Can I clear a webapp in Chrome?

Question

I've written a webapp that has a manifest that includes all the javascript and images that it requires. Unfortunately, even when I change the manifest file, it doesn't seem to reload the javascript.

Is there a way to delete the webapp completely from Chrome? Clearing the browser cache doesn't seem to work.

I'm running Chrome 5.0.375.55 on a Mac.

Any help very gratefully received.

Answer 1

Is it cached server side as well? Try adding a get parameter like ?foo=12345 to the url and see if you get the updated file.

Answer 2

Apple has some really good documentation on this, it is a bit tricky to get going but it does make the whole manifest process way more transparent. In addition, I find Safari (esp. Mobile Safari) shows these event responses more consistently than Firefox; not sure about Chrome though it should be pretty close to Safari.

The root of your question though: 1. Empty the manifest or add/remove a file to the manifest 2.load the app 3.re-add the manifest 4. Re-load app. This is dirty way but I recommend taking the time to read though and implement the JS and so you can see for sure the manifest is getting updated.

Google has a good post here.

Basically you can build a series of if else tests with the window.applicationCache.status for a clear look at what the system is doing.

From Apple:

For example, you get the DOMApplicationCache object as follows:

cache = window.applicationCache;

You can check the status of the application cache as follows:

if (window.applicationCache.status == window.applicationCache.UPDATEREADY)...

If the application cache is in the UPDATEREADY state, then you can update it by sending it the update() message as follows:

window.applicationCache.update();

If the update is successful, swap the old and new caches as follows:

window.applicationCache.swapCache();