Automatic dialer responsive to network programming interface access

A method of automatically dialing to establish a dial-up connection to a remote computer network for a network application to communicate with the remote computer network, comprising:

• installing a hook function interface into a network programming interface to monitor requests to a set of application programming interfaces of the network programming interface that can be invoked to provide communications services with the remote computer network;
• checking whether a dial-up connection exists;
• detecting a request to the application programming interfaces that is indicative of attempting to communicate with the remote computer network;
• and
• initiating dialing to establish the dial-up connection if such a request is detected and no dial-up connection exists.

A network browsing application having an online browsing mode and an offline browsing mode for a computer system having a set of application programming interfaces that can be invoked to provide communications services for communicating on a dial-up connection with a remote computer network, comprising:

• a data cache for storing recent information received from the remote computer network when in the online browsing mode;
• a browser for viewing information from the remote computer network responsive to user input, the browser operative when in the online browsing mode to call the application programming interfaces to communicate on the dial-up connection with the remote computer network to access the information, the browser operative when in the offline browsing mode to access the information from the data cache;
• and
• an automatic dialer for monitoring calls from the online mode browser to the application programming interfaces to detect an attempt by the online mode browser to communicate with the remote computer network while the dial-up connection is disconnected and for dialing to establish the dial-up connection when such attempt is detected.

An automatic dialer stored on a computer readable medium for automatically dialing to establish a dial-up connection to a remote computer network for a network application to communicate with the remote computer network, the automatic dialer comprising:

• code for installing a hook function interface into a network programming interface to monitor requests from the network application to a set of application programming interfaces of the network programming interface that can be invoked to provide communications services with the remote computer network;
• code for checking whether a dial-up connection exists;
• code for detecting when the network application makes a request to the application programming interfaces that is indicative of attempting to communicate with the remote computer network;
• and
• code for initiating dialing to establish the dial-up connection if the network application makes such a request and no dial-up connection exists.