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A Web App For Real-Time Collaborative Writing

Posted by kdawson on from the write-on dept.

adamengst writes in with good news for anyone who needs to collaborate remotely on a writing or editing project — coding too. It's especially good news for those using Windows and Linux. Mac users have had SubEthaEdit for a few years now. With EtherPad, two or more people can edit a document and see all the edits simultaneously. EtherPad's main differences from SubEthaEdit: it's a Web application that de facto supports many platforms without the need for a central Mac OS X host; and it's free. Here is a comparison of EtherPad and SubEthaEdit.

157 comments

  1. Mmm... by jornak · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally, a cross-platform version of Mulitplayer Notepad!

    1. Re:Mmm... by David+Gerard · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wikipedia is the largest Massively Multiplayer Online Notepad installation in the world!

      (I just forwarded a link to the app to wikien-l.)

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    2. Re:Mmm... by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Finally, a cross-platform version of Mulitplayer Notepad!^K

      It was a dark and stormy night.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    3. Re:Mmm... by Skinkie · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/ seems very cross-platform to me too. Who needs ctrl-z anyway if not using bash?

      --
      Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
    4. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      but it's not real time, it's turn based :)

    5. Re:Mmm... by arth1 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Who needs ctrl-z anyway if not using bash?

      Um, is this a trick question? Everyone using job control. (Which, IME, are the people not using bash.)

    6. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NetBeans has had a plugin allowing collaborative editing for a while :/

    7. Re:Mmm... by Skinkie · · Score: 1

      (it refers to gobby not able to do undo's)

      --
      Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
    8. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Finally, a cross-platform version of Mulitplayer Notepad!^K

      It was a dark and stormy night.

      No one would be out on a night like this thought Joe the thief.

    9. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The current version, which is a glorious reimplementation and a new protocol, has undo/redo support, although the server needs to be run separately (and on linux) from the client.

    10. Re:Mmm... by zappepcs · · Score: 1

      Just then, his eye caught the movement of a curtain. Turning, he could see the buxom blonde looking out at the night.

      --
      Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
    11. Re:Mmm... by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Ah. You youngsters use the CTRL keys differently. :-)

      CTRL-C: Terminate (SIGTERM)
      CTRL-Z: Suspend (SIGSTOP) (resume with "fg")

      Undo? "u" does that. Followed by "." to undo again, or another "u" to undo the undo (redo).
      And yes, it also allows multiple people to work on the same document.
      (Ten points to anyone who can identify my editor).

    12. Re:Mmm... by abigor · · Score: 3, Funny

      Those darned youngsters you speak of simply lack vim! Not to mention vigour.

    13. Re:Mmm... by arth1 · · Score: 1

      No, "vim" is for the youngsters. Pressing "u" twice in vim doesn't undo the undo. And it doesn't allow multiple people to work on the same document either.

    14. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With emacs you can implement whatever behavior you want!

    15. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He started to watch her from the shadows of the tree, thinking he was alone.

    16. Re:Mmm... by redcaboodle · · Score: 1

      He did not see the yellow eyes watching him from the edge of the forest. For a moment the storm chased the clouds away and the full moon shone on the land.

      --
      -- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
    17. Re:Mmm... by zappepcs · · Score: 1

      He hadn't seen the house earlier, but it's hard to see when you are skydiving on dark rainy night. He hadn't even seen the tree coming at him as he crashed.

      --
      Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
    18. Re:Mmm... by patro · · Score: 1

      Emacs under X can do it as well:

      http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Multiple-Displays.html

    19. Re:Mmm... by vigour · · Score: 2, Funny

      He hadn't seen the house earlier, but it's hard to see when you are skydiving on dark rainy night. He hadn't even seen the tree coming at him as he crashed.

