Can I force a refresh of my stylesheet file?

Question

I have just spent half a day quietly going mad.

I\'m making changes to my classes in the Site.css file and they were not being reflected in the site being develope

Answer 1

My approach is using the “querystring changing” method to bypass caches (even in browser and proxy servers). Since I’m using Master Pages I maintain the link to CSS as usual like but adding an ID (named here as cssStyleSheet):

Then at code behind I implemented at Page_Load this line of code, adding a quesrystring like “?t=5343423424234”.

Protected Sub Page_Load(…)

    If IsNothing(Application("CSSTicks")) = True Then
        Application("CSSTicks") = DateTime.Now.Ticks
    End If


    cssStyleSheet.Attributes("href") = cssStyleSheet.Attributes("href") & "?t=" & Application("CSSTicks")

End Sub

Why is that? At HTML code, some designer could change the CSS file as easy, no interfering at some “difficult” code. Using an Application variable I avoid spending bandwidth from my servers and also from customer perspective (like using mobiles).

If new application is deployed, the Application variable is reset automatically and a “new” version of CSS if downloaded to browser (even through proxies).