229741 - Archive Cache : Users and extensions should make certain contents indefinitely persistent (for offline browsing)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Networking: Cache, enhancement)

Description

[Jean]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 Firebird/0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 Firebird/0.7

Yet another enhancement request :

There should be a specific feature enabling offline persistence. This would be
called "archive cache" as it was named when <a
href="http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/119/1998/3/0/709272/">it was
considered for Communicator 4 in 1998</a> (but it was never implemented AFAIK).
Archive cache means that there is a repository similar to the usual browser
cache ; but the content in the archive cache should not disappear when the cache
is automatically flushed/refreshed. Its persistence should be managed directly
by the user.

Such an "archive cache" feature would enable extensions such as <a
href="http://fls.moo.jp/moz/rssreader.html">RSS Reader Panel</a> to store RSS
feeds and articles in a way not dependent on the cache policy of the browser. I
would allow extensions to build specific logic in the management of persistent
content. And it would also allow <a
href="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18213">bug #18213</a> to be
resolved (offline todo list somewhat similar to <a
href="http://www.wysigot.com/">Wysigot</a>).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Install the RSS Reader Panel extension
2.Add an RSS feed for your prefered weblog
3.Browse a lot of pages so that your cache is globally flushed or empty your
cache by hand
4.Go offline
5.Try to read your RSS feed

Actual Results:  
The RSS file should be displayed even though it disappeared from the main
browser cache.

Expected Results:  
Mozilla should have preserved this piece of content since RSS Read Panel would
have indicated that it should be so according to its specific logic.

Comment 1

[Darin Fisher]

-> default owner