[ANSWERED] Does Joomla System Cache ruin responsive?
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- Ludwig von Mises
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[EDIT]
To make a long story short for those who stumble upon this thread, it is very possible that if you enable page caching in Joomla (the one that is activated in the plugins, not the one in the Global Config) you will have display issues once in a while. The problem is caused by IE8 users that access an uncached page. Gantry loads a special CSS file for IE8 users for better compatibility (master-ie8.css in the /templates/css folder for recent RT releases - may have another name in older templates). That special CSS file sets a fixed width of 960px since IE8 cannot digest media queries. The problem is that file ends up being stored in the page cache and subsequent hits to any page first viewed by an IE8 user will also used the fixed 960px grid even if the user is on a different browser. The easy fix is to just erase everything in the master-ie8.css file. That way there is no chance of the fixed grid being cached by anyone. I have not seen any drastic problems by removing IE8 CSS but tests should be done on a case-by-case basis.
There are some cache-control extensions that give more flexibility over what is cached and what is not:
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/core-enhancements/performance/cache
JotCache in particular allows creating separate caches for different browsers. That prevents the RT IE-specific files from being cached for users of other browsers. It also allows exclusion of troublesome modules such as RSS feeds.
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Hi. A couple months ago I activated the System - Cache plugin on a site with Kirigami and JReviews. It is a huge help to reduce DB queries and speed up the site. However, once in a while I run in to cached pages that are "squished" as if they were being viewed on a 1024px device. See attached screenshots for correct/incorrect display.
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I have tried to reproduce this by clearing Joomla cache, clearing cache and cookies and resizing my browser window and visiting the site in its "squished" format. Then on another browser, I clean cache and cookies and visit the site in full-screen 1600px. I have not been able to reproduce the issue.
For the last few days I have been following my users in G Analytics and generally run into a rate of about 20% of visitors are causing this "squishing" effect.
Any idea of why this is happening? Does page caching "memorize" the width of people's screens and cache the HTML accordingly?
Thanks for any insights. - Last Edit: 11 years 11 months ago by Ludwig von Mises.
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- Ludwig von Mises
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Well, I ended up figuring this out on my own with help from another template developer. This is an issue with RocketTheme's IE8 CSS. See the following Firebug screenshots from a "squished" and a "normal" page. You can clearly see that the page is being cached using IE8 widths from template-ie8.css instead of from the "normal" grid. So subsequent viewers get a responsive grid as if they were also using IE8.
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I suppose the solution for this would be to turn off the Selectivizr in template admin? Would appreciate confirmation on this.
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- Ludwig von Mises
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I am now getting the same issue on another site with Chapelco. I can't believe that no one from RT even responds to this. This is a serious issue with all RT responsive templates. IE8 narrow grids ARE CACHED when the page is viewed with IE8 and ALL SUBSEQUENT VISITORS SEE A PAGE WITH DISPLAY PROBLEMS, no matter what browser they're using.
I am thinking of changin the IE8 grid CSS to match the normal grids but am unsure what effect this will have.
I would really appreciate at the very least an answer here. This is not even a real technical issue. RT's silence on this is honestly leaving me dumbfounded. I have already moved my flagship site to a competitor's template because of this issue. Joomla Page Cache is too important for many of my clients for a little template CSS issue to be standing in the way.
I am truly VERY disappointed with RT completely ignoring this thread and it's not the only one unanswered.
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- DanG
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Ludwig von Mises wrote:
We NEVER purposely ignore threads but we may miss them from time to time
I am truly VERY disappointed with RT completely ignoring this thread and it's not the only one unanswered.
Please understand with over a 100,000 members posting at a rate of 8000 new topics a month our crew of global moderators can't catch everything.
As for you Ludwig, I have to say I admire your tenacity and professional tone in dealing with this issue.
However in reality you mortally wounded the chances of your topic being answered because you were the 2nd poster in your own topic
Here's the best advice I can give you. We have a moderator's list on the forum of all unanswered posts and this is where the mods work from. Once we answer a post we are automatically subscribed and get an email when anything is added. As soon as a thread gets a response from us, or another member or a self-BUMP it drops off this list. People who post to their own thread actually remove themselves from that list and their thread can go unnoticed from that point onwards.
I can't speak for the other mods but for me if you haven't received a response in over four days then don't self-BUMP. Rather start a new thread for your issue, indicating the old link and that you received no response and I look at this type of new thread differently than any other NEW thread.
As for the issue you picked up on the reason this is occuring is that we force our templates into a 960px fixed mode for IE8 using the template-ie8.css or master-ie8.css files.
