Both Netscape and IE offer an option to “work offline”, but the meaning or purpose of this escapes me. If I use the “offline” option, it’s not as though it clears my 'phone connection, and the time spent connected to the ISP continues to tick along.
It’s no problem, as I can easily disconnect if that what I want to do, (heck, my ISP loves to do that anyway) but I sometimes wonder what this option is actually meant to achieve. And it’s bound to be one of those things that look really obvious only when someone explains it to me.
My (perhaps incorrect) understanding of this is that the browser keeps a copy of the page(s) on your computer’s hard drive. Thus, you can visit the site even when you aren’t connected to the internet.
You can see all the images and the text that was there the last time your browser grabbed an updated copy of the page, you just can’t submit any information until you reconnect to the internet.
I guess it would be helpful if you download a page with a lot of javascript code in it. Then most of the functionality of the site is intact without adding to your phone bill.
I use this feature frequently. The advantage is this: If you choose “work offline” (when you are disconnected) your computer will not automatically try to dial up your ISP again. This is esp. useful if you’re testing out Web pages you’ve designed, etc., b/c it will not, say, automatically try to load a banner ad image from LinkExchange’s server (a problem I’ve had in the past) or all of those crappy graphics that HTML e-mail messages are sometimes linked to.
It’s a pain to open up a page to test it out and then have to quickly select the “cancel” button.
Thanks, Starbury and Toadspittle. Actually, it seems not to have anything to do with not being connected to the internet, thereby saving on phone bill, (which, thank goodness, is not a problem with my ISP) or about the computer automatically trying to dial up the 'net. Mine just asks whether I want to connect or not.
But the mentions of Javascript and designing web pages suggest to me that it is probably a useful function, but for things which I do not yet attempt to do, so maybe that explains it.
As the “offline” option by itself does not disconnect my 'phone connection, I got used to regarding it as pretty useless, as it’s just as easy to disconnect the dial-up connection anyway, but it sounds as though it might become ueful when I have to start to learn more about web pages etc.
Many thanks, both. (But now I can’t wonder about that anymore, I suppose I ought to write Christmas cards. Huh.)
I thought i just might add, when it asks you if you want to connect or not, it doesn’t mean to ask if you want to connect to the internet, it means do you want to try to connect to a remote server, which requires an internet connection.
If you’re in offline mode and click a link that goes to a remote server it asks you if you really want to send the request.
OK, thanks, I think I understand it as much as I’m going to at present. From my own point of view, you see, if I decide to be offline for a while, I may as well disconnect completely, in order to free up the 'phone line, and in the hope that it will make it more likely that when I want to connect again, I will get a reasonable time before my ISP disconnects me, which it does in a unpredictable sort of way.
