I guess in the double-AppCache model, where there's a generic cached redirect page, one could make it so all user-specific accesses use a URL with a user-specific prefix, so it can prefix-match against an entry in the NETWORK section of the generic cached app manifest.<div>
<br></div><div>still, given how many apps on the web identify the user using an ID in a cookie, it'd be nice if apps wanting to use AppCache didn't have to go through these gyrations.</div><div><br></div><div>a<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Aaron Whyte <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:awhyte@google.com">awhyte@google.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<span style="font-family:Arial"><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px"><font face="Arial">Most apps provide different contents for the same uncacheable main-page URL, depending on the identity of the user, which is typically stored in a cookie and read by the server.<br>
However, the HTML5 AppCache spec doesn't allow cookies to influence the choice of AppCaches or the contents of a response returned by the cache.</font></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px"><br></div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">This makes it a lot harder, but not impossible, for developers of existing apps to start using AppCache, while still supporting multiple users per browser or browser profile.</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px"><br></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">Without changing the user-visible URL structure of an app, developers might support multiple users, by replacing their server-generated user-specific main page, with a generic cacheable JS app that does this:</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">1) Establish the user's identity using a cookie, or a database record, or a session key-value store.</div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">2) If the user can be identified, load the user-specific resources (JS, CSS, data, etc.) from the network and/or local storage, possibly including a separate AppCache with user-specific or fingerprint-specific URLs. Otherwise, load the unknown-user version or a login page.</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px"><br></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">That'd be a complete restructuring of the main page, but it's possible. I suspect that this is the model the AppCache was designed to support.</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px"><br></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">A more radical change to existing apps, and app design in general, would be to include account-identifying information in the user-visible URL. The main page could redirect users to their user-specific page or the unknown-user page.</div>
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