Re: Manifest(o)s, offline reading, and EPUB+WEB

Coming from both a publisher perspective and a web-developer perspective
(and technically a web-app developer as well) I would really like to see
AppCache working successfully.  My original crude understanding of it was
that it would solve the offline problem.

if it falls short, then we need to identify where and why and recommend
there be changes to AppCache.

(minor crazy rant here, apologies in advanced, feel free to ignore).

We are currently living in a very awkward time.  It's a transition between
an offline and online world.  10 years ago, being online was a treat - a
gift if you will - and online resources were treated special, and caching
was saved for images and a few other large files to make your favorite
sites load faster (and was 100% something that browsers did to make a
better experience).

But now we're in this messy world where most devices are "always on" but
some aren't, and internet connections are spotty, so we have to build these
interim solutions for the next few years.  We are heading to an always-on
everything-lives-in-the-cloud world.  When that happens, all this goes
away...  Which is part of the issue that visionaries have solving the
problems of today - we know they will go away and we know the ideal
solution, but we can't get there...

So what do we do?  How do we solve the problems of today?  We take the
existing infrastructure that is already close - such as AppCache, and we
find a way to "fix" it.  I've noticed that Apple, when attempting to use
more than a few megabytes of cache just asks you "do you want to allow this
app/page to use more space" and you just tap "YES" and boom - you have up
to 1GB of cache or so for that app.  This is fairly trivial code for the
browser developers.

Storing files offline, and having a manifest for certain files that should
display alternates when offline are a must, and it sounds like AppCache is
close enough to having all that.

-Nick

On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 8:52 AM, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:

>
> > On 23 Jun 2015, at 14:16 , Dave Cramer <dauwhe@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 7:32 AM, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:
> >
> > > On 23 Jun 2015, at 10:50 , Koji Ishii <kojiishi@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > You might want to take a look at Service Worker.
> >
> > Indeed, that was my first thought, too.
> >
> > Me too. But I find it interesting we all talk about the flaws of
> AppCache as if it was gravity or or the U.S. Congress, immune to change. Is
> there any interest in making AppCache work?
> >
> > Maybe the EPUB+WEB work (in the new IG if it gets chartered) will have
> to develop some sort of a proof-of-concept reading system on top of Service
> Workers...
> >
> >  This is going to be an interesting way for me to learn Javascript ;)
>
> The difficulty is not the programming language, it is to understand how
> the zillions of API-s work…
>
> Ivan
>
> >
> > Dave
>
>
> ----
> Ivan Herman, W3C
> Digital Publishing Activity Lead
> Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
> mobile: +31-641044153
> ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
- Nick Ruffilo
@NickRuffilo
http://Aerbook.com
http://ZenOfTechnology.com <http://zenoftechnology.com/>