Work offline and sync

VNCtask is built to keep working when the connection does not. You can read your tasks and make changes offline; when you reconnect, the app catches up on its own and tells you honestly if anything could not be reconciled.

The app opens even with no network

VNCtask installs as an app (see Install the app below). Once installed, the app’s shell — the frame, the navigation, your last-known data — is kept on your device. Quit the app, switch off the network and open it again: it renders from the cached shell instead of a browser “no internet” page, and your tasks are shown from the last known state.

Change things offline — the outbox

Every view is readable offline, and your writes are accepted into an outbox: a queue of your changes, kept on your device in the order you made them. This includes:

Creating tasks — a task you add offline is kept and sent when you reconnect.
Editing tasks — status, priority, dates, comments and other fields.
Adding attachments — a file you attach offline is held with the change and uploaded on reconnect.

Each change is saved to the device immediately before it is queued, so even if the app crashes or the device loses power, your changes are not lost.

While a change is queued, the app shows it against the task (a pending mark) so you can tell what has not reached the server yet. Nothing you did is lost.

Reconnecting — convergence

When the network returns, the outbox is replayed in order, one change at a time:

Each queued change is sent as it was made.
A task you created offline gets its real address from the server, and the app re-points everything that referred to it.
Changes made elsewhere (another device, a colleague) are pulled in, and the app converges to the truth.

There is a sync status banner between the top bar and your list. It stays out of the way when all is well, and appears when it matters:

You’re offline — changes will sync when you reconnect.
N changes waiting to sync, with a Sync now action.
Last synced HH:MM.

When two changes collide

If a change you made offline conflicts with a change someone (or another device of yours) made to the same task in the meantime, VNCtask does not guess. It surfaces the conflict and reloads the list from the server, so you see the current state rather than a silently-wrong one. You then re-apply your intent on top of the fresh data. The message reads like:

A change on another device conflicted with your edit. The list was reloaded.

This is deliberate: showing a conflict is better than overwriting work you did not intend to overwrite.

Install the app

VNCtask is a progressive web app: in a supported browser, choose the install option (usually Install app in the address bar or the browser menu). Installed, it gets its own window and icon and, from then on, opens offline as described here. The same offline behaviour is available in the desktop and mobile builds — see Use the desktop app.