Comments on: Ajax Experience Keynotes Announced; Off-line Ajax

By: zacknolden

zacknolden — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:30:04 +0000

So even after getting back on line, users will soon find out that they are not always looking at the latest data.

By: xmluvr

xmluvr — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:17:48 +0000

one thing we havent seen shit of is desktop apps that use HTTP/REST APIs. its always bringing a desktoppy feature or two (in this case acecss to a sqlite) to the browser, or bringing the browser to the desktop (apollo/silverlight)

an openGL or GTK app which interacts with flickr is the best of both worlds…

By: PM Maliki

PM Maliki — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:52:34 +0000

WHAT? Morfik was in public alpha almost 18 months ago, with offline functionality. In fact, that was the thing y’all touted about it at the time – “Web Applications UNPLUGGED”. How soon we forget.

By: Kevin Hoang Le

Kevin Hoang Le — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:47:41 +0000

Watch out for the negative impact: There will be, no doubt, some applications which wouldn’t get implemented properly. So even after getting back on line, users will soon find out that they are not always looking at the latest data. Unless they’ll learn how to clear the cache or synchronize with the server’s data, some doubts will be left imprint in users’ minds forever. How many users have the habit of rebooting Windows unnecessarily ?

Then the issue of security and privacy? Some will try to spy on the cache. Google, Dojo might have done some heavy lifting, but there will be some challenges ahead. It won’t be free lunch, that’s what I’m trying to say.

By: Jon Hartmann

Jon Hartmann — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 12:27:34 +0000

@Ben,
Thanks for the answer! Even just from the stand point of being able to hold information from visit to visit, this system has potential. An application which loads its main page via Ajax might only load slowly on the first visit, after that it could use the local data and then re query after page load… I’m not sure about caching and access speeds but might it also be useful to store parts of the js application into this cache?

I’m still new at using js in the application scale over the enhancement scale, so those might be dumb questions.

By: Aaron Pedersen

Aaron Pedersen — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 06:07:14 +0000

There are very limited areas where on line access is available 24/7 when you are on the move. Even in large cities. What if I’m commuting to work and am currently working on a set of bugs logged in bugzilla. What off line solutions give companies is the ability to create a common code base that can be shared in on line and off line applications. Cutting development time and ease of maintainability.

What would be neat is an off line Firefox option. A Ajax mail client such as Zimbra goes off line and you attempt to send an email. Firefox off line saves to local disk, until the users is back on line. Does such a product exist?

By: Charlie Cheng

Charlie Cheng — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:29:55 +0000

There are needs for offline. Although I am working on web application, i still do believe that web application won’t replace desktop application. They will play different roles in the new future. Comparing with google online spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel are much powerful and easy to use.

By: ix

ix — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:38:16 +0000

haha, ‘limited and generally closed platform’. what are you talking about again- making extensions to Outlook Express?

By: ix

ix — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:32:51 +0000

whether in an urban area or in the suburbs, theyres usually 12-20 networks to hop on,only about 5% of which are WPA.. if im any further from civilization than that, hopping on the net or reading my ZIMBRA is the last thing on my mind

there are so many issues pertinent to the quality of the ajax experience – making the DOM API suck less, cross-domain JSONrequests, clientside RDF stores and querying, 3D canvas, JS engines that arent a fraction of the speed smalltalk or lisp were 3 decades ago, figuring out why people are using URL hacks instead of content negotiation, making protocols within a protocol like Atom or Bayeux instead of using HTTP methods/headers/transportm etc.

why all the focus on something that nobody wants or is clamoring for? anyone who really wants/needs their gmail on a flight is certainly well off enough to pay the $20 for inflight connectivity and can surely justify the investment..

By: Ben Galbraith

Ben Galbraith — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:27:52 +0000

@Jon: This is about persistent storage of arbitrary data made accessible to web applications via JavaScript APIs. So, yes, you can save data across browser sessions.

@Benny: When you need off-line, you absolutely need it. Common scenarios include supporting business travelers, supporting client installations in areas where bandwidth is poor, and so forth.

By: Miro

Miro — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:24:20 +0000

Very usefull information!

Thank you :)

By: Jon Hartmann

Jon Hartmann — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:07:38 +0000

Is this data saved only per browser that is open? If the data goes away at browser close then this seems like a very useless addition… if it is persistent then we now have a plat form to hold decently sized amounts of data between visits which is a very very nice feature.

By: Benny Shoham

Benny Shoham — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:41:08 +0000

Offline ? Offline ??? why the hell does anybody spent time and money to take the bread and butter of online world, the browsers, and use them offline? Anyway, I believe that the online world is expanding fast on the expense of a rapidly shrinking offline world. What kinds off applications require offline browsing? do they really worth the efforts?

By: car mechanic

car mechanic — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:06:58 +0000

Ajax will rule the world!

By: venaz

venaz — Thu, 31 May 2007 19:07:03 +0000

me parece muy bueno este componente sobre todo por
la rapidez que presta en conexion