;-)

[BeOne Stuttgart]

Update: Even the official KendoUI Mobile demos perform very bad on Windows Phone 8.x! :-(

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hi,

I would suggest you to turn on the native scrolling mode of the application that performs way better in WP environment. Here is more information about it:

http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/mobile/application#configuration-useNativeScrolling

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Christher]

I experience the same thing on My Lumia 930 with WP8.1 Update. When I turn on native scrolling I can't scroll at all.

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hi Christher,

Can you please extract a runnable sample that we can use in order to reproduce the issue on an actual device?

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Ian]

I am also experiencing similar issues using mobile list view on windows phone 8. My device is Nokia 620 running windows phone 8.1 lumia cyan os version 8.10.12393.890. Unacceptable performance and turning on native scrolling means I can't scroll at all. If someone at Telerik support contacts by email I will supply the URL as I can't release it on a public site without client permission.

Thanks 

Ian

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hello Ian,

Please open a separate support request (not a forum topic) and share the link you have in mind and we will be happy to take a look.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Cyril]

I have exactly the same problem on Windows Phone 8.1

Did you find a fix ?

Thank you. It's reallly important we absolutely can't release our application with these so bad performances.

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hello Cyril,

Please send us a runnable sample of the problematic code, so we can take a look and advise you.

Thank you for the cooperation.

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Cyril]

Hello,

you can easily reproduce the problem with the demo sources available on your site :http://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/mobile-listview/fixedheaders

Add 30 / 50 items in your list to see the bad performance on scrolling.

Thank you.

[Ian]

When is this issue going to be fixed properly?

I took out a support incident and the suggestion was to use native scrolling at a list view level. This partly worked - but some ListViews that get refreshed with new data still don't work. I don't have the time to spend on this project to further investigate - I will just have to accept that my kendo app doesn't work fully on Windows Phone 8.1. Come on Telerik lets have a proper fix for this issue that does not require native scrolling. As Cyril says you can use your own demos to replicate the issue, there should be no excuse for not fixing a critical issue like this in the next release of kendo.

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hello Guys,

Set the nativeScrollingOption on application level as explained here:

http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/javascript/mobile/application#configuration-useNativeScrolling

and tell me if you see any significant improvement.

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Ian]

I have already tried that - no scrolling works at all!

Setting native scrolling at a mobilelistview level sometimes works.

We don't want to have to set native scrolling, just to support windows phone 8.1. What is the issue with kendo and windows phone that prevents Telerik fixing kendo to support properly without native scrolling (that works on IOS and Android)?

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hello Ian,

The problem is really a complex one that requires a lot of changes in the code that supports Windows Phone platform. At the moment I cannot offer you anything different than the native scrolling option that actually uses the built-in mobile browser scrolling, and the way the application behaves with native scrolling is beyond our reach.

We are constantly looking into improving the WP8 performance, so please stay tuned for all the updates coming with the upcoming releases.

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Cyril]

Hello,

Do you have a dead line ? Can you go faster if I open a ticket with my licence ?
I can't use 3 applications on windows phone 8 now !

Native scrolling doesn't work.

Thank you it's very important.

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hello Cyril,

We are doing our best to improve every part of the Kendo UI framework, however the issue with the Windows Phone performance is not a trivial one and currently we still do not have a solution for it. Please also keep in mind that our GitHub repository is always open for any fixes or performance improvements. 

If you have any further questions, please open a separate support request we will be happy to help.

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Cyril]

Hello,

We don't have any skills to try to fix this problem.
For a new project, we have to choose a framework (which must work on WP8) and so, without any dead line to fix this problem, we're really wondering if we can continue with kendo.
It's too bad, because it's a good framework with good components...

If you think by opening a support ticket it will go faster, I'll do it.

Thank you.

[Petyo]

Hi Cyril,

My name is Petyo Ivanov, and I am the developer responsible for the Kendo UI mobile components design and development. There are few major factors regarding the development (or, more like the lack of one) regarding this issue. 

The first and the most important one: As the mobile platforms mature, the javascript based scrolling becomes less and less necessary. It was introduced in the Android 2.*/iOS 4 days, when it was absolutely needed. Compared to the browser one it often feels slow and non-native. I would not recommend using it at all, unless you absolutely need it; the only reasons you would need it is the mobile listview virtual scrolling mode or the pull to refresh feature. In fact, we don't switch to it by default because that would be a huge breaking change for everyone. 

Second, the WP platform so far does not show any signs of market share increase. This, combined with the complex WP8 debugging/inspect/profile support for hybrid apps makes issues like this very hard to address while providing little to no value to most of the users.

