TOOL OF THE MONTH

Google Docs Getting Offline Access
by Rafe Needleman

Google Docs' word processor is finally getting
offline access. Using the free Google Gears
extension, users will soon be able to read and edit
their files even when they have no Internet
connection.

The Gears-enabled version of Google Docs will roll
out to users over the next few weeks, starting
in April. If you don't have access to the feature,
just keep trying, Google Docs product manager Ken
Norton said. You'll know you have the feature when
you see a little "offline" menu item in the upper
right of your document window in Google Docs.


Offline access for Google's spreadsheet and
presentation app will follow after the word
processor rollout is complete, Norton said, and
will be read-only to start.

Google Docs will not, at first, let users create
new documents while offline. The feature's
first-use case is, "I'm amending a document and I
lose my Internet connection," Norton said.
Document creation capability will come eventually.

Of course, users will not be able to collaborate
in real time when offline, or see if other users
are simultaneously modifying a document they are
editing in offline mode. Google Docs will "do its
best" to reconcile changes made by multiple users
when one or more are offline,
Norton said. If there are conflicting edits, a
dialog box will pop up when an offline editor
comes back online.

Offline access is a necessary feature to make
Google's productivity suite a competitor to
Microsoft Office. However Google Docs' feature set,
while improving over time, still falls far short of
the functionality available in the Microsoft suite.
The only other Google application to use Google
Gears currently is the RSS reader, Google Reader.
A few other apps use Google Gears, such as
Remember The Milk.

Mozilla maintains that HTML 5, which includes
specifications for offline access tointeractive Web
sites, will obviate the need for Google Gears.
That'snot likely to stop people from trying the new
offline version of Docs.Norton reminded me that
Gears is open source, and that it is "the onlyway
to bring offline support to the entire Web audience
as a whole." Gears does indeed run on more
platforms than HTML 5 today, however it still
doesn't cover every Web platform: Google Gears runs
on Firefox 1.6 and above (but not beta 3) on
Windows, Mac, and Linux. It also supports
Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher on Windows.
There is no support for Safari, Flock, Opera,
Maxthon, or mobile browsers.