      Nor had the bowl of petunias as it muttered 'Oh no, not again'

    20. Re:Mmm... by Migraineman · · Score: 1

      The air brakes on the Mattress Warehouse delivery truck made a shuddering noise as they brought the vehicle to a stop. The willow branches offered little resistance as he crashed into the truck's open bed. "Gotta get me one of these inner-spring jobbies with the pillow-top cover," he thought to himself, brushing off the broken tree limbs. Ne noticed movement in his peripheral vision. The tree appeared to be moving, but that was just a result of a likely concussion, right? The bulbous tree-fist crashed into the side of the truck, just as he jumped to safety.

    21. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So is it like an upgraded version of mIRC? If so, what kind of buffs/nerfs have been implemented?

    22. Re:Mmm... by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      You mean like... I could implement a complete... editor in it?

      On a more serious note: I dislike emacs because it's a prime example of the "inner-platform effect". It's nearly as wrong as implementing an e-mail application in HTTP+HTML+CSS+JS. ;)
      This does not mean that I dislike the (default) UI of emacs, or the freedom to customize (in fact I love that freedom). Just please stop adding another useless but fat layer to it.

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    23. Re:Mmm... by zappepcs · · Score: 1

      He wondered to himself if the blonde had seen him land on his ass. No time for social graces, the yellow eyes were following him. In the darkness he thought he could make out the shape of raccoon, but something was wrong, very wrong. In the failing light it appeared almost like the raccoon had a laser on it's head.

      --
      Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
    24. Re:Mmm... by abigor · · Score: 1

      No, "vim" is for the youngsters. Pressing "u" twice in vim doesn't undo the undo.

      It does in vim-tiny ;)

    25. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Suddenly, Godzilla appeared over the horizon.

      See, this is the problem with collaborative writing, people.

    26. Re:Mmm... by zappepcs · · Score: 1

      As he caught his breath, hundreds of raccoon began appearing at the edge of the forest. Each of them was armed with a laser. As Godzilla approached, they began to encircle him.

      --
      Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
    27. Re:Mmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People using python in windows can exit the program by pressing ctrl-z then enter.

    28. Re:Mmm... by dmbasso · · Score: 1

      Finally, a cross-platform version of Mulitplayer Notepad!^K

      It was a dark and stormy night.

      No one would be out on a night like this thought Joe the thief.

      And he was right, because what stroke him was a lightning bolt, which turned him into ashes. The end.

      Oh, no! You've really screwed up this time! Guess you'll have to start over! Hope you saved the game!

      Res[t]ore, [R]estart, or [Q]uit?

      --
      `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
    29. Re:Mmm... by argiedot · · Score: 1

      In moments the yellow eyed beast closed in on him. Something spoke to him in his last moments, warning him about the 'grue'.

    30. Re:Mmm... by Omestes · · Score: 1

      The raccoons then realized that Godzilla was really a raccoon powersuit, crafted to assist their race to world domination. It is theirs, if not for the opposition of the dread squirrels.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    31. Re:Mmm... by zappepcs · · Score: 1

      The squirrels being crafty as they are, had lain a trap for the raccoons, and Godzilla-coon was overcome by skydiving squirrels when he stopped to rummage in the very large garbage pails the squirrels left at the edge of the forrest, next to the large man-made lake filled with poisoned Gatorade. The carnage of war erupted all around the squirrels trap. Fangs and claws slashing and tearing flesh.

      Not to be hindered by small problems, the raccoons regrouped and continued their march, leaving charred and burning squirrel flesh littering the ground behind them. The smoke from their burning bodies was clearly visible as the first rays of the sun peeked over the horizon, giving the scene and surreal climax.

      Postman Pat noticed the smoke rising from the forest as he began his rounds delivering the mail....

      --
      Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
    32. Re:Mmm... by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Bit didn't worry too much, since the lake wasn't actually poisoned, it had electrolytes, and thus what the plants needed recover from the mammalian warfare. Pat, the ecologist postman, continued on his founds, mindful of the small package of cheese under his arms. The cheese that would rule them all...

