Working in Phanfare without an Internet connection
From Phanfare Support
The Windows version of the Phanfare desktop application lets you create new albums and modify existing albums even when an Internet connection isn't available. When you re-establish a connection, all of your changes will be synchronized and appear on your Phanfare website. (Offline support for the Mac is coming shortly.)
Every time the Phanfare application launches, it checks to see if an Internet connection is available. If it is, the program will automatically connect. The program monitors the connection's availability and will automatically switch to Disconnected mode when it cannot communicate with Phanfare's servers.
You can also force the Phanfare application to work offline if you would prefer that the program doesn't send and receive data from the service for a period of time. This may be useful if you're trying to upload photos and videos to Phanfare while using a Voice over IP phone service. Depending on the upload speed of your Internet connection, you may not have enough bandwidth to have the phone call and upload at the same time. Just remember to re-establish your connection when your conversation is completed.
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Checking connection status
The status bar at the bottom of the application shows your current connection status:
The bar will also show if you have changes to your web site pending, such as new images to be uploaded or new additions to your music library. If there are also full-size images to be uploaded, the status bar will note that as well.
(Remember that when you add new images into Phanfare, we first upload a small, "web-sized" rendition so your photo is available for viewing very quickly. When all the web-size versions have been uploaded, we send up the original file for secure storage and printing. The original image is not placed into the "full-size queue" until the web-size images have been uploaded. So if you created the album offline, you won't see a notification that full-size uploads are pending. But rest assured that once you reconnect, the images will be transmitted.)
Limitations of using Disconnected or Work Offline modes
When working without a connection to Phanfare's servers, there are certain things that you won't be able to do:
- The albums list will show you all of your albums. However, you'll only be able to see the contents of albums that are stored in your Phanfare cache. If you've always managed your albums on the same computer, it's likely that everything is in your cache. However, if you're using Phanfare on a new machine or if you've previously cleared your Phanfare cache, you'll generally only be able to see those albums that you've looked at since then.
- If the album's entire contents aren't available, you'll see a message that says, "Album will be retrieved when online".
- If specific pictures weren't downloaded when you went offline, you'll see this:
- The following features cannot be used offline:
- Account information access, including billing information
- Address book
- Phanfare Phriends
- Website and Invitation Reports
- Clear Cache
- Reset Preferences
- Website Invitations
- Certain other features will not be available if the necessary information is not in the local cache:
- Website and Album Style Chooser
- Export Image
- Export Album
- All image editing commands
Toggling between Connected and Work Offline
You can manually switch between Connected and Offline modes by selecting Work Offline from the File menu or clicking anywhere on the status bar at the bottom of the program window and choosing Work Offline.
A checkbox next to the option indicates that you're currently in offline mode.
Switching into Connected mode more quickly
Phanfare may take several seconds to notice that you've switched from Connected mode to Disconnected, or vice versa. Performing nearly any operation in the application, such as rotating an image or editing an album description, will force the program to check its status immediately. (Switches between the manually initiated Work Offline mode and Connected are identified by the program immediately.)
Exiting Phanfare
If you try to leave Phanfare while you're disconnected and there are still changes to your site pending, you'll receive the following warning:
You can click OK to exit, but the changes will not be uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet unless you relaunch Phanfare. You're better off minimizing the application by clicking the Minimize button on the title bar. This will get the program out of the way but keep it running so that it resumes uploading changes as soon as you go online.
NOTE: If you chose Work Offline to force the application to disconnect, you'll also have to deselect this option when you reconnect so that your uploads can proceed.
Resolving synchronization conflicts
While you're working offline on one computer, you or someone else who you've given access to your account may have made changes to your Phanfare site from another PC. It's possible that the changes contradict one another. For instance, on one system you may have converted an image to grayscale (black & white) and on the other the image was converted to sepia tone.
Here are some general rules about how Phanfare resolves conflicts:
- Typically, changes made on the disconnected computer override changes made on other computers. In the example above, if the image was converted to grayscale on the disconnected computer, upon reconnecting with the service, the image will be made grayscale, superseding the sepia tone command.
- If an album is deleted by a PC that's connected to the Phanfare service, and in the meantime, you were making changes to your offline copy of that album and adding images, upon reconnect we will create a new album with the original album name that contains the new images that you added. However, all of the images that were originally in the album, including those that you modified will stay deleted and cannot be recovered.
- The Rotate command is cumulative. If you rotated an image 90 degree to the right on the connected and disconnected computers, the image will ultimately be rotated 180 degrees when the disconnected PC reconnects.