In JabRef, we use

CSL.makeAdhocBibliography(style, outputFormat.getFormat(), cslItemData);

to create the HTML-preview for the currently selected item in the BibTeX database. Every time the user scrolls through the main list, we update the preview and call this code again. I have carefully profiled what happens, but everything points to this call being the source of our memory and performance problems. I know that makeAdhocBibliography has a clear warning sign in its comments that it will be expensive.

Can you recommend the best possible way to handle our situation so that it is as resource-friendly as possible? We have the following constants and variables:

• the style is set in the preferences and stays constant most of the time
• the output format is fixed as well
• we provide the cslItemData every time the preview needs to be updated

I'm asking this question because at the moment I see no sensible way with one of the built-in ItemDataProviders to achieve this. Therefore, one of my first questions would be: Is it OK to make an ItemDataProvider that changes its content? I would then initialize a CSL instance with an empty provider and change its underlying ItemData list every time we need to render an item.