Soon Gmail will be availavle in offline mode too

In May 2010, Google has “temporarily” removed from offline access to Google Docs, which was presented two years through the Google Gears plug-in. “We know that offline access is important for some of you, and are working hard, so that new and better off the possibility of using Google Docs,” the company said at that time.

Sixteen months later, Google has finally provided offline access to Docs back using an application-supplied HTML5 available for the Chrome browser. For now, lets users view documents and spreadsheets without an internet connection, but not change them. Both Gmail and Docs offline, another new feature that requires the installation of an application via the web shop Chrome, but are easy to configure and use. I spent the morning to test it on a MacBook Air and Chromebook to see how it worked.

For documents, will users who click on the chrome gear icon at the top right of the screen to see an option to enable offline beta Docs. This does not appear in other browsers like Firefox.

Once you have clicked a few options to enable offline functionality, users are redirected to the Chrome Web store, where they can install about Google Docs. Once installed, the user is redirected to the homepage Docs, when documents are synchronized with the user’s computer and stored in a locked file. If you use a Mac, you can see where the file is saved, go to the home directory of your Finder and google/chrome/default/databases/https.docs.google.com_0 way.

Now, if you lose access to the Internet can upgrade your browser to go to the online version of your documents, shown in a simpler interface editing tools removed. Another method is to open a new tab and click the Google Docs.

Although the process of testing out today, the MacBook Air and the Samsung Chromebook, offline files, refused to unload a couple of times, but usually worked well. If the load is stopped, I was able to fix, close the page charge.

For offline access to Gmail, users install Chrome Offline Messaging Google App, which features more complete than Docs offline. Offline Gmail allows mail to be “read, reply, searched and archived,” the product description says. Once you have installed the Chrome Web app store myself, I turned off my WiFi connection, click on offline Gmail app, and all my e-mails showed very quickly. Always stay logged in, I was able to respond to an e-mail, which was then delivered when I reconnected to the Internet. There is also a new application for Google Calendar offline.

The offline access to Docs and Gmail are important in the Google search for Chromebooks business. After all, Google Docs has suffered an outage yesterday, and Internet access is not yet everywhere. However, Google is not yet say when winning editing capabilities of online documents. Google’s answer to our question on the subject indicates that Google considers that the browser standards are not yet strong enough for off-line editing as smooth as it should.

“To Docs offline, using a combination of advanced capabilities of HTML5 and ways to deal with use cases is not yet covered by existing standards browser,” Google spokesman said Ars. “Note that this is a first step. Future versions of Chrome will bring even more features Docs offline and the ability to edit documents. Change will require more capacity off-line, which has been done before, but we are working hard with the team to create Chrome. ”

Google also said it will allow online access to other browsers, if you have the support of leaders like Chrome bottom of the page that has left Windows Explorer acting as applications that can be updated, even when they are open.

There is still no word on-line access to Docs Android. However, Gmail is available offline in smart phones and tablets. In fact, Chrome is based on offline Gmail web application designed for the iPhone Google that allows users to view and respond to mail in a browser tablet, even when no Internet.