Browsers: June 2008 Archives

File this under "why didn't I think of it before?"

I've been complaining for at least a month about how I can't install Google Gears to gain offline functionality for Google Docs because Gears only supported Firefox 1.5 to 2.x, and I was running Ubuntu with FF3 and Debian with Iceweasel.

Sure, there are ways to make Gears work with Mozilla browsers that don't go by the name "Firefox," but it seemed a bit above my capability.

And just today, on the first day of Firefox 3's official release, I finally installed Gears in Ubuntu 8.04 with FF3.

But I could've done this weeks ago, had I only come up with this solution:

I could (and now am) running Google Gears with Docs in Puppy Linux.

I occasionally run Puppy 3.00 on the $0 Laptop, but since the Mozilla-based Seamonkey browser/suite isn't Firefox, Gears refuses to install.

But ... there's a PET package for Firefox, and I figured that if I install it, I can add Google Gears and gain the offline functionality for Google Docs that I need.

Know what? It works. Sure, the version of Firefox (2.0.0.4) is a bit old, but I'm pretty much going to be using it for this one purpose.

And I'm just so damn stoked that I can run Google Gears with Docs in both Ubuntu 8.04 and Puppy 3.00.

Note: This should work for just about every version of Puppy out there from the 2's to the 4's. If you can run the Mozilla-Firefox PET package, you can run Gears.

Now maybe I'll try that trick on getting Gears working with non-Firefox browsers based on Mozilla.

Now that Firefox 3 has been officially released, the Google Gears team wasted no time in pounding out a new version of the API that works with FF3.

Coincidentally, this means that Google Gears now works with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, which began its life a couple of months ago with the then-non-Gears-supported FF 3 beta.

According to the blog post cited above, the change was made on June 11, but I don't think the Gears link worked for Linux systems with Firefox 3 (i.e. everybody running Ubuntu 8.04) on that day.

But now that FF3 is officially official, I expect Gears to install in the latest Firefox browser, and I in turn expect my laptop (and me) to be enjoying offline access to my Google Docs files real soon now.

I tried Google Docs with Gears a week ago on Firefox 2 in the Slackware-derived Wolvix Hunter last week, and I was very impressed. Editing of existing Docs files was seamless, and while I miss the ability to create new files in Google Docs while offline, I'm fairly confident that the big brains at Google are hard at work adding this needed bit of functionality to the Docs/Gears world.

By way of explanation, here's what I know about using Google Gears:

Google Gears is what's called an API (which stands for Application Programming Interface), and it installs as a Firefox add-on. If you don't have a live Internet connection, Gears detects this and uses a SQlite database set up in the user's Firefox directory to allow the ability to read and edit files in Google Docs.

When Gears is first installed, the database is created and populated with all the user's Google Docs files, after which Gears attempts at the earliest opportunity to sync that database with the files on the online version of Google Docs.

Like I said, I've tried it, it's brilliant, and it's finally come to the one computer that is regularly offline — my Gateway Solo 1450, which for the time being has no wireless connectivity (something I hope to remedy with a new PCMCIA assembly, should I be able to figure out how to pull the old one and replace it).

Google Gears/Docs update: I installed it in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, and it works. I plan to use it often.

Gears/Docs tip: I think I have a way to get around Google Docs/Gears inability to create new documents while offline.

I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to create a half-dozen to a dozen "dummy" documents in Google Docs while online so I'll have pre-created, empty documents in which to work when I'm not connected and using Docs via Gears.