Why does IE reload the whole page when you navigate through it, while Firefox only loads what it needs to?

Question

I'm designing a website. When I click around to test navigating in Firefox and Safari - the browser only loads what it needs to - the background and things that stay the same don't change - very smooth. But in Internet Explorer - when I navigate around, the whole page flashes - it's jumpy looking, not as smooth.

Is there a prevent that from happening - even in IE?

thanks

Answer 1

there are many ways to effect what is and is not cached on your page. check out http://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/



basically, IE is more strange about what it will and will not cache. for instance, it will not cache a site smaller than 64k regardless of the content whereas other browsers will. actually, its been a while since I worked with web content so this might have changed in recent version(s).. anyway the idea I'm trying to explain is that you do have some control over when the browser caches your page, and good design it to take advantage of caching whenever possible. Use it for static (rarely/never changing) content, especially backgrounds and fill graphics. learn to use and abuse the cache and I'll bet you can achieve the smooth effect you're looking for.

Answer 2

you can't ... first of all, you should always expect the page to reload. And in fact, if you are designing a dynamic site, you should encourage page reloads. After all, page caching is the enemy of most web "2.0" (urgh @ term) sites. I'd say don't sweat it. If smoooth flow is imortant, use flash on 1 page.

Answer 3

it's cause IE sucks. They have lots of non-standard functions and there are a ton of work-arounds you have to do to maintain compatibility. You can try W3C.org for their guides and tutorials. In all the functions they point out the IE incompatibilities and give you the work-around coding to use to make IE behave.