Safari cache and page refresh

No browser compares the contents of the cache before refreshing a page; pages are refreshed whenever you load the page or hit the reload button. Going back and forward from the page is not the same as reloading the page.

I think I wasn't clear enough. The reload button (clockwise arrow in the address bar) reloads the page but from the cache. Safari ignores changes made in the meantime on the distant page. That's why I have to leave the page, empty the cache and return to that page to see the changes. But I thought maybe there is an option somewhere that I didn't see...

And yes, Seamonkey has an option to compare the page in cache with the distant page each time the page is loaded, or reloaded, and updates it automatically. Very handy for website maintenance.

BTW, I think I recall that previous versions of Safari would call the actual page when shift was pressed while hitting the reload button. Not sure however. The actual version doesn't on my computer, at least not if the website uses frames.



Message was edited by: Paul Schilliger

Sorry, but it doesn't have that ability; no browser does. You can disable the cache, as you can in most browsers, but you cannot compare the contents of a page at one point in time to the same page at another point in time.

In SeaMonkey advanced preferences, cache, you have four options to choose from: Compare the page in cache to the page on the network: Every time I view the page - Once per session - When the page is out of date - Never. The first option shows automatically the latest changes to the page and is very handy. I wish that other browsers would include that feature as well.

I suspect that the problem I'm having with the reload function in Safari comes from using frames, and an action to force pages to open within a frame. I know that this sort of website architecture is being dropped off.

thanks!

I was wrong, saying that Safari doesn't check if the page in cache has been updated on the server. In fact it does, or at least going back and forward brings up the updated page code, and works also in a frames environment. But contents linked such as images are not checked, and if they have been modified while still in cache, the cache needs to be emptied to load a new version, since there is no such option as navigating with no cache at all.