as appropriate, prompt user to refresh page and/or clear cache

[sandax]

General Tab: "Auto Load Images" preference
Currently, the behavior of this feature (compared to firefox) is unexpected.
True to its title (I suppose)... when unticked, the pref still allows previously cached images to load.

Initially, after unticking that pref, when I clicked a link in currently displayed page and a different page (same website) loaded, I thought the pref was being ignored. When I realized I was seeing only cached images... I decided "Hey, this is pretty cool". Well, actually, I GUESSED that I was seeing cached images (and, to confirm, I emptied the cache THEN reloaded the current page. result: zero images displayed)...

A future version of the user manual might explain this specific case (changing "Auto Load Images" preference)
but
in general, any time a preference is changed and the effect is not immediate (page is not auto-refreshed)(BTW, I am NOT suggesting that the page displayed in the visible tab, or ALL tabs?, should be auto-refreshed)... the GUI should display a prompt atop the preferences pane (continually, not a dismissable modal/popup) stating "prefs updated -- refresh page to see the result"... and, if multiple tabs are open, each tab should be "marked dirty" (or whatever term) so that the prompt will be redisplayed if a currently dirty tab is brought into focus.

At this point in typing, I sort of regret mentioning a specific case/preference here. My "need to have" point is general: need to have visual indication when current state represented in settings does not match the page(s) currently displayed to tab(s).

[Stefan Fröberg]

Hmmm... yes this should be mentioned in the manual.

This could be handled with adding extra notification option to Notification tab
or maybe better yet, just change the title of the tab that is currently open and loaded from cache include something like: http://example.com (page loaded from cache)
That would not be annoying, easy to see and user would know exactly what's going on.

[sandax]

(cached) prepended to the page titlebar text would be better/shorter

During my usage across the past 5 days though (since opening this thread), I've realized there's another issue, er, sticking point

Really, "always cache" is not (should not be) equivalent to "offline mode".

Use of "offline mode" toggle, for me, often serves "killswitch". Instead of resorting to disconnecting the ethernet cable or whatever, activating the toggle provides assurance that the browser will not attempt to issue http requests.

The preferences:Cache subtab is currently dedicated to settings which affect DISK cache (and a control governing "offline mode" is confusingly out of place in this context).

With attention to both privacy and bandwidth considerations, ability to address (ignore/override) any server-specified cache directives present in response headers seems important.

the goal: While surfing, each time I click "Back" button, avoid wasting bandwidth and avoid telegraphing to the site that I am "revisiting" a page. Admittedly, the latter is often futile unless javascript is currently set disabled, due to scripted requests triggered by onload or other events.

I am envisioning, in the General subtab:
(o) abide server-specified caching directives
(o) always cache ~= display cached page if present. If not, fallback to requesting the page
(o) never cache ~= always reload

but that radiogroup wouldn't be necessary, if you implement a "Headers" subtab (please!) so that user can create custom rules to spoof/blank values for response headers (and request headers) matching a specified pattern.