A few simple website design questions

Cafe Society
1

I’m cruising through building the third iteration of my website, and an interesting thing just happened that got me thinking.

I’m working offline, and then load up a working version onto my website. When I go to view it, I notice that the new version isn’t loading, it’s the old cached version. Even if I refresh it still loads the cached version. Once I clean my browser catch it finally loads the latest version.

Obviously this is bad, because once it’s live, if people don’t clean their cache religiously, the old version will pop up. (say I add a new download or something) I don’t recall having this problem with my last one, and since I’ve designed this one slightly differently I’m wondering what the deal is.

Old website - A simple “shell” with an iframe in the middle that loads news.html I then only have to maintain the news.html instead of editing the shell html, because it’s filled with tables and other garbage.

New website - Again, a simple shell, this time with 4 windows each with it’s own iframe. The goal was the same, maintain a few simple html files that were plugged into the iframes. I had diffiiculty with some sizing and dreaded scroll bars, so I ditched the iframes and plugged the html directly into the main page. Now I only have 1 html file, which while inelegantly coded, works nice.

Anyway, my long winded question is this. Did I not have a cache problem with my old site because the page would load (the cached “shell”) and then load the iframes (which weren’t cached)? Since the new site is only one html page that is already cached, what is the work around? IIRC there’s a way to bypass the cache and have it load new each time. Should I do it that way?

Sorry this was so long winded.

Old site - http://www.subtechbeats.com/oldindex.htm

New site - http://www.subtechbeats.com/master.htm

2

I’m not really certain if I have any good answers for you, but I did have a few thoughts on the matter after reading your post.

If you upload an updated version of your page/site, and you’re working offline, and you try to connect to the updated pages while still offline, doesn’t that mean your browser would go to the cached pages? I’m not sure about this, but I think you have to be online in order refresh any cached pages. (Assuming you’re trying to access site files on a remote server, not just loading local pages.)

Or it may just be some weirdness with your browser. It should go without saying, and you probably are, but be sure you’re using the latest version of your browser.

Other than that, I’m not sure what to tell you.

As for design stuff, I think it’s a good idea to get rid of the frames. Frames can be weird, and they’re inelegant solutions for design issues. Better to just have separate pages, if necessary. That’s what I’ve found.

Good luck.

3

You can toss this:

<META HTTP-EQUIV=“Pragma” CONTENT=“no-cache”>
<meta http-equiv=“Cache-Control” Content=“no-cache”>

At the top of your page to make it not allow visitors to use cached versions of the site. It’s two lines for different browsers IIRC but that could be way off. :wink:

4

Just so you’re aware, the right-hand frame comes out skewed on a 21" monitor at 1024x768. I’ll leave this screenshot up for you for awhile.

No idea how you’d go about fixing it, however. Sorry.

5

Yeah, I had everything nice and good looking in firefox, then I check it in IE. :eek:

Took me two hours to get them looking the same.

6

Alright, next problem.

I have a couple of “info” things that when you click on them, a little popup window will come up containing the info. What’s the easiest way to specify the size of a new html window? Everywhere I’ve looked on google has some crazy javascript method, isn’t there a real simple html way?

7

Nope. Javascript is the only way to have popups. HTML doesn’t provide that.

8

Perhaps “popup” is a bad term.

I have a link with a target blank, that pops up a new window. The problem is it’s maximized, so I was hoping I could specify the size.

9

Heh, I’m not making things easier.

I have a link with a target blank, that loads a new window. The problem is it’s maximized, so I was hoping I could specify the size.

10

The best I’ve come up with thus far is…

onClick="MM_openBrWindow

I’ve found a trick where if the user has javascript disabled then a full window will load instead of nothing.

I’m surprised that there doesn’t seem to be a way in html to say “open a new window 500 by 400”

11

I do this in a calendar page that I manage. The javascript code:
<SCRIPT TYPE=“text/javascript”>
<!–
function popup(plink, pwindowname, pheight, pwidth, pscrollbars)
{
if (! window.focus)return true;
var href;
var hfeatures;
if (typeof(plink) == ‘string’)
href=plink;
else
href=plink.href;
hfeatures=“height=” + pheight;
hfeatures=hfeatures + “,width=” + pwidth;
hfeatures=hfeatures + “,scrollbars=” + pscrollbars;
window.open(href, pwindowname, hfeatures);
return false;
}
//–>
</SCRIPT>
The link code:
[INDENT] [FONT=Lucida Console]<A HREF=“page name” onClick=“return popup(this, ‘EMail’, 225, 370, ‘no’)” style=“color:#006666”>

12

Too quick on the trigger. Let’s try the second part again . . .
<A HREF=“page name” onClick=“return popup(this,‘window id’,height in pixels,width in pixels,‘scrollbars yes/no’)” style=“color:#006666”>
To display a popup with information about the site’s email privacy policy, 255 high, 370 wide, no scrollbar:
<A HREF=“email.htm” onClick=“return popup(this, ‘EMail’, 225, 370, ‘no’)” style=“color:#006666”>
If you want the link tied to an object rather than a textref, modify accordingly.

Hope this helps, at least a little. Somewhere I have a link to a website that explains the coding in more detail; if I get a chance I’ll look it up and post it.

13

So, I’ll assume from here on out that I’ll need to use some form of Javascript?

I’ll play around with this and see how it works out, thanks much. :slight_smile:

14

Thanks!