The site keeps working with no network
A letter is built entirely in your browser: it would be absurd for it then to need the network merely to appear. Here is what works with no connection, what does not, and how to install the site as an application.
Why
A copy of the site stays on your device
A letter is built entirely in your browser, asking nothing of a server while you write. It would be absurd for it then to need the network merely to appear: this site is built to keep working when there is no connection.
From your very first visit, the browser installs alongside the site a small program that carries on working even after the tab is closed. That program puts aside, in your browser's own storage, a copy of what is needed to display the site: the pages, the letter templates, the layout, the fonts. It happens in the background, with nothing for you to do.
It is not only the pages you opened one by one that become available afterwards. That first copy already covers, in the background, most of the site: opening a page you have never looked at can therefore work offline too.
That copy only takes over if the network is missing. As long as there is a connection, each page is reloaded from the site first before appearing: that is what guarantees that a correction we publish reaches you, rather than an old version left in memory.
One moment alone escapes that copy: the very first load of the site, on a device that has never opened it. Before that, nothing has been put aside yet, so a connection is needed at least that first time.
What works offline
- Reopening a page already put aside, including a page you had never visited yourself.
- Writing a letter in the workshop from start to finish: all the work is done in the browser, never depending on the network.
- Reading a letter template already published on the site.
- Finding a letter you started after reloading the page: the answers given in the workshop stay on the device, whatever the network is doing.
What does not work offline
- Opening the site for the very first time with no connection at all: nothing has been put aside yet.
- Receiving a correction or a page published since your last visit online: they only arrive with the next connection.
- Sending, saving online or sharing anything from the site: those functions do not exist, with or without a network.
- A browser set to block this mechanism, or strict private browsing: only the pages the browser then keeps in its ordinary cache stay readable, and for a time it decides on its own.
An application, not just a page
Installing the site on your phone or your computer
This site can also be installed as an application: an icon on the home screen or in the list of programs, a window of its own, with no address bar. The content stays the same, only the way you open it changes.
On a phone
- Open the browser's menu, often three dots or a share icon.
- Choose the option offering to install the site or add it to the home screen: its exact wording depends on the browser.
- Confirm: an icon appears among your applications, like any other.
On a computer
- Look in the address bar or the browser's menu for the icon or the option to install the site.
- Confirm the installation.
- The site now opens in its own window, with a shortcut available from the desktop or the list of programs.
The icon, the name and the window shown are the site's own: none of it depends on an account, since there is none.
Updates
An update never wipes out a letter in progress
When this site publishes a correction, the version already installed on your device does not change straight away. It waits until every tab open on the site is closed before giving way to the new one.
That choice protects precisely the situation that matters most here: being in the middle of a letter when an update arrives. Changing the site under your fingers while you write would produce symptoms that looked like a bug without being one.
Closing the site and reopening it is enough to receive the new version, if a connection is available at that moment.
Printing, as a last resort
If all else fails, printing is still there: it depends on no network, only on what the page already shows.
In the workshop, a dedicated button prints the letter alone: not the banner, not the site's header, not its footer, not the form used to write it, only the text meant to be sent.
On the other pages, including a letter template already written, the browser's ordinary printing works on the same principle: the banner and the navigation stay out of the way, and the page reads on paper as it does on screen.