Assets.images and http requests

[stratboy]

Hi! I've got a little question: let's suppose I'm using Assets.images
twice (in the same page) and to load, say, the same 5 images. Does the
second call generate 5 more http requests? Is that bad or I shoudn't
worry about it?

[CroNiX]

I guess my question is why you are retrieving the same data twice?
Why not just reuse the result from the first request?

[stratboy]

Because I really can't do it :)

So, is there anyone that can answer my original question?

I've taken a look to the class Assets, and it seems it doesn't check
if images are already cached. I've also tried to see some tracing from
firebug and safari activity and it seems the don't reload images. I
don't know if this is always true, and if it's true for IE too.

Any guru? :)

[eskimoblood]

No it will not request the images again, cause they are all in the
browsers cache at this point.

[pradador]

IMO, http requests are bad for your app as they tend to be a
bottleneck area depending on the concurrent requests a browser makes
(older browsers do only two connections at a time for example). But
with modern browsers you can count on them being smart and loading the
same image from the local cache instead of hitting the server. So in
general terms you could probably not worry about it and never see
unneeded requests.

That being said, you end up counting on "magic" on the browser's part
and would be better off ensuring your app only calls Asset.images once
to preload the images and then just cloning the resulting image
elements as needed to ensure no unneeded requests are ever made.

[stratboy]

Thank you all for the answers guys :)