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
1
450
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
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Mehdi Lahmam B.
See All by Mehdi Lahmam B.
Possible to measure developer productivity?
mehlah
0
41
PG FDW FTW
mehlah
0
160
Product culture
mehlah
0
60
OpenAPI and AsyncAPI specifications as contracts
mehlah
0
650
Technical Debt
mehlah
1
280
Data informed growth
mehlah
0
220
Serverless Ruby and AWS Lambda
mehlah
0
160
Middleware all the things
mehlah
2
840
Confident refactors
mehlah
1
120
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
High-Level Programming Languages in AI Era -Human Thought and Mind-
hayat01sh1da
PRO
0
780
AIと”コードの評価関数”を共有する / Share the "code evaluation function" with AI
euglena1215
1
170
Blazing Fast UI Development with Compose Hot Reload (droidcon New York 2025)
zsmb
1
290
PHP 8.4の新機能「プロパティフック」から学ぶオブジェクト指向設計とリスコフの置換原則
kentaroutakeda
2
900
なんとなくわかった気になるブロックテーマ入門/contents.nagoya 2025 6.28
chiilog
1
270
Porting a visionOS App to Android XR
akkeylab
0
460
A2A プロトコルを試してみる
azukiazusa1
2
1.4k
Node-RED を(HTTP で)つなげる MCP サーバーを作ってみた
highu
0
120
Code as Context 〜 1にコードで 2にリンタ 34がなくて 5にルール? 〜
yodakeisuke
0
130
Modern Angular with Signals and Signal Store:New Rules for Your Architecture @enterJS Advanced Angular Day 2025
manfredsteyer
PRO
0
220
20250704_教育事業におけるアジャイルなデータ基盤構築
hanon52_
5
790
PicoRuby on Rails
makicamel
2
130
Featured
See All Featured
Responsive Adventures: Dirty Tricks From The Dark Corners of Front-End
smashingmag
251
21k
Optimising Largest Contentful Paint
csswizardry
37
3.3k
Building Flexible Design Systems
yeseniaperezcruz
328
39k
BBQ
matthewcrist
89
9.7k
Typedesign – Prime Four
hannesfritz
42
2.7k
Exploring the Power of Turbo Streams & Action Cable | RailsConf2023
kevinliebholz
34
5.9k
Building Better People: How to give real-time feedback that sticks.
wjessup
367
19k
jQuery: Nuts, Bolts and Bling
dougneiner
63
7.8k
Sharpening the Axe: The Primacy of Toolmaking
bcantrill
44
2.4k
YesSQL, Process and Tooling at Scale
rocio
173
14k
CSS Pre-Processors: Stylus, Less & Sass
bermonpainter
357
30k
Large-scale JavaScript Application Architecture
addyosmani
512
110k
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
/_ __/ /_ ____ _____ / /_______ / / /
__ \/ __ `/ __ \/ //_/ ___/ / / / / / / /_/ / / / / ,< (__ ) /_/ /_/ /_/\__,_/_/ /_/_/|_/____/