The reason for doing this is that IE8 has NO support for media queries which are a mainstay of bootstrap and responsive templates.
If you do some Googling there are some attempts to rig up media query support for IE8 by using Javascript.
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- Ludwig von Mises
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Thank you for the response and thank you for clarifying that self-answered posts are "booted" from the RT to-do list. That makes sense. I only posted a second time a month after the fact because I had actually found some useful information (and a third time because I was getting angry
).
Regarding IE8, I completely understand and agree with why RT makes CSS mods for different IE browsers. RT's attention to detail in that regard is one of the reasons I use RT on 75% of my client's sites. And we all know that all Microsoft products are very deficient <-- that's a kind word replacing what I really think about Windows and IE.
However, caching is very important for site performance and it dramatically reduces server load and greatly enhances the user experience. That said, the issue here is not how to appease the <5% of fools who still use IE8. The issue is that small percentage of IE8 users are ruining the site experience for those who use Safari, Chrome, Firefox, IE9 and IE10. When the IE8 CSS file is cached by an IE8 idiot hitting the site, that page is viewed with the deficient IE8 grids for ALL page hits until the cache is cleared.
Personally, I could care less about IE8. If it were up to me I would abandon all IE8 support on the grounds that anyone who uses IE8 in May of 2013 has serious mental problems. Even here in Argentina where we are at least 5 years behind the US, Europe and NE Asia in technology IE8 represents less than 1% of my visitors. My clients in the US are not too concerned either about IE8 users since most of them receive only 2-3% of their hits from IE8. But, as I stated before, when Joomla cache is enabled that 2-3% ruins the site for the 97-98% who use "normal" browsers.
Anyway, now that I have pinpointed the problem (IE8 CSS being cached by Joomla) and I have also stated that I could care less about IE8 users seeing a "next-to-perfect-view" of a modern RT site, what can I do?
Can I adjust the grids to match 1200px responsive?
Is there a way to eliminate the IE8 check and the corresponding call to its CSS entirely?
I know you guys have gone out of your way to appease all the IE8 incompatibility posts there are in the forum. And every time you must think the same thing I think: Screw IE8. Perfection is impossible in IE8. Unfortunately so many RT subscribers as well as their clients insist on having perfect IE8-compatible sites for 2% of their traffic even though it means a tremendous effort on RT's part to deliver.
Many thanks again for the detailed response and I guess what I am really asking for is HOW TO DISABLE IE8 CSS in a RocketTheme template.
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- Well, if you don't care much about visitors that use IE8, you could just show "unsupported browser" page for such users in the same way that this page shows for visitors using IE7 browser. Check unsupported.php file under template's folder
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- DanG
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Ludwig von Mises wrote:
Anyway, now that I have pinpointed the problem (IE8 CSS being cached by Joomla) and I have also stated that I could care less about IE8 users seeing a "next-to-perfect-view" of a modern RT site, what can I do?My point was it doesn't matter if you have cache ON or OFF, we force the template layout to 960px for IE8 regardless.Ludwig von Mises wrote:Can I adjust the grids to match 1200px responsive?Yes...look at ....\libraries\gantry\css\grid-responsive.cssLudwig von Mises wrote:Is there a way to eliminate the IE8 check and the corresponding call to its CSS entirely?You could eliminate any offending CSS in the template-IE8.css file.
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- Ludwig von Mises
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I would rather not touch Gantry at all to get rid if IE8 checks entirely so I just erased the CSS in the master-ie8.css file. I ran some tests and it looks like the only glaring problem is the loss of responsive behavior and the fixed 1200px grid. I cannot do any hands-on testing because I do not have access to IE8. You can take a look if you like here:
[domain name removed]
Looking in index.php there is also this:What does that script do?if ($gantry->browser->shortversion == 8){ $gantry->addScript('html5shim.js'); }
@Igor:
You said:Well, if you don't care much about visitors that use IE8, you could just show "unsupported browser" page for such users in the same way that this page shows for visitors using IE7 browser.Such extreme measures are not necessary. When I say I/we do not care about IE8 what I mean is that we are sick of making concessions for the tiny IE8 userbase. However, there is no reason to lock them out of the site entirely. I don't even activate the IE7 redirect. Foregoing powerful caching mechanisms because of a single IE8 CSS file causing problems is not an option, neither for me nor my clients. If we have to decide between having a fast, healthy site and prioritizing IE8 users, we decide with the former. We cannot sacrifice the site for the latter.
I am sure there are some industries where the userbase demographics show a higher percentage of IE8 users than what I am used to, so each webmaster/domain owner should evaluate their situation and decide accordingly.
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