Last but not least, I want to mention that we tried to tackle the issue on several occasions, each time resulting in a failure (not to mention many development hours wasted). Given that and the viable alternative present, we will definitely need a major event (for instance, the next IE release, which may improve something), before we look into it again. 

Again, I am sorry that things don't perform as expected out of the box in that case. 

Regards,
Petyo
Telerik

 

 

[Cyril]

Hello, 

We followed your advice and made some tests on our side.

Thanks to the first tests, we were able to came up with these 2 conclusions :

- scrolling a Kendo UI mobile listview is very jerky and random on WP8, no matter whether you test it in the native browser or in a packaged application

- scrolling a simple HTML list in the browser is as fast on WP8 as on Android or iOS

So, we go further with another tests :

1 - use a simple HTML list in a packaged application (no Kendo here) --> Browser or packaged application, for a simple HTML list, there is no differences : it's quick.

2 - reduce the scrollable area (simple list and kendo listview) -> The heigth of the scrollable area seems to have an impact on the kendo listview, making scrolling even more difficult. It doesn't affect the fluidity of the simple list.

3 - use same simple HTML list in a Kendo UI mobile application. This was the most interesting test. We put a simple HTML list in our kendo application, without any kendo component or class in it. --> The result is the same as with a kendo listview. Maybe just a little faster.

These observations allow us to think that the problem is due to the Kendo container itself and not just the listview widget.

Even with data-use-native-scrolling = true it doesn’t work better. The scrolling is done with css style translate3d which seems not working very fast on WP8….

This could be useful to dig into the "translate" style if it is not already done.

[Petyo]

Hello Cyril,

I tested the following view from our demos on a WP 8.1 device, and it seems to work as expected - native scrolling is fast and performant. 

Regards,
Petyo
Telerik

 

 

[Cyril]

This demo is not relevant because we can't see very well if it's slow : the list is too small.
Just go to this page :

http://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/m/index

if you test it on WP8, android and iOS, you will see a difference.

If you test this list on WP8 and after on the same device you go to another url like this one without kendo which manages the scolling :
https://www.google.fr/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=off&q=kendo
It's really different.

Thank you.

[Cyril]

I would like to know what is your WP8 device ?
From our side, we test on Nokia Lumia 820 with WP8.1

Thank you

[Petyo]

Hello Cyril,

the demo view I linked to is using the native view scrolling, like we recommend. The one you point to does not, hence the difference. We are also using the 820 device (WP 8.1).  

Regards,
Petyo
Telerik

 

 

[Eric]

The link http://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/m/index#/ does show a very slow scrolling on windows phone 8.1.

I'm using Mobile MVC how do we set the useNativeScrolling on the application level?

Doing it on the view itself prevent any scrolling.

[Eric]

I have manage to make it work on Windows Phone 8.1, it does seem that responding to the kendoTouch tap event  prevent the listview from scrolling when useNativeScrolling is turned on.

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hello Eric,

Can you please extract a small runnable sample and send it in a separate support request, so we can take a look?

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Robert]

I'm experiencing this show-stopping issue too.

The scrolling performance of the mobile list view is terrible on WP when displaying more than a handful of simple items and native scrolling doesn't work at all (this limitation is listed at the bottom of this page: http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/mobile/native-scrolling).

So what is the solution? You can't build much of a mobile app without a usable list view.

[Eric]

Hello Kiril, 

I will post a support request as soon as possible.

Robert, My solution at the moment is to use useNativeScrolling (true) and not using  kendoTouch tap event and instead add a button on my template to go to my edit page.

Hope it helps.

[Robert]

As suggested in another thread I just tried adding this attribute to some of my slower views:

data-use-native-scrolling="true"

And I now have silky smooth scrolling on WP! Seems to work on Android and iOS as well (which were fine without native scrolling) but I'm concerned about what knock on effects this attribute might have?

[Eric]

I did not encounter any problems at the time.

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hello Guys,

The native scrolling feature just enabled the default scrolling of the browser that is used for running the application. More information about the native scrolling is available here:

http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/mobile/native-scrolling

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik

 

 

[Constantinos Petridis]

Native scrolling is not always an option... what about listviews with more dynamic content that take advantage of features like "Pull to refresh", "Press to load more" etc? These features will not work with native scrolling.

Windows Phones might not have the market share of Android or IPhone but it is getting better (especially with all the windows 10 hype), BTW do you have any insights on how KendoUI mobile performs in windows 10?

[Petyo]

Hello,

you are correct - the features you have listed will not work with native scrolling. However, at this point, we can't offer any alternative. 

Our tests so far show no significant improvement in the performance on Windows 10. 

Regards,
Petyo
Telerik

 

 

[Constantinos Petridis]

Thanks for the honest answer, we will have to find an alternative method of showing large lists with dynamic content loading.