Conditions vs. Show Modes

It may appear that the Show Modes and the Condition attributes do the same thing: show and hide elements. However, Show Modes processing occurs in the client (the browser), whereas Conditions are processed in the server. This means Show Modes are more browser-dependent and may not always behave exactly as expected with different browsers, making Conditions a better choice in many situations.

Whereas Show Modes simply hide page parts in the browser, Condition actually keeps them from being generated at all. For example, a data table column hidden using a Condition never has its data rendered; it's never sent by the server to the browser. However, if Show Modes are used for the same purpose, then the data column is rendered and is sent to the browser, where it's then hidden (but might be seen by viewing the page's HTML source code). So, using the Condition in this case is more secure, in that it ensures that data is not sent to the browser at all.

However, Show Modes do not require a roundtrip to the server to make dynamic changes, as Conditions do, so there may be performance implications involved in deciding which mechanism to use.

Condition attributes may also have a performance impact: If an element isn't rendered then, obviously, its child elements aren't rendered either. Child datalayers that aren't rendered, won't run to retrieve data. So Conditions can be used in some cases to determine when, or if, datalayers run.

When exporting, Show Modes include built-in values that make hiding or showing elements very easy, so they may be a better choice for that purpose.

For more information about Show Modes, see Show Modes.