Any developer knows, caching can be a confusing hinderance of development.
I've often wondered how many times I've solved an issue, but was unaware
because the page cached and I had already moved on to the next hacky attempt
at a solution. As ubiquitous as caching is to the web, clearing of the cache
should be simpler and options/controls for the cache could be me robust for
every browser.
I can think of several ways to improve caching. It seems like it's always a
buried option that is always in a different place in the tools or
preferences, and has a different and obscure hot key, for every browser. In
Firefox, it's clumped in with a bunch of other "Private data", in IE it
involves clicking through and confirmation in several annoying windows. Even
the single window Firefox uses for confirmation is an annoyance to me. It
makes people feel like they are doing something "techy" which is scary to
them, when really there shouldn't be any risk to clearing a cache, and
therefore no need for any confirmation. Just DO it!
Seriously. Imagine as a developer, at the 11th hour of many projects, having
to diagnose cached items for why your clients are seeing funny stuff, asking
them what browser they are using, and going through the process of clearing
the cache on the phone. Then imagine this being true for just about anything
that goes wrong just because you need to rule that out.
An option to have a "clear cache" button right next to the reload button
would be awesome. How about an option to force every reload to clear cached
items for the current page. How about a check box that defeats all caching
without changing other caching options (in prefs would be cool but right on
the browser would be cool too). There could be an indicator on the browser
window that shows weather or not there are any cached items on the page.
There could be a way to reveal what items are cached right on the page.
I believe caching is important enough to be it's own preference panel.
There, you could specify caching options for individual pages or domains,
like max/min file size, file types to cache, duration to keep files and max
cache size for each page/domain.
Is this crazy? I know it would save me TON time, trouble, and sanity.
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