When is it 'Right' to Reach for contain and will-change in CSS?

This post explores the author's confusion regarding several CSS performance optimization properties: will-change, contain, and content-visibility. The author understands the potential benefits of these properties – improving rendering performance by offloading tasks to the GPU (will-change), isolating elements for better layout performance (contain), and delaying rendering of off-screen content (content-visibility) – but lacks a clear understanding of when and how to apply them effectively.

The author cites examples: will-change: opacity; is questioned because opacity changes are often considered computationally inexpensive. The contain: strict; example, which dramatically improved scrolling performance in a data grid, highlights the power of the contain property but leaves the author unsure about its broader application. Similarly, the author mentions content-visibility, acknowledging its potential but lacking a practical understanding of when to use it.

The core question is whether these properties should be considered "advanced optimization" techniques used only after performance problems are detected, or if they should be part of a developer's standard CSS toolkit, considered during the initial design and implementation phases. The author leans towards the latter, suggesting that proactively using these properties when appropriate (e.g., containing unchanging elements, indicating changes with will-change) leads to more performant interfaces. However, the lack of clear guidelines and the potential for unexpected behavior (as noted in older articles about will-change) make it difficult to provide definitive advice. The author concludes by expressing a need for more comprehensive resources and a deeper understanding of these crucial CSS properties.

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