Google "Office" Released

pumpknhd writes "Looks like Google has finally integrated Writely and spreadsheets into Google "Docs & Spreadsheets". Writely.com now redirects to this new location. The design has also changed to match the look of other Google services." The more "applications" I try forcing into a tabbed web MDI model under a Mac, the more clumsy it gets. They aren't in my Dock, they can't be apple-tabbed through. Issues like this really frustrate me as I find myself wanting to use more web2.0 ajaxy fancy pants programs.

Comments

Goffice?

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

The name, at least, is sufficiently benign; though I rooted for “Goffice.”

I'll stick with LaTeX, thanks; but Goffice's real-time collaboration-feature may make concurrent editing easier than under SVN.

Re:Goffice?

[Rob T Firefly]

As possible names go, I think "Goofice" would be more gallant.

Re:Goffice?

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

I'd never think to use either one for the other purpose.

But you may not be doing serious work, then.

Let's say you have a five-hundred-fold bibliography: how are you going to port it between publishable papers if not in BibTeX?

Re:Goffice?

[cyclop]

LaTeX is an unnecessary pain in the ass for non-mathematical writing where a WYSIWYG editor will suffice

Biting the flamebait here... you are (bzzt!) wrong. I wrote my graduation molecular biology thesis (almost no math involved) in LaTeX. I learned LaTeX for that purpose, and looking at my collegues struggling with word processors compared with the damn ease and elegance of LaTeX, I'd never turn back.

I wish my boss let me write research papers with LaTeX too *sigh*.

Re:Goffice?

[morgan_greywolf]

Let's say you have a five-hundred-fold bibliography: how are you going to port it between publishable papers if not in BibTeX

OpenOffice.org has features for keeping your bibliography in a database. Much work is being done in this area to improve functionality and useability, including importing existing BibTeX data.

Re:Goffice?

[Vexorian]

LaTeX's objective is not to be WYSIWYG, and it is considered a feature that the user does not have to care about the layout, let me say that LaTeX seems to be better at generating layout for my documents than I am.

Re:Goffice?

[DragonWriter]

You write a report using a canned coporate template that requires no extra effort. You can share it with others and they can change it without any special effort.
 

That's a nice theory, though I've never seen it work well. I've never been in an office, large or small, where MS Office templates were designed well, or consistently used. All too often, the "templates" are built by people who treat them like a prototype of a regular document, and use the easiest way to acheive visual appearances in a document, rather than defining styles, and even when styles are designed, lots of people don't use them and instead use direct format changes to acheive the appearance they want.

Word makes structural styling possible, but its usually easier (in the short-term: to get the right look in your WYSIWYG view) to do the formatting directly (though its harder to maintain, and easier to get lots of small inconsistencies that aren't apparent till you print the whole document and look at it), and most users seem to have learned the direct formatting more than the use of styles and structure.

As a result, maintenance of large Word documents that have had lots of hands on them over a decade (or more) is generally a nightmare of epic proportions.

That's one advantage of LaTeX even in the "standard template with no effort" role: if someone supplies a LaTeX document class to use, the easiest way to get results is usually going to be use structure and work with the class, rather than trying to fight it and apply appearance-based markup on your own.

On the other hand, TeX would feel cumbersome if all you are doing is writing an office memo.

I dunno, since I don't have it in the office, I've never used it for an office memo, but in most offices I've worked in, it'd be no more cumbersome to use TeX with a supplied document class than Word with a supplied template, and probably significantly less cumbersome.

Of course, to put together a TeX document class probably would take more skill than producing the Word memo templates used in most environments I've experienced.

Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[eldavojohn]

So while I was fooling around with this, I couldn't help but notice that it has the option of saving to a Portable Document Format (PDF) which, according to Wikipedia is:

a file format proprietary to Adobe Systems for representing two-dimensional documents in a device independent and resolution independent fixed-layout document format.

I bolded the word that has caused Adobe to sue Microsoft. My question is simple, doesn't Google face the same kind of lawsuit?

If I may comment more generally on this, releasing the Acrobat reader a long time ago for free use to anyone was ingenious of Adobe. Because the Writer/Creator for those files once cost tons of money (back then). Today, it's a bit cheaper but I still love and cherish the PDFCreator project under the GPL.

Really causes one to wonder how 'free' something is when it comes to standards. Now we'll just have to wait and see if Adobe begins to sue everyone who wants this functionality in their application. A lot of people I talk to regard PDF as an 'open' standard when the only part that's free is the ability to decode it--not encode it.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[mccalli]

A lot of people I talk to regard PDF as an 'open' standard when the only part that's free is the ability to decode it--not encode it.

Not so - witness OS X. It encodes PDFs with wild abandon without paying anything to Adobe. The PDF standard is published and can be implemented by anyone.

