[QGIS-Developer] Refresh Layer at interval functionality: data or repaint?

[Richard Duivenvoorde]

Hi,

on the User-mailing list:

https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-user/2020-April/045348.html

there was a question about the 'Refresh Layer at interval' checkbox in
the Properties/Rendering tab.

I was wondering what the idea was behind it, as apparently it is only
repainting a layer?
While F5 (menu 'View/Refresh') is actually refreshing the data to (shown
by retrieving a geojson layer from a mini service).

Is this by design? Or could it be an issue?

To me a real refresh checkbox (a la F5) would be useful to users.
As this opens the use-case to for example hand an geojson-url to a
vector layer which could retrieve a 'live data' containing the latest
position of cars, or the latest measurements of a set of measuring
points etc etc.
And to be honest I do not see so much the value of repainting the canvas
(other then when you want moving features created by an expression or so).
And IF the repainting is valuable for a certain use-case: fine.
Then: what about adding a second checkbox then there...?

Anybody has an idea about this?

Regards,

Richard Duivenvoorde