Viewsarrays

Viewsarrays is a concept in user interface development referring to an ordered collection that stores renderable views or components. In this model, a viewsarray holds elements that can be laid out, painted, and interacted with, and each element corresponds to a distinct portion of the user interface. The term is used in discussions about UI frameworks to describe a container that can batch updates and simplify lifecycle coordination across multiple views.

A viewsarray typically supports standard collection operations such as insert, remove, move, and replace by index, along with iteration. Each element may have an identity used to preserve state across updates. Good practice emphasizes stable keys, predictable ordering, and controlled mutability or immutability to facilitate efficient re-rendering.

Applications include dynamic lists, groups of reusable components, and composite views. By consolidating rendering logic for multiple views, a viewsarray can aid in diffing, layout calculations, and event dispatch. Some frameworks treat a list of UI elements as a viewsarray conceptually, even if the explicit type is not exposed.

Design considerations include performance, memory usage, and the handling of nested views. Challenges include avoiding unnecessary re-creation of subviews, ensuring stable identity, and coordinating view lifecycles with framework-specific rendering loops.

See also: view, view hierarchy, component, list rendering, diffing.