Naming exported images

[Jopi]

Is there a way to control the naming of the bitmaps when exported.
Now it is a sequence of numbers (1.png, 2.png, ....) and I have noticed that when you add a new element to a page (and put it backward) the sequence changes and some (or most) of elements get a new number.

Now, when a visitor revisits your website after a change, the filenames of the bitmaps may not correspond with the content of his browsercache and sometimes you get very strange effects !!

any solution ?

Jopi

[covoxer]

Is there a way to control the naming of the bitmaps when exported.

No.

[robobugs]

I have not studied this problem myself, but it sounds like a bummer. I will be revising my site very frequently and the Browser Cache may be a problem.

1 - Have you tested to verify this behavior? Browsers may be able to detect file size or update differences when your local computer filesystem makes mistakes on thumbnails in folders.

2 - Perhaps there is a way to force a fresh load from a browser using Javascript or something? Some browsers may reject this, but there is a chance this type of script exists.

Thanks for the interesting dilemma. I will have to pay attention to this when updating my own site.

Mike

[Drwyd]

@covoxer

As I understand it from what I have read, the following is a partial solution.

<meta http-equiv="PRAGMA" content="NO-CACHE" /> 
<meta http-equiv="CACHE-CONTROL" content="NO-STORE, NO-CACHE, MUST-REVALIDATE, POST-CHECK=0, PRE-CHECK=0" /> 
<meta http-equiv="EXPIRES" content="01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT" /> 
<meta http-equiv="Last-Modified" content="01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT" /> 
<meta http-equiv="If-Modified-Since" content="01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT" />

Unortunately I have little knowledge of controling the cache so I was wondering you could shed any light on the value of using these tags?

Drwyd

[covoxer]

These tell browser to refresh cache everytime you visit a site.
But, they don't force it to do this, so the browser may ignore it depending on the browser version and settings. There is no known way to 100% reliably force any browser to refresh it's cache using anything in the page html code.
Enother thing is that we actually don't want to reload all the graphics everytime, this is similar to disabling cache which is bad. We only want browser to check for changed files and update them in it's cache. And this is a default setting of all browsers. Unless you change it, it works as expected, all updated images are refreshed if needed.
But, as in many other cases, you can not forbid user to mess with browser settings and as a result get wrong page rendering. It's a client side problem.

[Drwyd]

you have confirmed my suspicions john, the cache is probably best left well alone

I have experienced the same problems as Jopi when updating my sites and I am worried that it may sometimes make a less than perfect impression on returning visitors when the site is updated frequently. Are there any plans to address this in a future update?

drwyd

[ss-kalm]

I'm not sure why this is a problem, so perhaps someone can explain.....

If you change a graphic and the cache doesn't update, then the "viewer" sees the same site as before. If it does update, then the "viewer" sees the new site. The cache doesn't partially update.

This is ONLY a problem if you try and shortcut the update by just uploading one file. Xara recommend using the built in FTP and uploading the whole site.

I have heard many moans about time, but rarely is a site so time sensitive that you can't just "click" and leave it to upload fully. You don't need to spend time doing it, just leave it alone and have a coffee .........

[Karateed]

Hi Ss-kalm,

I tend to agree with this approach. If you follow the XWD rules then everything should work fine.

Whenever I visit a site after a long hiatus then I do a cache refresh. I press CTL- F5 and all will be normal.

If this was a real problem, then of course XWD wouldn't be worth the cost but I personally don't see this as a problem. The jpg and png files should be small when uploading, even a relatively large site shouldn't take very long to upload.

Ed......:-)

[aridzone]

There is a problem if you like to break up your website into different .web files. The same graphic files get created 1.jpg, 2.jpg, 3.jpg ...

Xara should randomly generate the first 3 letters for every .web file it creates. So it would generate something like this pda001.jpg, pda002.jpg, pda003.jpg ... for one .web file and something like this for another web file htr001.jpg, htr002.jpg, htr003.jpg ...

Also when a new graphic is added and the website is revised it should start at where it left off like htr004.jpg

I also agree it would be nice to be able to use imported file names but I don't know if that will be possible.

Covoxer?

[ss-kalm]

Right Aridzone, Thanks, I hadn't thought about multiple .web files.