I want to cache only a few files like JavaScript and CSS, font files and image sprites.
Is it better to add a manifest file for the files or should I let the browser do the cache?
If it's better with manifest, can I still leave the pages inaccessible if a user has no network connection? How?
I don't want this website to work offline, I just want a faster page load on secondary pages.
No, the page you use to reference the manifest file will itself always be cached. See:
HTML5 cache downloads root everytime
HTML5 cache manifest no cache for html file itself
So you will always have at least one page which is available offline. However this can be a page which is otherwise not normally accessed, and you can reference it in an iframe from your online pages.
Related
My question is rather simple. Is there a way in the cache manifest file (or In the html) to tell iPhone, iPad or other never to cache specific files?
I have a made a small webpage that also works as a web app and there is some of the page that never should be cached.
Yes, you can list the files in the Network section to tell the browser to never save the files.Lines from the book diveintohtml5
The line marked NETWORK: is the beginning of the “online whitelist” section. Resources in this section are never cached and are not available offline.
For device or browser specific manifest, you can not do anything from JavaScript side. You have to do additional server side detection for that.
The files listed in the .mf file are the same files i am trying to load when the page first runs. Does having a manifest attribute defer processing of the rest of the document until the appcache loads?
No. On the very first load the cache gets built in the background, using the same files that where just downloaded, provided they have proper cache settings. E.g. If you have foo.css with long cache headers in your HTML page and the manifest, the browser will:
Load and render the page.
Look at the manifest.
Load foo.css from browser cache to appcache.
BUT: Appcache will however result in a FOUC (brief white page on reload), even if online and the page/app was made well enough so far to show smooth reloads.
With AppCache, the browser loads the document and its associated resources directly from the cache, without accessing the network, so this should load just as fast if not faster.
I'm creating an app with a number of videos/large images that will use appcache to handle the preloading of them.
Is there a way for me to control what order those assets get loaded? For example, I would like to load the big image/video on the homepage before the ones on the sub pages. I have tried listing the files in the order I want them to load in the appcache manifest but that didn't seem to make a difference.
It doesn't matter what order they're downloaded in. Appcache operations are atomic. Nothing is available from the appcache for a particular manifest file until everything is available from the appcache for that manifest.
If you want to break up the download then, as #PaulGrime suggests, have multiple manifest files. You will need to have the user visit the host page for each manifest but you should be able to manage that with a hidden iframe or something.
I want to use html5 manifest file. To cache the mose important things of the website. I have make a manifest file and cache the most important things. I cache the important images that are used in all the pages. And i cached the css file. But this is going broken.
This is my manifest file:
CACHE MANIFEST
# VERSION 10
CACHE:
static/img/bg-friends-selection.jpg
static/img/bg-home.jpg
static/img/bg-selection.jpg
static/img/logo.png
static/css/style.css
But now the problem. When i open the page. The first time it's good. But when i open the page for the second time. The images and items that i not cached. Are not loaded. How can i fix that.
Here you have a live link
The live link site doesn't specify a manifest attribute in the <html> tag. You need to point your document at the manifest so it knows what to cache.
In any event, you probably want this at the bottom of your manifest file:
NETWORK:
*
See HTML5 cache manifest: whitelisting ALL remote resources? for more information.
I'm trying to get a simple html5 webcache to work.
This is my one and only html page, index.html:
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html manifest="./main.manifest">
<body>
<p>Hi.</p>
</body>
</html>
This is my only cache file, main.manifest:
CACHE MANIFEST
# 2011-05-02-03
index.html
I'm running on apache shared hosting, I put a .htaccess file in my web directory where these other two files are, because I thought maybe I have to define the mime type:
AddType text/cache-manifest .manifest
So in the end I just have these three files in that directory:
index.html
main.manifest
.htaccess
When I visit the page on chrome from my mac, safari from my iphone, or chrome from my android 2.3 device, nothing happens, the page just loads as usual. If I turn airplane mode on (killing all connections) the page can't be loaded (so I guess caching failed).
What am I missing here?
Thanks
------------ Update ------------------
I think the mime type was not being recognized correctly. I updated .htaccess to:
AddType text/cache-manifest manifest
Now if I run in google chrome with console on, I see:
Document was loaded from Application Cache with manifest
http://example.com/foo/main.manifest
Application Cache Checking event
Application Cache NoUpdate event
Firefox prompts me when I load the page about the website wanting to let me store it to disk, so that's good. Looks like it's also working on android 2.3.4. The browser still says "This page cannot be loaded because you are not connected to the internet", but then it loads anyway.
Thanks!
First, you were right the first time on your mime type declaration. It should be like this:
AddType text/cache-manifest .manifest
Next, read this paragraph from Dive Into HTML5:
Q: Do I need to list my HTML pages in my cache manifest?
A: Yes and no. If your entire web application is contained in a single
page, just make sure that page points to the cache manifest using the
manifest attribute. When you navigate to an HTML page with a manifest
attribute, the page itself is assumed to be part of the web
application, so you don’t need to list it in the manifest file itself.
However, if your web application spans multiple pages, you should list
all of the HTML pages in the manifest file, otherwise the browser
would not know that there are other HTML pages that need to be
downloaded and cached.
So, in this case, you don't need a cache manifest. The browser will automatically cache your page (as long as it's the only resource, such as a CSS file or Javascript file, for example).
For more information, visit the link above.
I have had some trouble using "explicitly cached" items in my manifests, so I usually set it up like this:
CACHE MANIFEST
# 2011-05-02-03
CACHE:
index.html
But the other answer is correct, the browser will automatically cache any URLs that include an application cache manifest.
I recommend using Chrome's JavaScript Console -- it outputs application cache events as they are happening, including errors.