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    33. Re:Mmm... by Asm-Coder · · Score: 1

      I'm gonna bite:
      I think you are using Nvi, but I didn't think it had multi-user support. Unless you are using it with screen...

    34. Re:Mmm... by doom · · Score: 1

      Nice buzzword ("inner-platform effect"), but I fail to see how emacs is an example of it. Emacs is not about re-implementing the operating system inside the editor. Maybe you're thinking it's odd that emacs has a windowing system of it's own when you already have a windowing system (e.g. X windows), but you've got your history backwards: Emacs preceded X windows.

    35. Re:Mmm... by jgrahn · · Score: 1

      On a more serious note: I dislike emacs because it's a prime example of the "inner-platform effect". It's nearly as wrong as implementing an e-mail application in HTTP+HTML+CSS+JS. ;)

      There are some parallels, but webmail sucks and takes control away from the user. Emacs doesn't lock you in.

      This does not mean that I dislike the (default) UI of emacs, or the freedom to customize (in fact I love that freedom). Just please stop adding another useless but fat layer to it.

      Fat layers? Those odd emacs things aren't layers, they are elisp code which just sits around in your file system unless you pull it in. Unless you speak of the character set and mixed-font support oddities.

      I wonder if people really use emacs as their environment these days. We have X and/or screen for multiple terminals with scrollback, searching and everything, and the shells have better interactive features ... I use emacs as an advanced multiple-buffer text editor, and little else.

    36. Re:Mmm... by arth1 · · Score: 1

      nvi it is. :-)

      nvi has multi-user support in that you can set or unset lock, and use the -F option at start-up to choose whether to load the entire file or not. If used correctly, and with care, multiple people can vi the same file.

      This can be useful, especially on a system with many administrators.
      Example:
      user1 has a named zone file or /etc/passwd open, and is out to lunch? No problem, user2 can still edit it, and save the changes.
      Depending on what user1 does when he comes back, the end result might not be what was wanted, but one assumes that user2 has the means to leave user1 a message, so when presented with a notice that the file has been modified by someone else, he won't force save his own changes, but instead safe-save them to another file and diff them in if needed.

      Of course, finding hired help that actually understands file locking, buffered/unbuffered IO and line editing these days is a crapshoot. So I can well understand how other editors won't give you the option of enough rope to hang yourself with.

      One niggle with nvi: It needs unicode support. Right Now would be a good time.

    37. Re:Mmm... by Migraineman · · Score: 1

      Pat double checked the delivery address on the cheese package - "Joe the Thief, that's odd" he thought to himself. Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet started to quake. A vile torrent of mousiness erupted from beneath the placid suburban sidewalk. The package of cheese (notably from the Balrog Cheese Shop, arguably the finest in all of the northern district) was snatched from his hand. A painful sorrow befell Pat as he contemplated the mountain of paperwork he would be required to fill out for losing a package.

    38. Re:Mmm... by doom · · Score: 1

      Well, if you care, I use X largely just to run Firefox, and mostly live inside of emacs (MH-E for mail, ESC-x shell, sometimes gnus for usenet).

    39. Re:Mmm... by xiaomai · · Score: 1

      I think the behavior of "u" that you're describing is VIPER specific--More traditional vi's have generally used ^R for redo, AFAIK. (Or maybe I've just been spoiled by vim).

  2. Looks great! by XTrollX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This looks like a very promising App. As a student, we are assigned group assignments which often involve a partner and an essay. It's always stressful to try and edit our assignments together because it involves emailing it every time we make a correction. This would completely eliminate that frustration, can't wait until this comes out!

    1. Re:Looks great! by Ed+Avis · · Score: 2, Informative

      Have you tried using a version control system such as Subversion or Mercurial? You don't all see the same screen in real time, but it automatically coordinates changes that need to be merged in.