I've honestly no idea why Microsoft backed down against Adobe. Perhaps it's because of the monopoly status or something, but what they wanted to include in Office seemed perfectly reasonable to me. after all, I'm used to doing the same thing with NeoOffice/OpenOffice and also with any application that prints on a Mac. Linux uses could say the same thing, and I'm sure I remember a freebie printer driver on Windows that creates PDFs as well.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[raffe]

PDF is open and adobe threaten to sue because if you could read and write pdf in office who would buy stuff from adobe? It was about competion not about owning pdf.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[thebdj]

I bolded the word that has caused Adobe to sue Microsoft. My question is simple, doesn't Google face the same kind of lawsuit?

Adobe is suing because Microsoft is trying to create a new format that is embedded as part of the system. This was discussed many times in the previous discussion of the lawsuit. Both this app and OpenOffice have PDF exporting support. As you pointed out, there are PDF creators that are freely available.

Remember, Adobe opened the PDF standard so people could do this. (At least, I do believe that has how it went.) Like I said, it is not PDF creation that has Adobe pissed at Microsoft, it is their new, PDF-esque format.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[tygerstripes]

If you'd care to continue your research beyond the first paragraph:

Anyone may create applications that read and write PDF files without having to pay royalties to Adobe Systems; Adobe holds a number of patents relating to the PDF format and claims that it is an open standard, licensing them on a royalty-free basis for use in developing software that complies with its PDF specification.

I bolded the sentences that clear this matter up.

Adobe holds the patents, but they'll license without royalties as long as you conform to the standard... and as long as they can't find a good reason not to. Of course, the minute they try to, the world will move to a free open format pretty quickly.

I don't know the details of the MS case - did MS do it without permission, maybe?

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, but NeXT was a license-holder for Display PostScript, which PDF is a descendent of.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[jrumney]

No Google does not face any lawsuit, since the patents surrounding the PDF format are licensed royalty free by Adobe to anyone implementing a PDF writer or reader. The potential lawsuit your link refers to concerned antitrust issues, not IP issues.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[ElleyKitten]

Of course, the minute they try to, the world will move to a free open format pretty quickly.

Bullshit. Many people already call PDF "Adobe format" because they don't know you can read it without Adobe. If PDF became completely proprietary tomorrow, few people would notice.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[RevMike]

I've honestly no idea why Microsoft backed down against Adobe. Perhaps it's because of the monopoly status or something....

Exactly. One of the restrictions placed on a monopoly is that they can't use their monopoly status in one area to help them create a monopoly in another area. By adding PDF capability to Office, they would be expanding their near-total monopoly in "Office" to create a second monopoly in "PDF authoring tools".

Apple, not having a monopoly - at least in the personal computer space - has more flexibility to add a feature like this.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[gfxguy]

No, that's not how it works. Let's say GM is the dominant automobile seller (jokes aside, it's an analogy), and Ford invents airbags. That's like telling GM they can't install airbags in their cars.

No, the problem here, as I understand it, is MS was trying to, once again, extend a format they didn't own to lock people into using MS products.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[dan.hunt]

... a freebie printer driver on Windows that creates PDFs as well. It works fantastic, the PDF Creator conveniently distributed on the fantastic OpenCD.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So while I was fooling around with this, I couldn't help but notice that it has the option of saving to a Portable Document Format (PDF) which, according to Wikipedia is: a file format proprietary to Adobe Systems for representing two-dimensional documents in a device independent and resolution independent fixed-layout document format.

Umm, maybe you should look for more than one source. Wikipedia has a lot of slant on various topics, including this one. The truth is PDF is a trademarked term that refers to a standard format maintained for Adobe and which they provide both open licensing, documentation, and patent protection. In all practical terms, it is an open standard and certain versions of it are ISO certified standards. There are both open and closed source, free and commercial implementations of it and none have ever had any legal problems.

I bolded the word that has caused Adobe to sue Microsoft. My question is simple, doesn't Google face the same kind of lawsuit?

Microsoft was not sued for implementing the open PDF standard. They were sued for anti-competative bundling of tools that just happen to use that format. Google could be in trouble for the same thing, if they acquired a monopoly in some market and tied the PDF generation tools to that monopolized product.

Really causes one to wonder how 'free' something is when it comes to standards.

Yeah this is a concern, if you only read marketing blurbs.

Now we'll just have to wait and see if Adobe begins to sue everyone who wants this functionality in their application.

No we don't. People have been doing just that for many years without issue.

A lot of people I talk to regard PDF as an 'open' standard when the only part that's free is the ability to decode it--not encode it.

Please stop repeating this nonsense. It is misinformation plain and simple as you'd know if you even read the Wikipedia page you link to. Anyone can code programs that read and write PDF, provided they call it PDF. What they can't do is take the code and make a new format based on PDF, but that does not follow the standard as they would no longer have patent protection from Adobe, much like every other open standard.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[twistedsymphony]

I think the differences is that Google doesn't actually have a monopoly. Sure they use their large Size to move their new stuff but Google has a Yahoo, Google Videos had a You Tube, but even still There's Myspace which is still a viable competitor for flash player video delivery, etc.

In the areas where Google excels they find themselves only #1 by a small margin, but the breadth of their offerings makes them seem larger then they really are. Because they still have strong competitors it doesn't make them a monopoly so they can use their clout to push their products without the same problems MS has.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

No, that's not how it works.

