Force a page refresh when page visited from back button

Question

How can I force a page refresh of page 1 when a user returns to it from page 2 by pressing the back button? Are there vbscript or javascript approaches or is it down to set the 'no cache' somehow?

Solution 1

Set a cookie on page 2.

If the cookie is detected on page 1, reload the page.

Solution 2

What about doing something like this?

<script>
    if   (document.referrer == "http://www.page2.html") 
          window.location.reload(); 
    }
</script>

Just throw that at the top of your page 1 and this should work.

Update

I also found a solution on the Webdeveloper.com forums as well.

Comments

[Mark_54]

Diodeus, that was my intended approach but I though there might be a better way... Thanks for replying.

[Mark_54]

Ascalonian, I tried this to occur on the body onload but it doesn't seem to recognised the referrer if it's been referred via the back button. Any ideas?

[Diodeus - James MacFarlane]

There are many examples of reading and setting cookies on this site already.