Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
How the browser renders a web page (long version)
Search
Mehdi Lahmam B.
April 22, 2016
Programming
500
1
Share
How the browser renders a web page (long version)
Slides for my talk at Mix-It conference
https://www.mix-it.fr/session/2712/
Mehdi Lahmam B.
April 22, 2016
More Decks by Mehdi Lahmam B.
See All by Mehdi Lahmam B.
Beyond code: Becoming a Product Engineer
mehlah
0
47
Possible to measure developer productivity?
mehlah
0
57
PG FDW FTW
mehlah
0
190
Product culture
mehlah
0
92
OpenAPI and AsyncAPI specifications as contracts
mehlah
0
680
Technical Debt
mehlah
1
310
Data informed growth
mehlah
0
260
Serverless Ruby and AWS Lambda
mehlah
0
190
Middleware all the things
mehlah
2
880
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
ふりがな Deep Dive try! Swift Tokyo 2026
watura
0
270
의존성 주입과 모듈화
fornewid
0
160
YJITとZJITにはイカなる違いがあるのか?
nakiym
0
450
実用!Hono RPC2026
yodaka
2
290
Spec-Driven Development with AI Agents (Workshop, May 2026)
antonarhipov
2
260
いつか誰かが、と思っていた フロントエンド刷新5年間の実践知
kiichisugihara
1
250
tRPCの概要と少しだけパフォーマンス
misoton665
2
260
🦞OpenClaw works with AWS
licux
1
320
Back to the roots of date
jinroq
0
630
2026-04-15 Spring IO - I Can See Clearly Now
jonatan_ivanov
1
160
【26新卒研修】OpenAPI/Swagger REST API研修
dip_tech
PRO
0
130
ソースコード→AST→オペコード、の旅を覗いてみる
o0h
PRO
1
120
Featured
See All Featured
30 Presentation Tips
portentint
PRO
1
290
Product Roadmaps are Hard
iamctodd
PRO
55
12k
The Pragmatic Product Professional
lauravandoore
37
7.2k
AI: The stuff that nobody shows you
jnunemaker
PRO
6
620
Breaking role norms: Why Content Design is so much more than writing copy - Taylor Woolridge
uxyall
0
270
Optimising Largest Contentful Paint
csswizardry
37
3.7k
Navigating the Design Leadership Dip - Product Design Week Design Leaders+ Conference 2024
apolaine
0
300
Tell your own story through comics
letsgokoyo
1
910
Rails Girls Zürich Keynote
gr2m
96
14k
Redefining SEO in the New Era of Traffic Generation
szymonslowik
1
290
CoffeeScript is Beautiful & I Never Want to Write Plain JavaScript Again
sstephenson
162
16k
<Decoding/> the Language of Devs - We Love SEO 2024
nikkihalliwell
1
210
Transcript
How.the.browser renders.a.web.page?¬ @mehlah
Mehdi Lahmam @mehlah Insert you fancy title here
The browser
Browser UI Browser Engine Rendering Engine Networking JavaScript Interpreter UI
Backend Data Persistence The browser's high level structure
WebKit
WebKit components WebCore JS Engine Platform API Webkit Embedding API
WebKit based Browser
Network Graphics Fonts Location Sensors … Storage A/V Platform API
WebKit Port (Safari, Safari iOS, Qt, Playstation, …) API Calls Events
Rendering Engine HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint Rendering Engine
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint Rendering Engine
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint Rendering Engine
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint Rendering Engine
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint Rendering Engine
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint Loading &
Parsing
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Network Loading Loading
Split between WebKit and WebCore WebCore/loader WebCore/platform/network FrameLoaderClient 2 paths:
Frames vs Resources Loading
Mostly FrameLoader Instantiates a DocumentLoader object Policy stage: block pop-ups,
cross-process navigation Provisional phase: download or commit Committed phase: start of parsing Loading Frames
Use DocLoader & Cache DocLoader takes a URL talks to
Cache or Loader returns CachedResource CachedResource Handles callbacks produce objects (file, font, …) Loading Subresources
Render Tree Layout ork Loading Parsing HTML CSS DOM CSSOM
Parsing Parsing
Bytes Characters Tokens Nodes DOM 3C 62 6F 64 79
3E 48 65 6C 6C 6F 2C 20 <body>Hello, <span>world!</span></body> StartTag: body Hello, StartTag: span world! Parsing
Parsing <script> will halt the parser as it can alter
the document sync or defer to the rescue Speculative parsing with PreloadScanner Scripts that might need stylesheets are blocked too.