Actually, it is pretty close.

Let's say GM is the dominant automobile seller (jokes aside, it's an analogy), and Ford invents airbags.

Why does it happen that every time a discussion about a monopoly comes up, someone immediately proposes an analogy that has no monopolies in it? Use a monopoly in all analogies about monopolies. Also, if someone invents something new, there won't be an existing market for it, so bundling is perfectly legal.

Okay, so here's a more apt analogy. The power company has a monopoly on power distribution, like MS does on office suites. You can still buy a generator, or use solar panels, but those are not competing in the same market and are not really comparable solutions. So then, the electric company decides they want to move into the related light bulb business. They start bundling light bulbs with your electrical service. You get two regular light bulbs and two special MS patented light bulbs every 3 months, whether you want them or not. The cost of your electricity goes up to cover it, but you have to have electricity, so there is not a lot you can do.

In this situation, Adobe is the existing light bulb company being driven out of business. It does not matter if they can make bulbs more cheaply, or even that are better than the ones the electric company gives you. Everyone already has bulbs so no one buys from them. And the light bulb industry goes to hell. Their is no motivation to make better bulbs or cheaper bulbs. In fact, the electric company is motivated to make bulbs that use more electricity and they can get away with it. Consumer are getting products that are not only inferior, but that are intentionally designed to hinder the consumer. The innovation and efficiency that makes capitalism so successful has been bypassed.

The lock in is annoying, but not the primary problem. Bundling was the problem, as I understand it.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

You just highlighted a problem of the proprietary formats ... the owner can deside who can and cannot use its format.

PDF is an open standard anyone can implement, so long as doing so does not break some other law.

In this case as it is for Apple, Adobe will probably make no problem. Only Microsoft is forbidden to include PDF in Office.

Actually, Apple is forbidden from bundling it with anything they have monopoly on as well (iPod being the only real candidate). If Adobe decided they don't want Apple or me or most anyone else building in PDF generation tools in out products, they could do nothing about it. The complaints Adobe brought concern both PDF generation and XPS generation (an MS proprietary format). The format, however, has nothing to do with the complaint.

Microsoft would probably not be authorised by Adobe to use PDF, but anyway Adobe is still complaining when they use another format...

Okay apply some logic here. Adobe complains when MS takes an illegal action using PDF and they also complain when MS takes the same illegal action using XPS. Maybe you might infer from this that it is the action, not the format that is the issue?

If I make a gun using no patented technology and shoot the CEO of Colt with it, or if I license the rights to build a rifle using Colt's patents and shoot the CEO of Colt with it, I'm still going to be in trouble for murder. Half the people here, however, are focusing on the fact that I licensed the patent from Colt, and saying other people should avoid licensing patents from Colt too, since they might go to jail for murder. Crazy.

Well that should make me happy to see Microsoft hurt, but at the end of the day, who will be the next Adobe target?

Just as the CEO of Colt would probably bring charges against the next person to shoot him, Adobe will probably lodge antitrust complaints against the next monopolist that tries to bundle a product with their monopolized product to illegally take over one of Adobe's markets.

Proprietary format are a plague, when they reach a status of monopol they should automatically fall in public domain, as trademark.

Wow, I'm not even going to start correcting this mess.

Re:Neat Tool, What About Adobe?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Vista still ships with MS' PDF-esque format, just not PDF.

Yes, and Adobe is still trying to get the courts to do something about it.

Adobe was concerned built-in PDF-authoring in Vista would kill sales of Acrobat Pro, so they threatened to sue MS for "abusing" its monopoly status.

Adobe complained that both the PDF authoring tools and the XPS authoring tools would kill sales of Acrobat Pro despite not being the better product.

That is the whole point of antirust law, to ensure competition. If MS makes and sells better portable document tools and format, or even PDF generation tools great, there is nothing Adobe can do about it. It is when MS makes an inferior product, but takes over the market anyway by using their Windows or Office domination to do so that Adobe complains. And they should complain and so should we. Capitalism is great for the innovation and competition. This removes that from the market and results in a de-facto winner, despite no innovation and results in yet another market with MS dominating and basically no progress happening.

500k?

[jbreckman]

Why the 500k limit? I have 2.5gb in my gmail, but I can only upload a small word document.

Anyone know why this is there?

I would start recommending this to people if they could actually use it in the real world, but word documents get pretty big. It happens. They should be able to deal with it.

Re:500k?

[SnprBoB86]

It's not just that most people aren't using that much space, it's that there is out right trickering taking place.

You know that "show quoted text" feature? Yea, well the quoted text is counted towards your "used memory" for every occurance of the text but is only stored once.

Opening/importing Excel

[MECC]

I tried importing a simple excel spreadsheet, and it didn't work :-(

Re:Opening/importing Excel

[value_added]

I tried importing a simple excel spreadsheet, and it didn't work :-(

That happens to me, too. What version of Office were you using to import the Excel spreadsheet?