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    2. Re:Looks great! by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      99% of the population would have no idea where to set up a Subversion or Mercurial. Even in engineering this would have saved us a ton of time. My girlfriend (med student) often has to write reports with a partner. This would allow her to be on the computer anywhere and on AIM or even in the same room and start knocking out the same report instantly.

      This is how 'merging' usually goes. Everyone works on their Word / Powerpoint presentation separately. Then you set up a group meeting and merge it together in a computer lab.

    3. Re:Looks great! by slashnot007 · · Score: 1
      Pardon me if I'm wrong but isn't subversion entirely line based? And you can't actually see the changes in place and highlighted. It just lists them like diffs and you get to accept or reject them enmass.

      perosnally I used writely (before it became the google app). And there's some even better ones now like Zoho, which is a ms word look-alike for collaborative writing.

    4. Re:Looks great! by reachinmark · · Score: 1

      A similar product that I think is far more interesting is this one: http://www.textflow.com/ - does away with the idea of a single central document that everyone has to connect to to work on and the inevitable locking and/or conflict avoidance that insues, and instead works on managing the merging of multiple versions of documents, which are pretty much inevitable no matter what app you use. Think MS Word's track changes on steroids.

    5. Re:Looks great! by Ed+Avis · · Score: 1

      Pardon me if I'm wrong but isn't subversion entirely line based?

      Yes, it works with text files. (You can store binary files but they can't be merged automatically.) So that does make it unsuitable for documents saved from a word processor, unless you save in text format and add the formatting as the last step.

      And you can't actually see the changes in place and highlighted.

      Well, you can use all sorts of tools to show you the diffs. On Windows I use TortoiseSVN, which shows the two versions of a file with differences highlighted.

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    6. Re:Looks great! by Cowmonaut · · Score: 2, Informative

      GoogleDocs....

    7. Re:Looks great! by onefriedrice · · Score: 2, Funny

      So you think 1% of the population knows how to set up subversion or mercurial?

      I think perhaps you give people too much credit.

      --
      This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
    8. Re:Looks great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This looks like a very promising App. As a student, we are assigned group assignments which often involve a partner and an essay. It's always stressful to try and edit our assignments together because it involves emailing it every time we make a correction. This would completely eliminate that frustration, can't wait until this comes out!

      I'm surprised no one's mentioned Google Documents yet. I've been using it for group assignments since late 2005, when it was called Writely and hadn't been bought out by Google yet.

      The first thing I thought when I saw this article was, "This is new?"

    9. Re:Looks great! by MrMarket · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This looks like a very promising App. As a student, we are assigned group assignments which often involve a partner and an essay. It's always stressful to try and edit our assignments together because it involves emailing it every time we make a correction. This would completely eliminate that frustration, can't wait until this comes out!

      We use Google docs for this.

    10. Re:Looks great! by vruba · · Score: 1

      (Self-link.)

      My startup, Draftastic, provides VCS-like tools for ordinary text. We have a lot of stuff Etherpad doesn't, like Markdown formatting and a permissions system, and our paragraph granularity (instead of line or character) avoids a lot of annoying problems with writing over each other. Also, we work with JavaScript off. And our free demo isn't slashdotted ;).

    11. Re:Looks great! by Locklin · · Score: 1

      So that does make it unsuitable for documents saved from a word processor, unless you save in text format and add the formatting as the last step.

      No, actually, line-based diff is almost entirely useless with written documents. You either have "soft" or "dynamic" word wrap (one line per paragraph), or "static" word wrap (newline on the end of each line). In the first case, a single change in a paragraph marks the *whole* paragraph as changed, and in the second case, a single change causes the paragraph to need to be re-wrapped and again the whole thing is marked as a change.

      For written text (latex, html, or plain text), you probably need to use something like wdiff.

      --
      "Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
    12. Re:Looks great! by priegog · · Score: 1

      The easiest way to go for these kinds of projects seems to be google docs. Have you tried it?

