WordPress.com bloggers now have a “Turbo” button on their dashboards to connect to the latest feature “Gears.” Gears is an open source project that enables more powerful web applications, by adding new features to your web browser:
- Let web applications interact naturally with your desktop
- Store data locally in a fully-searchable database
- Run JavaScript in the background to improve performance
What is Google Gears?
Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. Gears provides three key features:
- A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
- A database, to store and access data from within the browser
- A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background
Google Gears is currently an early-access developers’ release. It is not yet intended for use by real users in production applications at this time. If you’re a developer interested in using Google Gears with your application, visit the Google Gears Developer Page.
If you wish to install Google Gears on your computer, visit the Google Gears Home Page. Please note, however, that Google Gears is not yet intended for general use.
- What browsers and operating systems are supported by Google Gears?
- Does Google Gears automatically make my web application work offline?
A Gears Tutorial is available that illustrates the basic concepts. You may also find the Google Gears sample applications useful. Source code for these samples can be downloaded in a zip file found on the same page.
Note: Some dialog about the use of the Turbo button to activate Gears can be found in wordpress.com support forum posts. July 2nd, 2008 update -> Read the official announcement.
It’s a browser addon that does all its work local to your PC. It is entirely an option and will only appear for supported browsers. It’s a per-blog thing right now. Activating it [Turbo] will first ask for the Gears extension to be installed. When you then go to your blog admin you can speed up that admin – it takes a minute or so to download the files.
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Rob
June 30, 2008
For all things wordpress.com, timethief is the person to see. Her posts, carefully crafted for both new and veteran bloggers, take the readers through tips, tutorials, and expert advice. This post opens a new world of gears to wordpress dotcommers. Always keeping her eye on the future to benefit us all.
Sakib
June 30, 2008
Sorry to disturb you. Can you please tell me http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/post-index/ is this automated page or manually? If automated…how could you do that? Can I do the same things for my blog?
timethief
June 30, 2008
@sakib
I have created this page manually and I update it manually with each new post tile link and the date of publication. As far as I know there is no automated means of creating and generating such a list.
timethief
June 30, 2008
@Rob
Thanks so much for your kind words. I appreciate them. I do the best I can to keep the wp.com and Blog Catalog communities aware of new features and how to use them.
Sakib
July 1, 2008
@timethief
thanks to inform me. However, I created one for my site. It’s automated and it looks cool too. Hope you like it.
timethief
July 1, 2008
I misunderstood you. I thought that this was the page you were referring to http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/post-index/ but it wasn’t. This is the page you meant. http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/archives/
Brad Neuberg
July 1, 2008
Thanks for informing the WordPress community on the new Gears support!
Best,
Brad Neuberg
Gears
timethief
July 1, 2008
You’re welcome. I’m surprise at how few comments I have received.
micc83
July 3, 2008
What about a plugin for stand-alone wp version?
timethief
July 3, 2008
What about it? WordPress gears is beta. I’m not aware of any plans to develop plugins. Please ask over here http://wordpress.org/
feministscribbler
July 3, 2008
Hello,
Thanks for these invaluable tips! I am new to blogging and using wordpress, so your site has been a great resource for me. I have also added you as a friend on BC. I enjoyed checking out your other blog- esp your relationships and spirituality post!
timethief
July 3, 2008
Yay! I’m glad to hear that you are using this blog. I made it just for the purpose of sharing all the blogging tips I learn with others. Thanks also for the kind words about my personal blog as well. Best wishes for happy blogging.
chris
July 4, 2008
To answer comment number 9) google gears is rumored to be a feature of the upcoming wordpress 2.6 for selfhosters.
Google gears works with “google reader”, I am hoping. in the near future i can read my favorite blog posts, without having to go on line, everytime.
Thanks for the informative post, Time thief :)
timethief
July 4, 2008
@Chris
Thanks for the information. :)
Mark Stoneman
July 4, 2008
After the disaster that was Google’s desktop search engine on the Mac, I’m skeptical. Nonetheless, I’m always interested in hearing about further integration of desktop and web computing.
timethief
July 4, 2008
I’m also skeptical about browser “bloat” but we shall see what we shall see. :)
Brad Neuberg
July 8, 2008
@Mark and timethief: I don’t like browser bloat either :) The Gears team tries very hard to keep the plugin small and focused. We try to create small primitives that others can build on for their web apps, similar to how XMLHttpRequest is a small primitive that has been used to create many new apps. If we’ve bloated then we’ve failed :)
Cyberto
July 30, 2008
Yeah finally Gears works with WordPress :) n1ce
timethief
July 30, 2008
I’m glad you like the integration. Thanks for commenting.