As long as I have an Internet connection, every change I make is saved to the cloud. When I lose my connection, I sacrifice some features, but I can still access my documents (for this initial release, you can view and edit word processing documents; right now we don't support offline access to presentations or spreadsheets - see our help center for details). Everything I need is saved locally. And I do everything through my web browser, even when I'm offline (the goodness that Google Gears provides). When my connection comes back, my documents sync up again with the server. It's all pretty seamless: I don't have to remember to save my documents locally before packing my laptop for a trip. I don't have to remember to save my changes as soon as I get back online. And I don't have to switch applications based on network connectivity. With the extra peace of mind, I can more fully rely on this tool for my important documents.

If you don't see an Offline link in your Google Docs account, don't worry, it's coming. We're releasing this feature on a rolling basis. You should see be able to enable the offline feature for Google Docs soon.

The first thing you need to run a web application offline is the ability to start it without an Internet connection. This is the purpose of the LocalServer module ... Applications that are more than just static files have data that is typically stored on the server. For the application to be useful offline, this data must be accessible locally. The Database module provides a relational database for storing data ... When synchronizing large amounts of data, you may find that the database operations begin to affect the responsiveness of the browser. The WorkerPool allows you to move your database operations to the background to keep the browser responsive.

Labels: Dakota Frost, Dragon Writers