4 ms·

"works offline" ... in Chrome only!

oinksoft 13y ago
Not so different from features that only worked with Google Gears before, Chrome essentially being Gears, matured.
azakai 13y ago
It's been years and still Google only implements offline mode in docs for Chrome? This looks shameful, but perhaps there is some reason that Google people reading HN can explain? From what I can tell this requires a Chrome app from the Chrome Web Store. So it is not standard HTML5 stuff. Does Google intend to fully support non-Chrome browsers? This behavior seems to show otherwise.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- wodenokoto 13y ago
  While it is hard to say what Google expects to do or not to do, it does seem like Google are building an app platform on Chrome in parallel to the so called web app platform (HTML5 + Javascript).
  - jebblue 13y ago
    With DART and Go and Google Fiber, all one company. It kind of worries me to be honest. Overall though as long as Larry and Sergei are there it should be OK I think.
  - motti 13y ago
    Google originally pioneered Gears as a way to get webapps to work offline (at a time when HTML5 was still being hashed out by WHATWG) and tried to get it adopted as an open standard (http://gearsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/gears-and-standards.html http://gearsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/gears-and-standards....). Spreadsheets had (view-only) offline capability via Gears as far back as 2008 (see http://googledocs.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/view-your-presentations-and.html http://googledocs.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/view-your-presentat...) but this was then discontinued in favour of the standards methods. FWIW, they have been helping with the HTML5 storage APIs from the beginning. The HTML5 way of doing offline is AppCache, which Google have used for other products (http://googlecode.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/gmail-for-mobile-html5-series-using.html http://googlecode.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/gmail-for-mobile-ht...) and are presumably using here (or the alternative FileSystem API - http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/file-system/pub/FileSystem/ http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/file-system/pub/FileSystem/). I suspect the Chrome-only limitation is due to the differences in the way is currently implemented, for instance: * Until Firefox 26's release yesterday, it would prompt for each site that wanted to use AppCache (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6881368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6881368). * Firefox doesn't handle the no-store directive well * Chrome Apps can be granted unlimited storage (https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/storage#unlimited https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/storage#unl...)
    - azakai 13y ago
      If it worked in Chrome outside of the store, it would be more plausible. But requiring the Chrome Store seems to indicate it is not using just standard HTML5 stuff like appCache. The issue of limited storage or not seems insufficient to explain this. Very disappointing.
sockgrant 13y ago
Google can't force other browsers to implement features. If it's only available for Chrome, it is possible that the features they need are not available elsewhere.
- gecko 13y ago
  We used the same logic back when sites were IE4-only due to things like ActiveX, right?
  - gngeal 13y ago
    But the web site still works in other browsers, doesn't it?

Not so different from features that only worked with Google Gears before, Chrome essentially being Gears, matured.

It's been years and still Google only implements offline mode in docs for Chrome? This looks shameful, but perhaps there is some reason that Google people reading HN can explain? From what I can tell this requires a Chrome app from the Chrome Web Store. So it is not standard HTML5 stuff. Does Google intend to fully support non-Chrome browsers? This behavior seems to show otherwise.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
wodenokoto 13y ago
While it is hard to say what Google expects to do or not to do, it does seem like Google are building an app platform on Chrome in parallel to the so called web app platform (HTML5 + Javascript).
- jebblue 13y ago
  With DART and Go and Google Fiber, all one company. It kind of worries me to be honest. Overall though as long as Larry and Sergei are there it should be OK I think.
- motti 13y ago
  Google originally pioneered Gears as a way to get webapps to work offline (at a time when HTML5 was still being hashed out by WHATWG) and tried to get it adopted as an open standard (http://gearsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/gears-and-standards.html http://gearsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/gears-and-standards....). Spreadsheets had (view-only) offline capability via Gears as far back as 2008 (see http://googledocs.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/view-your-presentations-and.html http://googledocs.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/view-your-presentat...) but this was then discontinued in favour of the standards methods. FWIW, they have been helping with the HTML5 storage APIs from the beginning. The HTML5 way of doing offline is AppCache, which Google have used for other products (http://googlecode.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/gmail-for-mobile-html5-series-using.html http://googlecode.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/gmail-for-mobile-ht...) and are presumably using here (or the alternative FileSystem API - http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/file-system/pub/FileSystem/ http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/file-system/pub/FileSystem/). I suspect the Chrome-only limitation is due to the differences in the way is currently implemented, for instance: * Until Firefox 26's release yesterday, it would prompt for each site that wanted to use AppCache (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6881368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6881368). * Firefox doesn't handle the no-store directive well * Chrome Apps can be granted unlimited storage (https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/storage#unlimited https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/storage#unl...)
  - azakai 13y ago
    If it worked in Chrome outside of the store, it would be more plausible. But requiring the Chrome Store seems to indicate it is not using just standard HTML5 stuff like appCache. The issue of limited storage or not seems insufficient to explain this. Very disappointing.

sockgrant 13y ago

Google can't force other browsers to implement features. If it's only available for Chrome, it is possible that the features they need are not available elsewhere.

gecko 13y ago
We used the same logic back when sites were IE4-only due to things like ActiveX, right?
- gngeal 13y ago
  But the web site still works in other browsers, doesn't it?