[Seaside] Force Reload of Javascript

[Johan Brichau]

Hi Joachim,

I recognize the problem when dealing with loading javascript resources, but not for Seaside-rendered javascript.
I find the latter a bit strange since that gets injected in a load script or a script tag, and that cannot be cached unless your entire page is cached.

So, when referencing javascript sources external to the Seaside image, this is what we do to ensure a browser does not use a cached version: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9692665/cache-busting-via-params <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9692665/cache-busting-via-params>
In summary:
- add a query parameter to the url of the javascript resource (i.e. behind the ‘?’ character)
- use some version string in the code base as value in that query parameter such that it is different from the value in the current previous production version (using a version number is most intuitive).

Here is the implementation for that in Seaside:

updateRoot: aRoot
	…
	aRoot javascript resourceUrl: '/js-libs/jquery.dataTables.min.js' version: resourceVersion.
	…

with the implementation of resourceUrl:version: is:

WAContentElement>>resourceUrl: aString  version: versionString
	"Concatenates a version string to the resource url. 
	The version string is put in the GET request's variables list and ignored by the webserver.
	Changing the version string can trigger a browser cache refresh when needed."
	self url: ((canvas absoluteUrlForResource: aString) addField: versionString)

Now, I am puzzled by the resources that are cached for generated javascript… can you share some more code on how that is included in your webpage?

cheers,
Johan

> On 11 Sep 2017, at 08:41, jtuchel at objektfabrik.de wrote:
> 
> Hi there,
> 
> 
> this may seem like a stupid question, but it seems I am struggling with the Browsers' cache handling of Javascript Code.
> 
> Let me start by describing what happens: I change some javascript code in my Seaside app, deploy it onto the server and restart the image.
> 
> For many (but not all) users, the changes don't get downloaded for days. They need to go to a page, press the Browser's reload button and from then on they are fine. This is both good to know and bad at the same time for several reasons:
> 
> some users never call and are frustrated
> the number of support cases causes high cost
> The effect shows up both for Javascript that gets served from the file system (using rewrite rules) and for code served directly from Seaside in the render* methods. 
> For the file system stuff, we have to work on the caching settings on Apache. But I am really helpless in case of "freshly rendered" JavaScript code. How could that even be cached by a Browser???
> 
> Any hints are welcome
> 
> 
> Joachim
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel          mailto:jtuchel at objektfabrik.de <mailto:jtuchel at objektfabrik.de>
> Fliederweg 1                         http://www.objektfabrik.de <http://www.objektfabrik.de/>
> D-71640 Ludwigsburg                  http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com <http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com/>
> Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0         Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1
> 
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