Web application in offline mode

Why Offline Mode ? Well, read below:

Need: With more and more applications moving away from desktops, towards the web/internet and with the concepts like SAS (Software As Service), collaborative mode etc gaining significance, we are more dependent on the internet. Expecting all time (even while traveling) network connectivity in all places (like rural area) might be too optimistic thought. To bridge this gap web application vendors are forced to enable their web applications to work offline i.e with out being connected to the internet.

Solution: I could think of 2 ways to provide offline support to a web application.

1. Providing a downloadable version of the application, so that users can install it in their machine and work locally. When required they can sync the local version with the online version.
   • Pros:
     • Almost all the features can be supported in the offline mode
     • Probably less code change required for an existing application. You might have to work only on the syncing aspect.
   • Cons:
     • The downloadable size could be more
     • More hard disk space is required
     • Product upgrading could be cumbersome
       
2. Offline support through some kind of caching support through browser extension, proxy server etc
   • Pros:
     • Light weight component could be downloaded thus reducing the hard disk usage
     • New release/feature upgrading could be easy
   • Cons:
     • You might have to compromise on the features offered in the offline mode when compared to the online version
       

In my subsequent posts I would explain the second option with open source solutions like Dojo Offline toolkit and Google Gears.