One thing I'm not fully grasping is if the cache manifest is also acting as a prefetch when it is online for all the files listed.
For example, lets say I'm visiting:
/page1.html
Each of the pages on my site will have the same declaration:
<html manifest="/cache.manifest">
In the cache manifest file, I have:
CACHE MANIFEST
/page2.html
/page3.html
/page4.html
So what will happen is I visit /page1.html first, and when I'm online my browser will know to cache pages 2-4 also. And when I'm disconnected and I visit pages 2-4 everything will load just fine because it was already cached.
QUESTION: If I visit /page1.html, and I'm STILL connected online, and visit /page2.html, will my browser still request /page2.html, or will it not make another request to the server and use what it cached from the /cache.manifest file? Essentially acting like the prefetch link that firefox uses?
Well, the spec says "all files," without any exceptions for html files, so I figure it works for html files just like any other, it gets taken from the cache, not the server. However, I have not done any testing to confirm this. I would do the following:
Create the following cache manifest file:
CACHE MANIFEST
/page1.html
/page2.html
/page3.html
/page4.html
Include it in each of the four cache manifest files. Then:
Visit page1.html
Edit page2.html to make it different than before you visited page1.html
Visit page2.html
See which version you get.
Make sure you try it out on all browsers. I'll be interested to see your results.
When we use cache manifest it takes the files from the cache each time you load the page.
There is a solution for this.
You have to change the version number in the manifest file, If at all you have done any changes to the HTML files. so that your manifest pulls in the latest version of the HTML from the server and Stores it in Cache.
CACHE MANIFEST
#v01
/page1.html
/page2.html
/page3.html
/page4.html
You can just Increment the V01 to 02,03... So on, this will ensure your cache will have latest version of html pages
I think it takes it from the manifest file even if you are online :). Can't you try it out by uploading a file and then navigating to the page?
Related
I changed my cache.manifest file to the following:
CACHE MANIFEST
NETWORK:
*
CACHE:
FALLBACK:
This triggered an update to my site.
I tried adding a "#" to the manifest file and then removed the manifest="cache.manifest"from my page.
This triggered the cache to be updated again, even though the reference to the manifest was gone. The console indicated it was still being loaded from cache.
I even tried renaming my cache.manifest file and it still was being loaded from cache.
How in the world can I safely stop using cache manifest? I have a completely new version of my site I want to roll out, but if cache manifest is still trying to cache the new site, that will be a disaster for all my visitors who do not know they need to clear their browser cache.
I believe I found the trick.
It seems I need to keep the old cache.manifest but change (not remove) the reference to a non-existent manifest file.
Presumably, I'll need to keep the broken reference there for several years in case I have visitors who only visit periodically.
The situation:
Made htaccess remove file extension so when I access www.example.com/index.html it will link to www.example.com/index/
Created a cache manifest (works fine so we can rule out problems with its structure)
The problem:
Even since I made htaccess change links, cache manifest no longer works for index.html
example:
CACHE MANIFEST
index.html
and in console I would get cache manifest resource fetch failed (-1).
this is probably because when the browser tries to access www.example.com/index.html it would get redirected to www.example.com/index/ and it is confused?
Is there any way to get it to cache the link directly? Thanks.
Could it be that all files that are to be stored in the cache need to be explicitly stated, or in other words, the full absolute URL has to be written or a full relative URL must be written in order for the cache to download the file.
aka
index.html
blablah.js
hello/world.png
all should work but
index/
bippitybop/js/
goodbye_cruel/world/*
won't work.
Let me know if this helps, if this question is even still active.
I have been trying to figure out HTML5's new AppCache, but I feel extremely limited here.
Let's assume that I have a website with four pages:
index.html
about.html
portfolio.html
contact.html
I have the above resources outlined in the manifiest, along with all of the website's resources. The manifest looks like the below:
CACHE MANIFEST
# 2013-05-23 2:33 PM
# Master Manifest
index.html
about.html
portfolio.html
contact.html
styles/reset.css
styles/styles.css
NETWORK:
*
I have added the appcache file type to the server configuration and have used the correct HTML tag attribute on each page listed above. Just for the record, the element looks like so:
<html lang="en" manifest="example.appcache">
I have tested this setup out on my mobile device, and everything works perfectly fine... Unless I don't load every page. It seems that I have to go to each page and cache it via my mobile browser, after which I may turn off DATA and go offline for my device to be able to browse the APPCACHE'd website.