Oh wait ...

Re:Problems with AJAX

[nblender]

Of course it doesn't sit well with you, Mr. Computer Professional. But we're getting to the point where Grandma just needs a kernel with a browser in a ramdisk. She doesn't even really need a 'disk'. She doesn't need a grandchild sysadmin to de-worm her computer every 6 months. Everything she wants to do can practically be done online now.

PicasaWeb?

[Constantine XVI]

Has anyone else noticed up in the corner of Docs that there is also a new "Photos" option that points to "Picasa Web Albums?"

"Frusterate"?

[adavies42]

Are you even trying anymore?

MDI browser model

[gEvil (beta)]

As someone who spends most of his day logged into a web application, I have to say that I'm not too fond of the whole MDI model for them either. This is mainly due to crashes. If the app crashes, all of my other browser tabs/windows go down with it. Due to this, I've taken to using different browsers for different tasks. For my all-day web app, I use IE. For website administration, I use Opera (the guy who does our web coding sucks and changes to the site will routinely take down the browser). And for general browsing, I use Firefox.

Re:Firefox tabs

[grimwell]

CTRL + Page Up and CTRL + Page Down will move you left & right thru the tabs in Firefox; just like gnome terminal. The one snag with firefox is if there is a text entry box that grabs your cusor.

Re:Problems with AJAX

[Smidge204]

I think that a lot of what irritates me is that the sort of things that are being made are largely things that already exist. I have Abiword and OpenOffice and KOffice installed, and they are better

Keyword: "installed"

No argument that there exists plenty of standalone, purpose-made applications that do a better job, but they need to be downloaded and installed.

If you happen to use a computer that isn't yours you can still access your documents in "native format" with a consistent interface as long as the computer has a javascript capable browser installed... and any computer with internet access is practically guaranteed to have a web browser installed. Consider things like editing your documents at a library if you're out of town, or any other public web access kiosk you might find. Borrow someone's laptop for a few minutes, etc.

Of course, if you don't encounter those situations you may as well use a dedicated application - it's all about the right tool to suit your particular needs.
=Smidge=

API?

[Dan East]

I have a client whose website is utilizing FCKEditor for in-browser html editing. We haven't been too pleased with it for a number of reasons. I checked Google's site but couldn't find any information, so maybe someone here knows - can their word processor be embedded into 3rd party sites and used stand-alone? Similar to Google Maps? From the little testing I've done it seems to generate good clean html.

Dan East

Spreadsheet Wrecker

[gothzilla]

I believe spreadsheet wrecker would be a better name. I imported a very simple spreadsheet that I use to track my ink and toner for the company I work for and then exported it back out as an .xls.
It has columns for printer brand, model, location, ink or toner type, ink/toner model number, price, and how many I need to order the next time I do. Very simple spreadsheet.

It stripped the price column of it's "currency" setting and changed it to "general".
It broke the simple "price times quantity" formulas.
It resized the columns and made them too small to display the numbers.

This app is nowhere near ready to be considered an actual spreadsheet. Proof of concept maybe, but I can't see myself ever using it for anything useful. I can't imagine how much damage it would do to a more complex spreadsheet.

File Storage

[CopaceticOpus]

My big 3 questions:

1. How do I easily upload and organize all my locally saved Word and Excel files?
2. How do I maintain a local copy of all my changes and new files?
3. How safe should I feel about uploading files with sensitive personal info?

Answer these questions, Google, and I'm on board. And, I suspect many other people will be too.

Re:File Storage

[ElleyKitten]

How safe should I feel about uploading files with sensitive personal info?

I wouldn't. Whatever Google says, It's just not a good idea.

Google Docs looks good for the random paper for school or something that you want to work on at school and home and don't want to carry disks around or bother emailing yourself it again and again. I wouldn't put every document you've ever made on it. If you're never going to use the document on another computer, or if it contains information that would be totally bad if hackers ever got into it, then it's not worth the hassle to upload it.

Re:File Storage

[hodet]

3. How safe should I feel about uploading files with sensitive personal info?

I am surprised there is so little discussion here about this. Lots of "ooooing and aaaahhing" over "save as pdf" (which is kinda cool) but little about the fact that if you want to use as your main office suite then you need to upload your personal information. It would be really cool if they distributed the program for installation on my own web server.

Very nice in a pinch though and will probably use it, even if in a somewhat limited fashion.

Dashboard Web Clip

[chr1sl0ng]

When 10.5 Leopard comes out (or using available widget authoring tools possibly) you should be able to create a Dashboard widget that could serve as home for your "Goffice" app, or any other AJAX app that works in Safari.

Re:Firefox tabs

[gEvil (beta)]

CTRL-Tab and CTRL-SHIFT-Tab do the same thing. Or you could use CTRL-[1-9] to switch directly to tabs 1 through 9.

It's probably limited by AJAX.

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a limitation of AJAX.

