How to force update of design changes to clients using xPages?

Question

I am bulding a webpage using xPages and I am making constant changes to script and design, this include both server and client javascript , stylesheet and image changes.

Each time I change a javascript or stylesheet I want to see my changes in the webbrowser and I also want my users to get the latest changes when they access the webpage.

I know I can use Shift-Reload, or CTRL-reload and clear my webbrowser cache. and I also know that I can change the objects expiration date, but I want a smoother and better controlled way to do this.

Looking for any kind of best practice for doing this.

Thanks

Thomas

Your webpage will become a lot slower when you don't want to let your users cache it. I did not have problems with it, most of the times just closing and opening the browser will pick up the latest changes. But if there are any cache enabled proxy servers active then it will be very difficult. — Ferry Kranenburg, Feb 17 '12 at 18:18

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 18 '12 at 22:17

In the xsp.properties file for the application or on the server for server wide use you can set xsp.application.forcefullrefresh=true. The xsp.properties file documentation says:

# Application refresh # When this property is set to true, then a full application refresh is requested when # the design of a class changes (means that all the data are discarded in scopes).

# xsp.application.forcefullrefresh=false

The new XSP Portable Command Guide says "This property was introduced in Notes/Domino 8.5.3. It is set to false by default and is particularly useful during the development phase of an XPages application."

I have not fully tested this behavior but it sounds promising. You could/should of course only set it to true WHILE you make the changes. once stable, set it back.

/Newbs

Tested it this morning and it is working - Especially in the Notes Client (XPiNC)! — Newbs, Feb 20 '12 at 15:26

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 29 '12 at 17:45

Adding to Ferry's answer and your comment;

Instead of "?dummy=randomvalue", you can use "?version=2.1". So it will be cached but when you change design, you can just increase the version.

There's a problem with this approach as some proxy servers won't cache anything with query params. Better to rename the file directly, adding date or version number to it. It will always work.

To disable caching temporarily use Fiddler2. It's easy to enable and disable in one place across any web client. As well as added benefits for the http request tracking features.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 17 '12 at 18:23

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To fully disable any caching add url + '"?dummy=" + @Unique();' to every url to javascript or image files...

answered Feb 17 '12 at 18:23

Ferry Kranenburg

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Thanks for your answer, actually I do not want to disable cache, I guess I want to set a time or date when the new design changes should be applied to clients. think of it like when facebook push new design to clients, how do they do it?, do they temporarily change the cache expiration to allow the client to get the new design? – Thomas Adrian Feb 17 '12 at 18:49

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 17 '12 at 20:40

The way I am reading this question is that you want every change you make to appear immediately on the client's browser or client. Are you really sure you want to do this? It sounds like you are not doing any testing so any typos, bugs, crashes, etc will be passed on to your users. Sounds like a bad plan to me. I hope I am wrong and that you are using a template and pushing only your fully tested changes up to an production version instead of making the changes in the production version.

I would just put out a schedule of when changes are going to be pushed up to production and let the users reload their browser or client at that time. Either that or do it during off hours and when they next log on, they get the newest changes.

I was not really cleared about what I wanted when I wrote the question, Let me try again. I want to set a specific date and time when my users automatically gets the new design. how can I do that? — Thomas Adrian, Feb 17 '12 at 21:33

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 18 '12 at 00:41

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Adding to Ferry's answer and your comment;

Instead of "?dummy=randomvalue", you can use "?version=2.1". So it will be cached but when you change design, you can just increase the version.

answered Feb 18 '12 at 00:41

Serdar Basegmez

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adding a parameter to my url did not update my browser with latest javascript – Thomas Adrian Feb 18 '12 at 12:45
You should add the parameter to the url for the javascript file – Thimo Jansen Feb 20 '12 at 12:28

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 19 '12 at 14:52

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maybe you could look at how domino can control caching of url's.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/ls-resp_head_rules/

answered Feb 19 '12 at 14:52

jjtbsomhorst

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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 22 '12 at 06:51

NEwbs answer is a good one but it is useful to note that in Firefox there is a very useful plug in called "web developer" from Chris Pederick that allows you to disable the cache.

http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/

The other really useful one is Firebug which is just amazing - It makes any HTML work much easier

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firebug/

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 27 '12 at 06:16

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I did found another solution by putting my css and js in a theme it is easy to just rename the files.

as described here http://goo.gl/vFTii

answered Feb 27 '12 at 06:16

Thomas Adrian

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 09 '12 at 08:48

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Why do not we use the window.location.reload()...

Which does the same like ctrl+F5

It reloads the page, which is similar to context.reloadpage

answered Mar 09 '12 at 08:48

Ramkumar

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How to force update of design changes to clients using xPages?

9 Answers9