Something I'm noticing while working with Flex more and more is that browsers (in particular Firefox) are quite aggressive when it comes to caching Flash (SWF) files. This can make testing more hassle than it need be at times.

To get round this I've been using a nifty little feature of HTTPWatch which lets you remove an object from the browser's cache - one or many at a time.

All you do is keep an eye on the HTTP requests for the page you loaded and look for the SWF. In the shot above it's the highlighted line. Notice the HTTP status for it is 304, whereby the server has told the browser nothing has changed. I know it has so I select Clear Cache for Selected URLs from the Tools menu and next time I load the page I get the newer version.

It's simpler than emptying the whole of the browsers cache by some other means, which can have undesirable side effects.

I know I go on about HTTPWatch quite a bit, which might look a bit suspicious to some, but it's one of the handful of tools I've come to rely on day-to-day.