AJAX-based applications really start to suffer from performance problems (when used on typical American broadband connections) when the amount of data involved exceeds about 650 KB. For an application like a word processor or a spreadsheet, where the data must be continually be updated between the client and the server on each change, even 500 KB is pushing it.

Don't forget that some overhead comes from AJAX itself. It takes bandwidth transmit the XML data that encapsulates the XML-RPC AJAX request. So while 650 KB is the practical limit of a request, it's plausible that 150 KB of that is being used to cover the XML overhead, thus reducing the amount available for actual data down to about 500 KB.

Re:It's probably limited by AJAX.

[Lauritz]

Well, then only load the part of the document being edited to the client.

Re:It's probably limited by AJAX.

[Baricom]

The difference between Google Maps and Google Docs is that there's a finite number of tiles that Maps has to look up, and the tiles are public. This means you can easily duplicate the tiles on several thousand servers which any client can hit when necessary. In contrast, Google Docs stores text from (potentially) millions of Google users. It takes more processing power to mirror the documents because you (and possibly a few others) are the only people who will use the data.

Ultimate Conspiracy Theory 2006

[suv4x4]

Firefox's JS advancementas and SQL engine are features requested by Google for their web application platform.

Late 2007, Vista adoption is still beginning to happen, WGA eats at Microsoft share of OS. People looking for alternatives.

Google buys Ubuntu and rebrands it as a powerfull "plug and play" web platform that interfaces with Google apps and Firefox. Google Box is born.

Google buys Mozilla. Firefox keeps it's brand and keep on expanding its web platform features in FF 3.0 and 4.0 as it adds 3D and OpenGL acceleration.

Late 2009: Microsoft share is dropping quickly at the same time increasing their revenue as pirates are slpit between those paying up, and those going for Google Box.

Late 2011, Google purchases Adobe and makes Flash and a light version of PDF part of their web platform. Google announced mobile web platform: Google Boxmobile.

Windows share has dropped below 50%. This allows Microsoft to innovate and integrate applications in their OS without threats from antitrust and anti-monopoly lawsuits. Spectacularly, with nearly half the share it had before, Microsoft's revenue is higher than ever. Microsoft releases Windows Vienna, amazing advancement in the world of desktop OS and computer-interface technologies.

Microsoft positions Windows Vienna as the desktop os for power users, business users and IT professionals, and phases out Vista and XP.

Google Box positions itself as the casual computer platform for people looking for entertainment, photo management, word/spreadsheet functionality, light games etc.

Err...

[RAMMS EIN]

``The more "applications" I try forcing into a tabbed web MDI model under a mac, the more clumsy it gets. They aren't in my dock, they can't be apple-tabbed through.''

Then why are you not opening the apps in separate windows? IIRC, that will put them in your dock, and you can navigate to them with Exposé. I guess you can't Apple-tab to them, but you could Apple-tilde (right?) to them when you already have your browser selected.

Import / export != Useage

[brunes69]

Have you ever tried to do that same type of import/export sequence with a WordPerfect spreadsheet inside Excel? Or even an older Excel version? You will have simmilar issues.

Re:Not support Safari browser

[rozz]

Google is not friendly to Mac users.

i just sensed a sudden disturbance in TheForce ... sounded like 98% of the computer users got together in sayin "so what"? ;)

The best part...

[Bytal]

is that if you browse the css and js source you can see that internally they're calling this version "leftly". Witty :)

Re:Problems with AJAX

[LordKronos]

You forgot about the collaboration part. For most people, sharing a word document with others would consist of emailing the file back and forth, keeping track of who has the latest version, and making sure no 2 people try to edit it at the same time. Yeah, you could use FTP or something, but that doesn't solve all of the problems, and that's beyond what a LOT of people would know how to do.

Now look at Google Docs. It handles all of that for you. Just grant someone access to the document and they can instantly edit it. Everyone always has the latest version. In addition, it allows multiple people to simultaneously edit the document and instantly merges those modifications together in real time. I shows you what parts other people are editing, and gives you chat ability so you can discuss those changes together.

This would be great for a group of students working on a research report. You write the outline together, then each person takes responsibility for researching a subsection of the topic and fills in that part of the report as they go. You can review what the others in your group are doing, so you can see what progress people are making (or not making). If you see something that conflicts with what your research has uncovered, you can point that out. Likewise, if you learn something that it looks like they missed, you can suggest they add it.

I've never seen a feature like this in MS Office, Open Office, or any other office suite.

LaTeX

[manastungare]

Think of it as a cross between markup and a programming language for writing papers. There's an edit-compile-test cycle; results are completely predictable; modern editors are almost full-blown IDEs for LaTeX. It integrates well into multi-user editing scenarios: you can check in your source tex files into CVS or subversion, and get free version control with diffing capabilities. Try that with a binary format.

How many times have you struggled to get an image placed just right in a popular WYSIWYG text editor? How many times has your favorite WYSIWYG editor added a page to your report that makes it go over the page limit, minutes before a critical submission deadline?

The little time spent in learning the language far outweighs the advantages it provides. Give it a try!