    13. Re:Looks great! by Ed+Avis · · Score: 1

      No, actually, line-based diff is almost entirely useless with written documents. You either have "soft" or "dynamic" word wrap (one line per paragraph), or "static" word wrap (newline on the end of each line). In the first case, a single change in a paragraph marks the *whole* paragraph as changed, and in the second case, a single change causes the paragraph to need to be re-wrapped and again the whole thing is marked as a change.

      This is a good point. Strangely, in practice I have never found this to be a problem, but then, most version controlled documents have either been computer code which doesn't have reflowable paragraphs, or have been edited by few people at once. I wonder if Subversion (or Mercurial, or Git or Bazaar, etc) lets you plug in a different merging engine that would be more appropriate for prose?

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    14. Re:Looks great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Take a look at google docs and their sharing possibility. Might fit your needs.

    15. Re:Looks great! by jemtallon · · Score: 1

      EtherPad does not save in a binary format either - it just supports plaintext. So using SVN on a plaintext file should have a similar effect, you just wouldn't be able to see the changes immediately as they're happening - only after the file is checked-in. The benefit of EtherPad is that it gives instant gratification.

    16. Re:Looks great! by Sheafification · · Score: 1

      99% of the population would have no idea where to set up a Subversion or Mercurial.

      Then you can use a distributed versioning system. Git has the capability to manage patches through e-mail; I expect other systems can do the same (this includes Mercurial BTW). It still requires a fair bit of computer know-how to get it all going, but something like Bazaar or Mercurial ought to be fairly simple to use once it is all setup.

      Where is not the problem. Computer knowledge is the bottleneck.

    17. Re:Looks great! by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 1

      With a margin of error of 1%, yes.

      --
      If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
    18. Re:Looks great! by Sunkist · · Score: 1

      who edits/revises this way in the real world? seriously.

      Maybe towards the final drafts this might work, when the revisions are semantic, grammatic or subjective word choice.

      IMHO, research papers seem unlikely to benefit from something like this.

      --
      No, Vern. They just let him in.
    19. Re:Looks great! by yotto · · Score: 1

      I've been using Google Docs to revise like this in the real world for over a year to do the show notes for my podcast, Volcanicast. 3-4 people need to edit and I need it to output (piss-poor, in Google Docs' case) html for the resultant rss feed for the show.

      I love that Google Docs does all this pretty seamlessly. I wish, however, that the html was better and a few bugs with formatting would get fixed. If I could find something that output html and allowed simultaneous editing, and was easy to use (one of our group isn't very tech savvy and anything that's not "Like Word" won't work), I'd switch in a second.

      --
      Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
    20. Re:Looks great! by jgrahn · · Score: 1

      Pardon me if I'm wrong but isn't subversion entirely line based?

      Yes, it works with text files. (You can store binary files but they can't be merged automatically.) So that does make it unsuitable for documents saved from a word processor, unless you save in text format and add the formatting as the last step.

      Those of us who demand version control put that differently: "So that makes word processors unsuitable for documents under version control".

      As soon as you choose to use one instead of LaTeX, troff, HTML, MediaWiki markup or some XML variant, you lock yourself (and the people you work with) into something, and out of other things (real version control, spellcheckers, all Unix tools ...)

      And basic version control isn't hard. I do it all the time with my non-geek brother. It's not hard to work together on a document: type away, "svn up", review his changes (if any), resolve conflicts (if any, and find out what misunderstanding makes us work on the same paragraph), "svn ci" with some sensible description of what I've done, type away ... and so on.

    21. Re:Looks great! by jgrahn · · Score: 1

      No, actually, line-based diff is almost entirely useless with written documents. You either have "soft" or "dynamic" word wrap (one line per paragraph), or "static" word wrap (newline on the end of each line). In the first case, a single change in a paragraph marks the *whole* paragraph as changed, and in the second case, a single change causes the paragraph to need to be re-wrapped and again the whole thing is marked as a change. For written text (latex, html, or plain text), you probably need to use something like wdiff.

