Re: How will regular users know which web apps work offline?

On 6 September 2012 22:44, Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com> wrote:
> 1) "this app will work offline" is kind of a spectrum, not a Boolean;
> obviously, many features of an app may be shut off when disconnected.  It's
> challenging to capture that well in a UI.

This is certainly the case with Lanyrd. Although a simple visit to the
site will result in an appcache, the user is in control of which event
pages are available offline through tracking/attending. Obviously this
behaviour is too specific to include in a spec. We have a little
banner that shows a progress meter while caching, and turns into a
little notificication when done.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8320/7955542864_9bea684c83_o.png

> 2) However, at a base level, you can leave it up to the developer - the
> manifest for Chrome Hosted Apps (web applications on a regular web server,
> but with a manifest to be published in the Chrome Web Store) has a special
> bit to state that the app is "offline enabled".  This lets us highlight apps
> that will still work when you're offline (when Chrome goes offline, the New
> Tab page grays out all non-offline enabled apps if you are offline).

This seems acceptable & is possible in the current implementation. If
a URL is associated with a manifest (either explicitly or FALLBACK),
the browser can indicate the resource has some kind of offline
functionality. This would be misinformative if appcache was being used
as a performance hack, and didn't actually provide an offline
experience, but I don't think we should cater for that.

Received on Saturday, 8 September 2012 14:36:28 UTC