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint The Document
Object Model
<html> <head></head> <body> <p class="wat"> My super markup </p> <div>
<span> Something great </span> </div> </body> </html> HTMLHtmlElement |-- HTMLHeadElement `-- HTMLBodyElement |-- HTMLParagraphElement | `-- Text `-- HTMLDivElement `-- HTMLSpanElement `-- Text
<body> <p class=wat>My super markup <div><span>Something great HTMLHtmlElement |-- HTMLHeadElement
`-- HTMLBodyElement |-- HTMLParagraphElement | `-- Text `-- HTMLDivElement `-- HTMLSpanElement `-- Text
CSSOM HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint
Render Tree HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint
DOM + CSSOM
Render Tree Combines the two object models, style resolution Not
a 1-to-1 mapping of your HTML This is the actual representation of what will show on screen
Render Tree Forest Actually 4 trees : RenderObject tree RenderLayer
tree RenderStyle tree InlineBox tree
RenderObject Tree Owned by DOM tree Only exists for rendered
content Responsible for layout and paint Answers DOM API measurement requests layer tree
RenderObject class RenderObject { virtual void layout(); virtual void paint(PaintInfo);
virtual void rect repaintRect(); Node* node; //the DOM node RenderStyle* style; // the computed style RenderLayer* containgLayer; //the containing layer }
|-- HTMLBodyElement |-- HTMLDivElement |-- Text(“foo”) |-- HTMLSpanElement |-- Text(“bar”)
|-- RenderBlock |-- RenderBlock |-- RenderText(“foo”) |-- RenderInline |-- RenderText(“bar”) DOM representation Render objects RenderObject Tree
|-- HTMLBodyElement |-- HTMLDivElement |-- Text(“foo”) |-- HTMLSpanElement |-- Text(“bar”)
|-- HTMLDivElement |-- Text(“foobar”) |-- RenderBlock |-- RenderBlock |-- RenderBlock(anonymous) |-- RenderText(“foo”) |-- RenderInline |-- RenderText(“bar”) |-- RenderBlock |-- RenderText(“foobar”) DOM representation Render objects Anonymous blocks
RenderStyle Tree Contains all computed style values for renderers Owned
by RenderObject tree RenderObjects share RenderStyles RenderStyles share data members
RenderLayer Tree Like a helper class for rendering Used for
<video>, <canvas> with WebGL, positioned, transformed, transparent, masked, clipped, scrollable, or reflected elements Establishes coordinate space and z-ordering At least one per document, sparsely maps to renderers
InlineBox Tree Owned by RenderBlock One RootInlineBox per lineRootInlineBox has
list of InlineBoxes in that line Each InlineBox has a RenderObject A renderer may have many InlineBoxes relies on RenderBlock for layout
|-- RenderBlock |-- RenderText(“foo”) |-- RenderInline(b) |-- RenderText(“bar”) |-- RenderBR
|-- RenderText(“foobar”) Render Tree Line Box Tree |-- RenderBlock |-- RootInlineBox |-- InlineTextBox(“foo”) |-- InlineFlowBox(b) |-- InlineTextBox(“bar”) |-- InlineBox(br) |-- RootInlineBox |-- InlineTextBox(“foobar”) Markup <div>foo<b>bar</b><br>foobar</div>
Layout HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint Computing
geometric information for each node
Recursive process Traverse Render Tree Nodes position and size Global
and Incremental layouts Layout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTnIxIA5KGw Layout in slow motion
HTML CSS DOM CSSOM Render Tree Layout Paint Display content
on the screen Painting
Painting Generally the more time consuming 10 stages (CSS2 specs)
Global and Incremental All painting commands go to GraphicsContext abstraction Compositing
Painting Promote elements that move or fade .moving-element { will-change:
transform; } .moving-element { transform: translateZ(0); } vs
Painting Don’t promote elements without profiling.
Recap Parsing --> DOMTree DOM Tree --> Render Tree Is
actually 4 trees Layout computes where a Node will be on the screen Painting computes bitmaps and composites to screen
Performance insights
Layout Invalidation div1.style.marginLeft = “10px”; var h1 = div1.clientHeight; div2.classList.add(“x”);
var h2 = div2.clientHeight; doSomething(h1, h2);
Layout Invalidation div1.style.marginLeft = “10px”; // layout invalidated var h1
= div1.clientHeight; // layout div2.classList.add(“x”); // layout invalidated var h2 = div2.clientHeight; // layout doSomething(h1, h2); div1.style.marginLeft = “10px”; // layout invalidated div2.classList.add(“x”); // layout invalidated var h1 = div1.clientHeight; // layout var h2 = div2.clientHeight; doSomething(h1, h2);
Avoid repaints .button:hover { border: 2px solid red; margin: -2px;
} .button { border: 2px solid transparent; } .button:hover { border-color: red; }
A way lot more to learn Let's build a browser
engine! http://limpet.net/mbrubeck/2014/08/08/toy-layout-engine-1.html HTML5 Rocks How Browsers works http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/internals/howbrowserswork Rendering in Webkit https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=RVnARGhhs9w Website Performance Optimization https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/ critical-rendering-path/?hl=en
/_ __/ /_ ____ _____ / /_______ / / /
__ \/ __ `/ __ \/ //_/ ___/ / / / / / / /_/ / / / / ,< (__ ) /_/ /_/ /_/\__,_/_/ /_/_/|_/____/