Re:LaTeX

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

There's an edit-compile-test cycle; results are completely predictable; modern editors are almost full-blown IDEs for LaTeX.

A lot of programing is done with IDEs these days, for a reason.

It integrates well into multi-user editing scenarios: you can check in your source tex files into CVS or subversion, and get free version control with diffing capabilities. Try that with a binary format.

I think you're making three mistakes here. First, LaTeX is a layout application, than many people use for word processing. You can't compare it to MSWord and assume you've done a comparison of WYSIWYG versus markup. Second, you're discounting the learning curve and its affect upon collaboration. Third, you're equating LaTeX with text based format and word processor with binary, and that is just plain wrong.

Collaborating with LaTeX is a pain in the butt in almost every instance I've used it because their are invariably people who don't know the language and who then have to learn it, greatly slowing the whole process. As for CVS and Subversion, I often use them to check in both binary and XML files from other word processors and layout applications and collaboration with them is not a problem using these tools.

How many times have you struggled to get an image placed just right in a popular WYSIWYG text editor?

Never, as text editors don't support images. I've often placed images with ease in an exact location, however, using WYSIWYG layout programs, which I find to be much, much easier to use and more flexible for that task than LaTeX.

How many times has your favorite WYSIWYG editor added a page to your report that makes it go over the page limit, minutes before a critical submission deadline?

Never. If I have a page limitation, I'm almost certainly using the right WYSIWYG tool, like InDesign, Framemaker, Quark, or the like (depending on the particulars).

The little time spent in learning the language far outweighs the advantages it provides. Give it a try!

I use LaTeX for certain projects and it is even the best tool I know for certain types of projects. You seem, however, to have compared it to MS Word for certain tasks and concluded that it is superior and everyone should switch to LaTeX. This is not very good advice. Most people, performing normal tasks would be a lot better off with some of the WYSIWYG tools available, or better yet a hybrid tool like InDesign that allows the user to edit both the markup and the WYSIWYG view. It even uses the same basic layout engine as LaTeX, but you don't have to mess with all the hacks to get color and graphics and the like to function smoothly and you don't have to build it constantly to see the end result. Give it a try!

Re:LaTeX

[WillAdams]

Rather than compare LaTeX to MS Word, it's far better to compare LyX, http://www.lyx.org/ --- I'm very fond of it, and think it's one of the most innovative opensource applications available --- maybe even more innovative than commercial apps as well.

And of course, no mention of (La)TeX would be compleat w/o suggesting people look at the TeX Showcase:

http://www.tug.org/texshowcase

William

Re:LaTeX

[DragonWriter]

First, LaTeX is a layout application, than many people use for word processing.

LaTeX with an appropriate front-end is no less a word processor than the tools that are marketted as "word processors". Its not WYSIWYG, but for a long time (even after WYSIWYG word processors were available), neither were most word processors.

For those of use who type well and for whom reaching out to grab the mouse breaks the flow, or attempting to go back after writing to apply structure is harder than typing in the structure as you as you go, an appropriate LaTeX environment is often a better word processing environment than MS Word.

For those of us who end up having to maintain regularly updated documents that dozens of different Word users have edited, each taking different routes to produce similar (but usually not as consistent as intended) appearance, LaTeX or a similar environment that is markup-based rather than focussed around WYSIWYG editing.

You can't compare it to MSWord and assume you've done a comparison of WYSIWYG versus markup.

True, though MS Word is the WYSIWYG program most commonly used, you can compare it MS Word and conclude you've done a comparison to the most important WYSIWYG program that people use.

Second, you're discounting the learning curve and its affect upon collaboration.

LaTeX is, IME (and I've been using Microsoft Word since the Windows 3.11 days, used a number of other WYSIWYG word processors and layout/DTP programs for years, and LaTeX for less than a year), no harder to learn and become proficient beyond a fairly basic level with than many WYSIWYG programs. The instant feedback of WYSIWYG is a big boost for basic familiarity, though, sure.

Most people, performing normal tasks would be a lot better off with some of the WYSIWYG tools available,

Perhaps, though I'm not sure about "most" or what tasks you think of as "normal".

or better yet a hybrid tool like InDesign that allows the user to edit both the markup and the WYSIWYG view.

That may be certainly the case, OTOH, the price tag of InDesign means that in most environments, "most users" aren't going to have InDesign available. Of course, a hybrid product, well-designed, can naturally, have the strengths of both WYSIWYG and markup-based systems, and so its superiority doesn't really say anything about the relative utility of the two models.

Re:LaTeX

[DragonWriter]

I'd actually argue that setup is generally more of a layout program with some word processing features. MS Word is not intended for exacting layout, LaTeX is. If you want exacting layout, you should compare LaTeX to tools designed to do that.

The main advantage I find in my use for LaTeX over Word isn't exacting layout (yeah, its better at that than Word, too, though that's rarely all that important to me), but in ease of describing, perceiving, and maintaining structure when working with documents.

Ahh, but LaTeX is not the most common markup tool used.

That hardly matters if the purpose is to compare LaTeX in specific to WYSIWYG editing environments in common use.

