Caching Control instances

Question

Hi all, My application has a navigation framework where each data entry screen is implemented as a usercontrol. Some of these UserControls are very large, and on slow systems can take a few seconds to construct.

In an attempt to speed things up, I'm considering caching these control instances instead of instantiating them each time I need them. In tests, this definitely seems to speed things up.

Very simplified, I'm essentially doing something like this:

public void Navigate(Type pageType)
{
    Control page = GetOrCreatePage(pageType);
    hostPanel.Clear();
    hostPanel.Add(page);
}

private Control GetOrCreate(Type controlType)
{
    if(!cache.Contains(controlType))
        cache.Add(controlType, Activator.CreateInstance(type);    
    return cache[type];
}

My question is - should I be doing this? I'm only asking because I don't see many examples of this, and I've had to do a fair amount or refactoring and rethinking to support the control instances hanging around (managing disposal, event subscriptions, etc). I guess it just feels different so I want to make sure this is OK and I'm not stepping in something I'll smell later...

any feedback is appreciated.

Answer 1

I would consider why the instances take so long to create, most probably it's because there's some data that takes time to load and it would probably be a better idea to cache that data instead.