Local and Offline Modes
We understand how important it is that applications in our industry work offline when on site and in poor internet conditions, so we are thrilled to announce a significant new upgrade to GearConnect, now in beta: Local and Offline Modes!
You can enable Local Mode via User Settings -> Preferences -> Experimental Features. By default, it's off during the beta period but is planned to be enabled by default after the beta phase is complete. When enabled, you have two sync options: Sync Periodically, which automatically syncs local changes to the server every 10 minutes if changes exist, or Sync Manually, which lets you choose when to sync projects back to the server from the new last synced at indicator in the Main Menu Bar.
Local Mode works by saving your project data locally first to your device and then syncing to the server according to your chosen setting, rather than in real-time. This significantly speeds up the editing workflow, especially on larger projects.
Project cards on the dashboard now display icons indicating their status:
- A cloud icon for server-only projects
- Note when first enabling Local Mode, existing projects will not display this icon until the first sync
- A laptop icon for local-only projects
- Both icons are displayed if the project is accessible in both locations
Offline support is enabled automatically when you lose connection to the network or can be forced on via User Settings -> Preferences -> Experimental Features (requires Local Mode to be enabled). An orange "Offline" bar appears at the top, and you can use the app without requiring an internet connection. While offline, certain features are disabled, including saving new Version History and saving/copying items in the Library Editor.
While you can install GearConnect to your local device as a PWA for ease of access, that’s not required to take advantage of either of these features! Once you open your first project and Local Mode has been enabled, you are ready to start working offline simply by going back to app.gearconnect.ca!
For full details please refer to our updated documentation, including a new section on Local Mode specifically!
Improvements
- A save is now triggered immediately after opening a project to ensure local data is updated with any new server updates
- Automatically increments a VLAN ID when a conflict is detected when in Local Mode
- Added a Delete Local Projects option to the File Menu
- Renamed Server Sync to Project Validation as Server Sync is now specific to Local Mode and Project Validation is the feature for validating your project data with the server
- All expansion cards required by library items are now pre-downloaded during the library update process to avoid fetching additional expansion cards while offline
- Importing a project with a name that already exists will now automatically append "(Copy)" to the newly imported project’s name, even for local files
- If loading from Version History fails, improved messaging is shown, and the application will fall back to opening the latest server version of the project
- You can now open the Version History dialog by clicking on its icon in the Main Menu Bar
- A loading state indicator has been added to the Your Projects page while projects are loading
- Sub-menus now open more quickly in file menus
- The clickable area for items in file menus has been increased, so you no longer need to click precisely on the text
- Connection processing performance has been improved
- Changed the keyboard shortcut for removing elements from Delete to Backspace for better consistency across Mac and Windows
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a saving state loop where triggering a Version History could trigger subsequent saves unnecessarily
- Fixed issues where projects might attempt to save after being closed
- Fixed importing a new project would sometimes not always navigate to the freshly created project
- Fixed focus being lost in some text boxes (e.g., search boxes) during drag-select actions when ending the drag outside of the text box
- Fixed receiving an authentication error that could occur on the Plans page when not logged in
- Improved the reliability of the library restoring from the local database when returning to the app
