Gears PubTools: Offline Enable Content in Minutes
I've created some simple utilities to make it much easier to use Google Gears without having to delve into JavaScript. This new open source library, named Gears PubTools, is a simple collection of JavaScript files that make it easy for content authors to work with Google Gears with just a little bit of HTML. With PubTools, you can easily offline-enable your content within minutes:
- Point to a Gears manifest file (a special file that lists all the pages to take offline) with a simple HTML attribute:
use a custom image:
1) Use the PubTools bookmarklet to create a Gears manifest file. Go to
2) In the web page you want to offline-enable, pull in the PubTools JavaScript file:
'
'
'
"
Note that shortcut icons are only in the development version of Gears; the currently deployed version of Gears does not support shortcuts yet. PubTools will correctly continue to function if the user's installed version of Gears doesn't support shortcuts.
5) PubTools provides a simple default, optional UI for the user. To get this UI, add an element with the magic ID "
If you don't want the default UI, your custom UI can call
6) That's it! You're done. See the
Quick note: Make sure not to list the
I've opened a code.google.com open source project for PubTools. I've done a bunch of QA testing on it, but make sure to file any bugs you might find. If you have patches send them in to me.
- Point to a Gears manifest file (a special file that lists all the pages to take offline) with a simple HTML attribute:
<html gears-manifest="manifest.js">use a custom image:
<html shortcut="true" gears-manifest="manifest.js">
<head>
<link rel="shortcut.icon" title="32x32" href="icon32x32.png"></link>Quick Start
Want to get started using PubTools? First check out the simple demo page, then get started:1) Use the PubTools bookmarklet to create a Gears manifest file. Go to
src/manifest-bookmarklet.html to get the bookmarklet and follow the directions. Save this to a file, such as manifest.js.2) In the web page you want to offline-enable, pull in the PubTools JavaScript file:
<script type="text/javascript" src="pubtools-gears.js"></script><html gears-manifest="manifest.js">shortcut="true":<html gears-manifest="manifest.js" shortcut="true">LINK tag:<link rel="shortcut.icon" title="16x16" href="icon16x16.png"></link>
<link rel="shortcut.icon" title="32x32" href="icon32x32.png"></link>
<link rel="shortcut.icon" title="48x48" href="icon48x48.png"></link>
<link rel="shortcut.icon" title="128x128" href="icon128x128.png"></link>META tags:<meta name="shortcut.name" content="Test Application"></meta>
<meta name="shortcut.description"
content="An application at http://www.test.com/index.html"></meta>
<meta name="shortcut.url" content="http://www.test.com/index.html"></meta>'
shortcut.name' defaults to the HTML TITLE element if not present.'
shortcut.url' defaults to the page's URL if not present.'
shortcut.description' is optional and defaults to the string"
Offline Web Application"Note that shortcut icons are only in the development version of Gears; the currently deployed version of Gears does not support shortcuts yet. PubTools will correctly continue to function if the user's installed version of Gears doesn't support shortcuts.
5) PubTools provides a simple default, optional UI for the user. To get this UI, add an element with the magic ID "
gears-pubtools-offline-widget" into your HTML:<div id="gears-pubtools-offline-widget"></div>If you don't want the default UI, your custom UI can call
PubTools.downloadOffline() to initiate the download of offline resources, and can call PubTools.deleteOffline() to delete the offlined content. These can only be called after the page is loaded.6) That's it! You're done. See the
demos/ directory for a demo and boilerplate you can copy.Quick note: Make sure not to list the
pubtools-gears.js file in your manifest file. The manifest generator takes this into account to leave this out, but if you create it by hand leave it out. We do a trick where when you are offline we simply don't have the file, which doesn't display the default UI to the user since it makes no sense to show that when offline.I've opened a code.google.com open source project for PubTools. I've done a bunch of QA testing on it, but make sure to file any bugs you might find. If you have patches send them in to me.
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