      This isn't a problem in practice, if you use the formatters you mention (LaTeX, HTML). Neither for plain text; you're supposed to have real \n breaks between lines in plain text, and I rarely see any text files which don't.

      Either people do not re-break the text when they edit a paragraph, in which case the diff is one line.

      Or, they *do* re-break it (using M-q in emacs or whatever) and you have a full-paragraph diff. That's not bad either; if two people have made changes to the same paragraph, it's probably better that one of them is forced to review them; a change in the first sentence can change the meaning of the second.

    22. Re:Looks great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      then you just tell that nigga, hg init and he done

    23. Re:Looks great! by indi0144 · · Score: 1

      Just ducktape some sort of voice communication (voip, landline, etc) to something like Crossloop, or tightVNC if you're on the same LAN.

  3. Handy for telecommuters and the like by Beyond+Opinion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I work for a web design company which has most of the employees working in one office, and a few employees (including myself) in a separate office in a different state. This could be very useful for making edits, teaching interns, etc. I'm definitely going to show this to the other team.

    1. Re:Handy for telecommuters and the like by arth1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Keep in mind that you expose the documents to people not in your company. A careless remark about something that might affect future stock prices could very well be exploited by someone with access to the servers. Not to mention trade secrets.

      Keep communication in-house if you can.

    2. Re:Handy for telecommuters and the like by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      Take a look at collabedit. That guy was first, plus he explains what libraries he used.

    3. Re:Handy for telecommuters and the like by Beyond+Opinion · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That is a good point. We probably shouldn't use phones either, now that you mention it, since they could be tapped. Maybe we should hire runners who would dash across rooftops with Parkour-inspired grace and agility, carrying our top-secret files back and forth. . . .

    4. Re:Handy for telecommuters and the like by arth1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With phones, you have a contract with the phone company, who accept responsibility for keeping your transmissions private. It's even mandated by law. If someone at the phone company listens in on your talks and acts on the proprietary information, or by negligence allows others to do so, you have a legal claim to redress.

      With a web server, no such protection is in place. In fact, most public web servers require that you abide by their EULA, which further reduces your legal status.

      You don't have to be paranoid to use common sense. You just need to avoid unnecessary risks. And this is one.

    5. Re:Handy for telecommuters and the like by Beyond+Opinion · · Score: 1

      I gotcha, I just wanted to reference Mirror's Edge.

    6. Re:Handy for telecommuters and the like by Reziac · · Score: 1

      All true enough. So is there a (preferably free :) alternative that, say, I could run on my own PC, or on my own web host, and would work by my directly inviting others? (I'm wondering if some aspect of the bittorrent protocol might be useful here.) The idea is to avoid using any system that we don't have complete access control of.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    7. Re:Handy for telecommuters and the like by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      With phones, you have a contract with the phone company, who accept responsibility for keeping your transmissions private.

      [Citation needed] I just took a look at the fine print on my (land-line) phone bill and couldn't find the part that you mentioned. Could this only be something that applies to cell phone plans?

      It's even mandated by law. If someone at the phone company listens in [...] or by negligence allows others to do so, you have a legal claim to redress.

      Perhaps that means there should be a deluge of lawsuits for all the phone bill records that were released to Private Investigators pretending to be the owner of those accounts.

  4. There's also the Eclipse Communication Framework by toby · · Score: 4, Informative

    ECF home, articles at IBM DeveloperWorks, InfoQ.

    From the latter: ECF is...

    • Real-time communication and collaboration features for teams using Eclipse such as peer-to-peer file sharing, remote opening of Eclipse views, screen capture sharing, and real-time shared editing.
    • A set of communications APIs and frameworks built upon existing protocols (like Google Talk, XMPP, SSH, HTTP/HTTPS, Rendevous, IRC, and others) for developers to add communications and messaging to their own Equinox-based plugins, or customize and extend the ECF applications.
    --
    you had me at #!
  5. Interesting by slimjim8094 · · Score: 1

    and pretty well-implemented. It doesn't handle deletions, though - something like Word's Track Changes for deletions might be nice.