You can compare MS Word and OpenOffice Writer because they are designed for the same thing.

You can meaningfully and usefully compare any tools that are, or even can be, used for the same purpose, regardless of what they are designed for.

LaTeX was designed to layout books. MSWord was not.

Yes, and yet some people use MSWord to layout books, so they can certainly be compared for that purpose. And people use LaTeX for lots of the things MSWord is used for that are not laying out books, too, and they can therefore be compared for all those purposes, as well, regardless of which was "designed for" which purpose.

Comparing it to Framemaker or Quark or InDesign is a lot more appropriate.

If the context is "comparing tools for laying out books without regard to cost", then yes, I'd agree.

Most users are incapable of finding and installing a LaTeX environment.

I doubt that any user who learns of LaTeX is incapable of learning how to install, say, ProTeXt, in a few minutes, but even so, unless you are talking about a home environment, there is no need, in most environments, for every user that would use LaTeX to find and install a LaTeX environment. I really have no idea what point you think you are making here.

LaTeX is quite simply painful for certain tasks, especially for graphics because graphics do not fit well into the markup model.

Graphics are not a task. If you mean "editing graphics", then sure, LaTeX isn't an editor at all, and certainly not a graphics editor. If you mean placing graphics in a document, it seems to me it depends a lot on what you want to do with the graphics. But, yes, lots of tasks related to that are not the kind of things where the model of structure-to-appearance that LaTeX uses is particularly helpful for (OTOH, other tasks with graphics fit quite well with that model.)

Re:LaTeX

[Al Al Cool J]

How many times has your favorite WYSIWYG editor added a page to your report that makes it go over the page limit, minutes before a critical submission deadline?

Hold it, are you saying it is easy to enforce page limits in Latex? I would love to know how. I had to abandon Latex years ago because of that very problem. For example, preparing a press release that HAS to fit on a single page because it is going out by fax to 120 companies, or doing a 12-page document that has 12 sections, each of which HAS to fit entirely on its own page.

Doing this in WYSIWYG is relatively quick and easy - adjust fonts, adjust leading, edit some text - bang I'm done. In Latex it was a nightmare of slow and tedious tweaking, running and rerunning latex over and over and over until I finally got something that both fit and looked good doing it.

Your rights granted by Google

[MrCopilot]

Let see here, let me get my glasses and tinfoil hat out.

Your Rights
Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services.

Google reserves the right to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Google. Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion. You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the rights granted herein to any Content submitted.

I have to say that does seem pretty far from evil. Why do I even keep this hat anyway?

Re:Your rights granted by Google

[theantix]

"which are intended to be available to the members of the public"

So, not your docs which are intended to be available to you and who you choose to share it with.

If you have multiple computers it is.

[Kadin2048]

Depends on how often you use computers other than your own.

If you're constantly floating between multiple computers, then the ability to just sit down at a browser, type your L/P, and have all your documents presented to you is a real "killer feature." One that might completely outweigh any limitations of importing and exporting.

As people get more computers -- a whole lot of what I'd call 'average people' now have more than one (at least one work computer and another personal computer) -- this becomes more valuable. Plus, you don't have to deal with backups of your work (though you probably still should), and if your computer gets hosed, you can just nuke it or replace the whole thing. Computers become just these modular, interchangable, anonymous frontends to your work, which is all online.

Plus, the ability to collaborate online with others is a nice plus that you can't do very easily with desktop applications; instead of emailing documents back and forth to other people and trying to keep the versions straight, you just put it up on Goffice and let everyone red-line it.

Re:Problems with AJAX

[SScorpio]

Microsoft locking down "non-genuine" versions of Vista to only allow web browsing doesn't sound so bad now.

Need to make tabs the "base unit" of the UI.

[Kadin2048]

The problem is that the whole concept of tabbed windows isn't well integrated into the rest of the Mac UI philosophy. Frankly it's not much better in Windows.

If you have a bunch of stacked browser windows, everything works peachy on OS X, just like you described. Cmd-Tab cycles through applications, and then Cmd-` goes through the windows. This is because the OS is designed with the idea of a "window" as its most basic unit. Each window is owned by an application and has one task going on in it. This has been the way of things since the MultiFinder in MacOS 6 ... but I think we're getting close to needing an update.

Unfortunately, since tabs are part of the application and not really handled by the OS, there's no universal command for cycling through them. In some applications (e.g. Adium), you use Command-[left/right arrow]; in other applications (Firefox) it's different. I don't even know if there's a hotkey for cycling through tabs in Safari -- I hope there is, but that I just haven't found it yet.

At any rate, I think tabs are something where the application developers and users latched onto a useful feature, which the operating system UI designers never really counted on.

What needs to happen is that the OS' windowing system itself needs to implement tabbing, instead of leaving it to each application to do differently. Think of the neat stuff you could do -- any window could become a tab in any other window, maybe by just dragging one window's title bar into another. So you could have a Finder tab going inside of a Safari "window," or vice versa. Want to break a tab off into a separate window? You could do that, too. Individual tabs could be independently reduced to the Dock, and expanded back up into their parent windows, or their own, or into different windows.

