IE8 back button and dynamic content

Question

I have a page that pulls an external JavaScript file, which then generates some content dynamically into that page (basically inserts some DIVs and a Flash object).

When

Answer 1

You should look into using a history plugin to get consistent results with dynamic content.

Here is a thread with some plugins jquery history plugin

Answer 2

I did a quick test using the IE Developer toolbar- I clicked back and nothing happened as you mentioned. I then tried again but before clicking back I cleared my cache, and when I went back the video showed up.

Try ensuring you force IE to clear the browser cache and your video should load even when clicking on the back page.

---- EDIT ADDED AFTER CACHING CONVERSATION ---

This should not affect the performance of your web application the client browser gains from caching, since you would send back headers to expire/disable the cache only for the page that fires off the JS to embed the video. Everything else- the JS scripts, the graphic/images, and event the video- would still be cached by the client.

---- EDIT: UPDATED TO INCLUDE FULL SOLUTION FROM COMMENTS ---

To disable caching of included JavaScript files one solution is to just append random number in query parameter to the URL, so that browser will not cache the result.

<script src="jquery.js?t=<?PHP echo rand() ?>">

This avoids the need to modify webserver settings to disable caching static JavaScript files system-wide.