The Preload Framework Images option has been removed

Visual LANSA Framework

The Preload Framework Images option has been removed

The Framework web application option Preload Framework Images has been removed. While using this option visually improved a first time Framework users' experience, it was found that subsequent Framework usage may be actually slower when using this option because of the way that Internet Explorer manages image caching.

Now first time users (or users using the Framework after the IE file cache has been cleared) may experience a slight delay and visual disruptions while images are (re)loaded from the server. Subsequent usage, where images are in the IE file cache, will benefit. You can improve this situation even further by implementing configuration settings on your HTTP server so that browser checking for updated images is not performed when an image already exists in your browser cache.

In a System i Apache web server configuration, this is done in the Expires Header of the Http Responses section as shown in this picture. In this example any .gif files would be version checked every 6 months of the file being accessed:

Note that there is a difference between the caching of the image and the version checking. Browsers would usually reuse the cached image. However, they would still compare the date time stamp of the cached image with the server's one. It is this operation that is suppressed for the specified period of time according to this setting.