Unnecessary page reloads/no cache

[AJolly]

This browser does not properly cache in memory or on disk the current page.

This manifests by it attempting to reload the page, and is noticeable by

1. losing your position on the page, as well as
2. attempting to load it again from the network which fails if you no longer have a network connection.

I especially noticed this if I'll leave my ebook reader alone for a little while, especially if I'm reading a large text heavy page such as a chapter from The wandering inn.

This is even true if I haven't switched away from einkbro.

I can understand this behavior more on mainstream browsers, but less on a browser that's targeted at eink and reading.

[plateaukao]

what device are you using?

And, I think it's common to ask users reload the page if the network was gone, and back to normal.

If you really want to read a text heavy page, suggest saving it to epub in einkbro, and read it by reader apps you like.

[AJolly]

Boox Page.
Forced reload seems like it causes more problems, it makes sense on a phone, but I don't have an always on internet connection on my ereader. (So it's fine at home, but I'll grab it and want to keep reading in an uber, have to bridge to my phone, or remember to presave before hand.

[plateaukao]

there's no specific cache mechanism in EinkBro. If you don't close the app , and system is not killing EinkBro, the loading content would be there.
If you leave EinkBro app with a large website opened, system may close EinkBro when it's no longer on the foreground. After that, all web pages should be reloaded. That's how browser works.
If you don't always have internet, as I suggested, please save the web content as epub file (it's available in menu), and read it in reader app inatead.

[uqs]

My workaround for that is to save long reads to epubs always. I also noticed that einkbro does not restore the scrolling position when it gets killed by the OS. Other browsers handle this better (but still not great).

Vivaldi is an Android browser that also handles the offline case (but has imperfect handling of scrolling positions ...), and will tell you that you're looking at an offline version of the (cached) page.

einkbro's epub support however is also not ideal, as it will reload the page into reader mode before saving, instead of "simply" passing the current DOM over to reader mode, so it fails to handle dynamically loading pages properly.

[plateaukao]

@uqs
you could use save archive(next to open eixsting epub button)
it will save web article in original layout as a mht file.
afterward, you can open it again with einkbro.

[AJolly]

I've had it killed even when I have not switched away from einkbro. At the least, storing the position on the page would be nice

[plateaukao]

strange. usually it won't kill app in the foreground.
that's not a common behavior on browser to restore loaded content, and its last position. maybe you can find other browsers that support this.

[AJolly]

Chrome will happily remember my position even if I haven't touched that tab in weeks, and have opened hundreds of other tabs in the meantime.

I right now resumed reading a chapter on my phone, that's what made me remember to check in on the github issue.

If it helps I also suspect eink bro is unnecessarily refreshing background tabs, (judging by the page titles changing)

[gety9]

@plateaukao

Daniel i noticed same issue. Reload on network loss is fine (cause network loss happens seldom, so it's not big deal).
But reloads often happen even when just switching tabs (or switching between other Eink bro and other app) and it's very bad for user experience cause position is lost. (if you work with text somewhere closer to bottom every time you need to rescroll back...)

Is there anything that can be done about this?

[plateaukao]

@gety9

Is there anything that can be done about this?

Yes, four suggestions:

1. use a more powerful device with more RAMs, so that einkbro app won't be killed by system that often.
2. open only 1 tab at a time, if the content is too heavy, try option 3.
3. use full-fleged browser like chrome, that tries to cache as much as they can, with many sophiscated mechanism behind the scenes. That's why it's more than 100MBs, and EinkBro is less than 5MB.
4. help implement the cache mechanism whenever you think it's necessary; try anything in einkbro codes to prevent system from killing it, or periodically save all the tab contents locally, and save the reading postion; so that it might be possible to go back to previous position when you switch apps back to EinkBro.

1, 2 and 3 can be easily done with money and some habbit change.
4 needs time and effort, which I myself does not run into these issues, so may not spend time on it.