    There's a test room here: http://etherpad.com/as9F1Jh5cu

    --
    I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
    1. Re:Interesting by reachinmark · · Score: 1

      If you want tracking of deletions (and even moves), check out TextFlow (http://www.textflow.com/), another Flash app for collaborative writing.

    2. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh dear, i believe we have killed it...

  6. try it out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    First!

    join me here: http://etherpad.com/Azkob99ZYK

    1. Re:try it out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think we just slashdotted notepad. :D

  7. Killer app for lecture notetaking by (nil) · · Score: 1

    Always thought something like this would work amazingly for collectively taking notes on a lecture.

    1. Re:Killer app for lecture notetaking by adamengst · · Score: 1

      We use SubEthaEdit for taking notes during Steve Jobs keynotes. It's brilliant for that. Alas, EtherPad won't work there because Apple always blocks Internet access in the keynote room.

    2. Re:Killer app for lecture notetaking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do we get live updates from keynotes then?

  8. It's called slashdot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We already have this. It's called slashdot.

    It was a dark and stormy night...

  9. screen -x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I use `screen -x` for collaborating on anything.
    And, to add to this flamebait, I use a good editor (i.e. vi or vim).

    1. Re:screen -x by xiaomai · · Score: 1

      I've done this several times before as well (it's great for remote peer-programming), but unfortunately you can't both be editing the file simultaneously.

  10. HUH? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, essentially it's a chat window with fancy formatting tools. AOL, anyone?

  11. Gobby by kwalker · · Score: 4, Informative

    Linux and Windows users (And I think there's an OS X port too) can use Gobby, which is like SubEthaEdit, but free, written in GTK+, includes a free server for collaboration over the net, and zeroconf support for finding users on the local network. Since it's based on GTK+, it has things like syntax highlighting, spellcheck, etc. already available. It should also be in most popular distros' repos already.

    --
    ... And so it comes to this.
    1. Re:Gobby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're recommending gobby then you clearly haven't used gobby for any real work.

      In the 2 minutes I played with etherpad it blows Gobby out of the water with it, first of all, this actually works.

    2. Re:Gobby by dfdashh · · Score: 1

      Care to elaborate on your experience? On first glance the features look pretty good.

      --
      df -h /my/head
    3. Re:Gobby by kwalker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know what kinda busted-ass network you run, but I have used Gobby over a local network and over the Internet to work on everything from documentation to source code to HTML and CSS files. It works like a champ. Several other admins and developers have started using it at my company for collaboration, both "extreme programming" type and "can you help me figure out the problem with X?" things.

      The ONLY thing I want from Gobby at this point is an easy way to see who is where within the document.

      --
      ... And so it comes to this.
    4. Re:Gobby by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      In fact, the Gobby authors might want to take a close look at this Etherpad thing.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  12. Google Docs, Abiword Collaboration,IRC, SVN etc. by apathy+maybe · · Score: 1, Informative

    I've seen it written that IRC is just multiplayer notepad before...

    But anyway, Google Writer does this, Abiword is a non-web app freely available on all major platforms, and has a Collaboration plugin (never used it personally).

    Oh, and this one still requires you to use their server... That rules it out for most use cases I can think of in a commercial setting.

    Interestingly, they say on their FAQ
    "One thing that Google Docs does not do is real-time collaborative text editing." Actually, yes it does...
    "Google Docs are cumbersome to share with other people. It requires sending an email, and all collaborators must have a Google Docs account. With EtherPad, you just copy and paste a link, no emails or accounts required."
    Wrong on the first point (you can just copy and paste the link, or just see it through your list of files).

    Score, 4/10, interesting sorta, but actually rather boring. Give us the code, let us host it locally, force user accounts if desired.