But, here's my question - How do I setup AppCache to allow me to go to index.html, cache that page, and cache the rest of the resources in the manifest? Without having to visit and manually cache each resource?
If you cannot, then I would have to ask; doesn't that sort of defeat the idea behind AppCache and Offline Accessibility?
Thank you so much for the help all! :)
You shouldn't need to visit every page. I know you mentioned you've set the MIME type in Apache, but are you 100% certain it's working correctly?
You can check it by opening your manifest in a browser and checking the Response Headers in Chrome Web Inspectors's Network tab:
Content-Type should be text/cache-manifest
It's a bit hard to debug without having access to your site, but here's some instructions for how to interpret what happens in Chrome's Web Inspector with AppCache to help you debug the problem yourself:
The Resources tab will show you the contents and status of the Application Cache. It looks like this whilst it's downloading files:
The console will also log events when it's downloading:
Application Cache Progress event (0 of 48) http://cachedfile.url
Once it's done downloading it'll look like this and show you the list of cached files:
When you go back it'll log three events (assuming there aren't any changes):
Document was loaded from Application Cache with manifest http://manifest.url
Application Cache Checking event
Application Cache NoUpdate event
And then when you're offline it looks like this:
Hopefully between the console and the appcache table you'll be able to figure out what's happening.
The manifest file is correct and you do not need to visit each page to get in cache in your mobile. You could try if this is a problem with your mobile or browser and if you have defined in your server text/cache-manifest MIME type.
The appcache will only store the cache the first time it's downloaded. It's just a list of files that says, when it's downloaded the first time, cache it.
What you could do is after load in the background do an ajax call to load each of the intended resources but it's not particularly pretty.
So looks to me like it's acting how it should be.
CACHE:
This is the default section for entries. Files listed under
this header (or immediately after the CACHE MANIFEST) will be
explicitly cached after they're downloaded for the first time.
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/appcache/beginner/
Ahmed
I get the following when visiting your site:
Creating Application Cache with manifest
http://www.iamaaron.com/appcache/example.appcache
Application Cache Checking event
Application Cache Downloading event
Application Cache Progress event (0 of 6)
http://www.iamaaron.com/appcache/styles/reset.css
Application Cache Progress event (1 of 6)
http://www.iamaaron.com/appcache/index.html
Application Cache Progress event (2 of 6)
http://www.iamaaron.com/appcache/contact.html
Application Cache Progress event (3 of 6)
http://www.iamaaron.com/appcache/attendees.html
Application Cache Progress event (4 of 6)
http://www.iamaaron.com/appcache/events.html
Application Cache Progress event (5 of 6)
http://www.iamaaron.com/appcache/styles/styles.css
Application Cache Error event: Resource fetch failed (404)
http://www.iamaaron.com/appcache/styles/styles.css
So, it looks like it's working correctly despite the Content-Type being empty, except for the CSS file which seems to be missing (the URL is wrong, it should be main.css by the looks of things).
BUT my developer tools don't show the app cache being filled and it doesn't work when it's offline.
Try and fix your 404 error with the CSS and make sure your apache it configured correctly to return the correct Content-Type, I reckon that's what's causing issues.
I am using a manifest file to cache my files. Between these files some are the index.html and some javascript libs.
After I tested my webpage , the files are successfully cached (i validated this with the web inspector), however when I open the page again the non-cached linked resources are not receiving response.
The link URL is ok because I can use the "copy link URL" option and paste the url in another browser tab and receive the response. But in my web page i am not receiving anything.
I tried using NETWORK: * with the same result.
Is this because the index.html shouldn't be cached if it has non-cached resources linked?
thanks in advance
The Fallback Header has to be on it's own line, like so:
NETWORK:
*
(new line after the colon).