But the point is that rather than leaving tabbing up to each application to do a little differently, Apple needs to step in and provide a guideline as to what the best practice is, and make it easy to implement universally.

IMO, rather than having the "window" being the base unit of UI design, the tab needs to become that. Today's "window" needs to become a looser concept -- call it a "frame." A frame is just a variable-size, resizable object that holds tabs; if it only has one tab in it, then the tab itself isn't shown and it looks like a window does today. The frame isn't owned by any application; applications instead create tabs in frames. So if an application instance crashes, all of its tabs would close, but any other tabs in the same frame would be unaffected. The menu bar would change contexts as the user switched from one tab to another, rather from one frame/window to another as it does now.

Tabs are a really useful invention, and frankly I think the concept should be broadened. Word processing and many other activities could each benefit from tabbing, and the user would get a coherent and cohesive interface for manipulating and working with tabs, that would save them time and confusion over the current situation. That it would make web applications vastly easier to use would be a very positive side-effect.

Rob, you don't know how to use a Mac.

[Inoshiro]

"The more "applications" I try forcing into a tabbed web MDI model under a mac, the more clumsy it gets. They aren't in my dock, they can't be apple-tabbed through. Issues like this really frusterate me as I find myself wanting to use more web20 ajaxy fancy pants programs."

Duh. Apple+Tab = applications. Apple+~ = application windows. I personally find this 2-level hierachy much better for working with data than the Windows-inspired "everything is a Window". I also like that I can quickly hide applications I'm not interested in (Apple+H), or merely minimize some Windows (which do get stuck in the dock, Apple+M). The only bad thing is that I haven't found a way to pull minimized windows out of the dock with the keyboard.

For quickly getting between windows in an application when I'm not sure of the order, I just press the Expose key for all application windows (suddenly, all my TextEdit windows are on the screen, waiting for me to pick one!). I can do this for all applications and their windows with a different Expose shortcut.

Between the Expose graphical picking, having a distinction between "another application" and "another window in this application", I find the MacOS X ui richer and more comprehensive than the usual point'n'ook GUI interface that exists under KMW or MS Windows. It's easy to pick up, and I'm missing it so much when I go to my KDE desktop that I'm tempted to write a patch to KMW to make it act more Mac-like.

Lousy formatting for text documents

[biendamon]

As a writer, I have well-formatted documents I use in OpenOffice. They are 8.5x11 inches, with 1 inch margins, and headers on every page. The body text is double-spaced, while the front-page manuscript headers are single-spaced.

I lost ALL of that formatting with the test upload of a document. For writers who need properly formatted manuscripts, this is definitely a no-go. I'll have to wait until they can do proper headers and page layouts.

Another PDF writer

[OakDragon]

Here is another tool that acts as a printer driver. I've installed it on all our workstations at work, and everybody loves it.

CutePDF

LaTeX support for scientists? [Re:Goffice?]

[j.leidner]

> I'll stick with LaTeX, thanks; but Goffice's real-time collaboration-feature may make concurrent editing easier
> than under SVN.

It would be nice if Google added LaTeX support to Goffice, because a lot of scientists author papers together in a distributed
collaborative scenario, and the workflow usually consists of mailing fragments and drafts around (ugh!) for the
majority, while a minority of more technically versatile researchers use CVS/SVN, both of which approaches suck
big time.

So Google, if you read this, please give us a SCIENTIST'S WORKBENCH to author papers more effectively :-). (Thanks in advance!)

Endnote

[Jonathan]

Let's say you have a five-hundred-fold bibliography: how are you going to port it between publishable papers if not in BibTeX

Endnote? It's basically the Windows/Mac GUI version of BibTeX. Granted it's not open source, but Word + Endnote is pretty much the standard among all journals except those in CS/Math/Physics. Most journals outside those fields won't even accept LaTeX/BibTex (and yes, I've tried submitting LaTeX to such places like Journal of Bacteriology)

Re:Word support

[Tacvek]

Writely (the word processor component of Google Docs & Spreadsheets) is really not a Word Processor (in the sense that most people use). It is a WYSIWYG html-editor. It is very usefull for word processing blog-posts, etc. It is also useful for callaboratively editing the text of a document. It has somewhat limited type-setting capabilities, but it was not intended to be used for type-setting.

Re:Apple will invent something.

[Em Adespoton]

That's a bit revisionist.
ClarisWorks was great for its day -- when it was rebranded AppleWorks, they added all the junk that ruined documents and caused the thing to crash. I've been using it since ClarisWorks 1.0, and the first update that Apple did was what began the downhill slide.

Pages is a page layout program, not an office package. It doesn't do vector graphics, bitmap graphics, spreadsheets, database, or word processing.

IIRC, MS Word was first released on Apple hardware (or at least that's where it became popular first). People were using Word on Macs back when the majority of the PC world was still using WordPerfect. The MBU was formed at a later date when MS started to get too big.