The Microsoft Patterns & Practices Group has released the Smart Client Offline Application Block.
[T]he Offline Application Block ... is intended to serve as an architectural model for developers who want to add offline capabilities to their smart client applications. The block demonstrates how to:
- Detect the presence or absence of network connectivity.
- Cache the required data so that the application can continue to function even when the network connection is not available.
- Synchronize the client application state and/or data with the server when the network connection becomes available.
This should help to achieve that last pillar in the Zen of Smart Client Venn Diagram.
Hervey Wilson, Dev Lead on the WSE 2.0 project,
announces that the product has reached Code Complete and has entered the testing phase. As I mentioned earlier, it's due out
early Q2.