Did you use the same template for the index.html and the uncached resources or including the entry somehow in those?
In that case you got the master entry for every page you don't want to be cached: every page that includes the manifest entry will became cached.
Every URL can be linked to a single cache manifest. But I want several cache manifests linked to a same URL. Here is the reason:
Some files I want to be cached are rarely updated and large.
So everytime the cache gets updated these large files get re-downloaded even though they may not have been changed.
So I want to split up the cache. One cache for theses rarely updated large files and another cache for the often updated light files.
Do you guys have any idea how to split up an HTML5 cache?
The most efficient way is:
a) Use far-future expiration date (max-age) on all resources mentioned in manifest's CACHE section and add timestamp suffix to each file in the CACHE section, e.g.:
CACHE:
menu_1355817388000.js
toolbar_1355817389100.js
b) When any of the above files change on the server, regen/update manifest to change the timestamp. Only the file with the modified timestamp will get downloaded next time. Mission accomplished.
Note: Reload the page twice in the browser, as on the first refresh browser downloads just the manifest and uses old cached resources to paint the page. This is done to speed up displaying the page (there are tricks to handle this issue of double refresh, but they are outside the scope of your question)
See more info in this long but best article I ever seen on appcache.
Use an iframe
Your page's cache manifest would include the light files and the cache manifest of an iframe loaded by this page would include the large files
On chrome the iframe's application cache will also be used for the page. I didn't tested this method on other browsers yet.
see a live example at http://www.timer-tab.com and if you are using chrome see its split up cache at chrome://appcache-internals/
When the manifest file is changed and the files of the application cache are downloaded again, the normal HTTP caching rules still apply. This means that if you set the correct HTTP caching headers for these large files, you'll get a 304 so these files are not downloaded again. So it's not necessary to split the application cache.
Maybe an answer but I'd more like to shed some light on my findings as a I troubleshoot my own webapp.
I've discovered that I can use 2 iframes (manifest_framework) and (manifest_media) to load the manifests, but i'm still not exactly clear how they are targetted, but I had limited success.
manifest_framework:
CACHE MANIFEST
CACHE:
appdata.ini
dialog.png
jquery.min.js
login.htm
login.js
manifest.appcache.js
NETWORK:
*
FALLBACK:
manifest_media:
CACHE MANIFEST
CACHE:
manifest_fwk.php
od/audio_track_1_1.m4a
od/audio_track_1_2.m4a
od/audio_track_1_3.m4a
od/audio_track_1_4.m4a
od/video_1.mp4
od/video_2.mp4
od/video_3.mp4
NETWORK:
*
FALLBACK:
./ webapp.php
./index.php is the page the 'landing page' which itself isn't cached but falls back to webapp.php when offline.
What I don't understand is how these link to the webapp.php page.
I am finding I can only get access to one or the other manifests cache.
The above works in mobile safari, the media would be cached, and image but not necessarily the JS or images in the framework manifest.
Anyone have more examples where multiple manifests are referenced from the one URL/page?
The W3C working group has abandoned the file system api, so it SHOULD NOT BE USED anymore.
We'll likely see it fall off the next version of Chrome.
http://www.w3.org/TR/file-system-api/
CACHE MANIFEST
# This is a comment.
# Cache manifest version 0.0.1
# If you change the version number in this comment,
# the cache manifest is no longer byte-for-byte
# identical.
demoimages/mypic.jpg
demoimages/yourpic.jpg
demoimages/ourpic.jpg
sr/scroll.js
NETWORK:
# All URLs that start with the following lines
# are whitelisted.
# whitelisted items are needed to help the site function, you could put regularly
# changing items here
http://example.com/examplepath/
http://www.example.org/otherexamplepath/
CACHE:
# Additional items to cache.
demoimages/allpics.jpg
FALLBACK:
demoimages/currentImg.jpg images/stockImage.jpg`
If the Iframe trick does not work, use the HTML5 FileSystem API
See http://updates.html5rocks.com/2012/04/Taking-an-Entire-Page-Offline-using-the-HTML5-FileSystem-API