Making Large Tables Perform Like Small Ones

While working as a contractor, I was tasked with modernizing a legacy web application. The frontend was built using Vue 2 (Options API), Bootstrap, and plain JavaScript. It loaded large datasets into memory and rendered everything at once — which made it sluggish and hard to navigate.

🧩 What I Improved

• Server-Side Pagination: Instead of fetching thousands of records at once, the frontend now loads just one page at a time, based on filters and user actions.
• Modular Filters & Search: Users can refine results using multiple filters without triggering unnecessary queries or mixing unrelated data.
• Clean UX:
  • Changing views resets pagination and search, eliminating stale UI issues.
  • Combined use of filters + pagination is intuitive and smooth.
  • Fast response time regardless of dataset size.

🧪 Testing & Edge Cases

• Verified all filter and pagination combinations behave correctly.
• Tested search isolation to ensure no overlap or data leakage.
• Confirmed that no visual glitches occur when toggling views quickly.

⚙️ The Stack Behind It

• Frontend: Vue 3 + Composition API + TypeScript + Vuetify
• Backend: Django REST Framework with paginated JSON responses
• Extra Work: I also helped modularize and refactor the backend, improving maintainability and performance of key endpoints.

This work resulted in significantly faster page loads, cleaner separation of concerns, and a better experience across devices.

---

🖼 Before & After: UI and Performance Improvements

Below are visual comparisons between the legacy system and the upgraded version:

💻 Desktop View

Before: Legacy UI with no pagination and outdated design After: Modern Vue 3 + Vuetify design with responsive layout and pagination

📱 Mobile View

Before: Not responsive and hard to use on smaller screens After: Fully responsive and optimized for mobile usage