Refreshing Browsers

Refreshing Browsers

How'd they do that? I think most folks are comfortable with the knowledge that most web sites are faster to load the second time that you visit them. This typically happens because your computer saves the first visit to your hard drive in a cache. With subsequent visits, your browser doesn't have to go live to the internet to re-download the website. It just pick it up from the cache and the results are displayed instantly on your page. Provided that the developer is not using dynamic webpages, this is generally how things happen.

It's a terrific feature to have and certainly is helpful in speeding up your internet experience.

However, there are some times when it's a hindrance.

Suppose you're developing a web page; you think you've got it right; you FTP it to your server and then try to check out the changes. However, your old faithful browser digs into the cache and shows you what's already on your computer! You scratch your head and wonder about your sanity. Didn't I just make some changes and send them to the server? You try to access the server again, same results, and now you're convinced that you've lost it.

Internet Explorer does have a refresh button. Clicking this button will ask Internet Explorer to refresh the webpage and will generally cause the page to be resent from the web server instead of pulling it from cache. But, that's not a perfect solution. There are times when your computer gets confused with time and date stamps and it doesn't work. There's an even better way to absolutely, positively force a refresh. Hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard as you reload and you're guaranteed a total refresh.

Now, that's great because you're in charge of your browser. What about the millions and millions of visitors to your website? How can you force all of them to get your latest and greatest efforts?

It does require a little bit of HTML knowledge, but it may be worth the effort. In Dreamweaver or Claris Homepage, switch to codeview. At the very top of your code (between the <head> and </head> tages, there is information about your page. Carefully, you're going to insert the following code:

That will force every viewer of your webpage to reload it from the server. No more do you have to worry that people will be viewing the version from three months ago!

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