Google Gears is Launched

Mister Inbetween writes "Google is rolling out a technology designed to overcome the major drawback faced by all web-based applications: the fact that they don't work without an internet connection. Google Gears is an open source technology for creating offline web applications that is being launched today at Google's annual Developer Day gatherings around the world."

For those who want to get started...

[FST]

There are some sample applications available here [google.com] to help you get started using Google Gears. I found it pretty non-intuitive at the beginning but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it slowly.

Re:Link?

[munksaway]

here is a link to a video interview with Google's engineering director: http://tinyurl.com/2rrllx [tinyurl.com]

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[mypalmike]

Safari is supported. Opera support is coming soon.

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[AKAImBatman]

So it looks like this is a browser plugin. Meaning that you'd need to install it with your web application. The API is reminiscent of the WHATWG Storage Specification [whatwg.org], but appears to be a bit more sophisticated in its reach. If I'm reading this right, the biggest difference is auto-syncing of the data with a server (when you're online) rather than having to write your own synching software.

Thus this appears to be a competitor to Adobe Apollo [wikipedia.org], but without Google defining their own container format.

Interesting. I'm not quite sure what to make of it as it's not anything that hasn't been contemplated before. Personally, I'm hesitent to adopt anything that can't be used on a live webpage as well as downloadable "webapps". However, that may not stop others who have good ideas on how this might be used.

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[compm375]

Did you or the mods read the GP link?

Google Gears works on the following browsers:

• Apple Mac OS X (10.2 or higher)
  • Firefox 1.5 or higher
• Linux
  • Firefox 1.5 or higher
• Microsoft Windows (XP or higher)
  • Firefox 1.5 or higher
  • Internet Explorer 6 or higher

Additionally, the team is working on supporting Safari on Mac OS X in a future release.

Re:Link?

[AKAImBatman]

There is. It's on the first page, second paragraph. Click on the text that says "Google Gears". It will take you here:

http://gears.google.com/ [google.com]

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[ScottyH]

It seems that Google Gears can be used for more than offline applications. It includes tools for running JavaScript in background threads to prevent UI blocking, as well as a SQLLite database for storage and fast retrieval of any data you want, whether you're working offline or not.

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[mypalmike]

You're probably right. But...

http://news.com.com/Google+kicks+offline+Web+apps+ into+gear/2100-7345_3-6187596.html [com.com]

"The initial code is aimed at JavaScript developers who write Ajax-style Web applications. It runs on Internet Explorer on Windows; Firefox on Windows, Mac OS and Linux; and on the Safari Mac OS browser."

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[AKAImBatman]

I'm inclined to believe that CNet made the mistake. Google claims that it works on Firefox for OS X. My guess is that CNet either assumed that OS X support == Safari support or they decided to preemptively report the upcoming Safari support.

Is this already possible?

[figleaf]

IE had this feature for ages. HTA (HTML Applications) can be offline applications.
And now Firefox is getting the same feature.

Why do we need yet another plug-in.

Re:how is this better

[AKAImBatman]

Dojo uses whatever storage service is available. That includes WHATWG Storage, Flash storage, and IE controls.

The biggest difference with Google Gears is that the storage mechanism can be configured to automatically sync with the parent server. It also allows you to run your code asynchronously as well as provides direct access to an SQLLite database. However, these features are secondary to the primary purpose of providing auto-synced data storage.

Re:how is this better

[Subliminal Fusion]

Two key differences are that this is a collaboration of the Dojo Offline project and Google [sitepen.com] (which grew out of dojo.storage which is based around flash storage) and is using a relational DB (SQLite) as opposed to a flat-file data store.

It's also Open Source and they have support from Adobe, Mozilla and Opera (as mentioned in the Press Release [businesswire.com]).

Re:What's the Point

[misleb]

Why not just create a basic virtual machine client and load it with this fast, simple "Google OS"? The capabilities would be similar - it needs access to the local file system to store documents, and the app would run in a highly stable evironment that needs to do nothing but run apps.

Dude, I think you just described Java. ;-)

I hear Java Web Start even solves the problem of distributing app updates seamlessly. Not that I am a fan of Java for GUI apps as far as look and feel go, but it certainly meets to your requirements for a virtual machine and I'd probably take it over some of the HTML + JS shite that is out there.

Why is it that nobody can see that what everyone longs for was invented more than a decade ago. It is like the 900 gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about.

-matthew

IBM...

[Belial6]

Of course IBM rolled this [techtarget.com] out six years ago in the Domino server, although I don't really expect Google's offering to handle Replication/Save conflicts as well as Domino does. Of course, now that there is actually another product out, the anti-Notes trolls can start complaining that the 6 year old tech from IBM isn't using the same API that the brand new offering from Google uses.

Re:What's the Point

[misleb]

You mean XUL?

Except that XUL isn't really made for web apps. It is really for browser interface itself and for browser extensions that are installed locally. Actually writing a networked XUL app is kind of a pain because of security restrictions. I wrote a XUL app once but found that I had to install it as an extension because I could hardly do anything useful with all the restrictions when loading from a server. And if you are going to require that users install you app as an extension, the question becomes why use the browser at all? Why not use a real VM like Java?

-matthew

Re:Huh?

[nmoog]

This release does have its own web server in it. It's creatively called "LocalServer".

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[AKAImBatman]

You sure about that? It looks to me like it's in the HTML5 working draft to me:

http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/html5/spec/Overview.html? rev=1.29#storage [w3.org]

"This specification introduces two related mechanisms, similar to HTTP session cookies [RFC2965], for storing structured data on the client side.

The first is designed for scenarios where the user is carrying out a single transaction, but could be carrying out multiple transactions in different windows at the same time.

The second storage mechanism is designed for storage that spans multiple windows, and lasts beyond the current session. In particular, Web applications may wish to store megabytes of user data, such as entire user-authored documents or a user's mailbox, on the clientside for performance reasons."

;-)