    Otherwise, not interested.

    Everything it can do can already be done using some other tool.

    --
    I wank in the shower.
  13. Limiting Participation by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've gone through and I haven't seen how one keeps anyone with the url from participating. If there is no mechanism to do this, how long before someone has a script out there that generates random urls and looks for matching documents? I can see how this could become somewhat entertaining or infuriating depending on ones point of view.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    1. Re:Limiting Participation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could be a new way to peddle Viagra!

    2. Re:Limiting Participation by Reziac · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Couldn't this be gotten around by requiring a login password along with the URL that you're about to send to your collaborators? It's unlikely that such an attack could find BOTH the URL and the password at the same time.

      The application could generate the password along with the URL, to ensure that it's both random and not readily guessable.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    3. Re:Limiting Participation by stoolpigeon · · Score: 1

      I'm sure it is an easy problem to fix - if it is a problem. What I've seen on this so far seemed to hype the whole "All you need is a url" deal. I'm not a particularly devious person - but the problem with that approach jumped out at me immediately.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    4. Re:Limiting Participation by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Another thought you just gave me: how to prevent a keylogger from getting into the action?

      Possible solution: instead of displaying the password to the initiator, have the server email it separately to the invitees, maybe as a unique hash in the URL sent to each. That way only invited guests could show up. Only downside is that you'd have to provide email addys to the server, and if someone is that set on snooping, they probably could intervene and send their own emails. But if the hash doesn't match, the server should not let the recipients log in, so that should be solved by this as well.

      Disclaimer: I'm pulling this out of my ass; it's not a field I actually know anything about, but some of the possible solutions seem fairly obvious.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    5. Re:Limiting Participation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      From the EtherPad privacy policy:

      Note that in the free version of EtherPad, all pad text is publicly available via the pad's URL. When you create a new pad, the URL is generated randomly. This provides some security because these URLs are not guessable, so as long as you are careful about who you share them with, unwanted visitors will not access your pad.

  14. Chat Logs by yumyum · · Score: 1

    When I worked at Motorola, we would use an internal chat server (iChat) to communicate with each other while on a conference call. Worked pretty well, though we did have to sanitize and redact all of the "what a doofus!" comments caused by inane comments by clients on the conference call.

    Though I have not used this or SubEthaEdit, I wonder how distracting it is while typing to see the text change due to others...

  15. Drawing version? by pzs · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does anybody know of a collaborative drawing tool in the same vein? This would be great for a play-by-IM roleplaying game, so I could draw a battle map for my players. I could draw the map and they would be able to move their characters when it was their turn. I could even use different background textures to give the maps more character.

    Cross platform would be ideal so that I don't have to use Windows...

    1. Re:Drawing version? by yumyum · · Score: 1

      I think Groove does that.

    2. Re:Drawing version? by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

      Does anybody know of a collaborative drawing tool in the same vein?

      You could start your research at Wikipedia: Oekaki and Paint chat

    3. Re:Drawing version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      doesnt inkscape allow that via xmpp?

    4. Re:Drawing version? by Hahnsoo · · Score: 1

      Does anybody know of a collaborative drawing tool in the same vein? This would be great for a play-by-IM roleplaying game, so I could draw a battle map for my players. I could draw the map and they would be able to move their characters when it was their turn. I could even use different background textures to give the maps more character.

      Cross platform would be ideal so that I don't have to use Windows...

      I use MapTool from rptools.net. It's free, and it has ever feature that I need for running a weekly Shadowrun and Castle Falkenstein campaign, including drawing, maps, minis, chat, dicerolling, etc.

    5. Re:Drawing version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://dabbleboard.com - web based.

    6. Re:Drawing version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you know of anything less expensive?

    7. Re:Drawing version? by lpress · · Score: 1

      Check out Dabbleboard, www.dabbleboard.com. It is a cool, lightweight vector graphic application with extensible image libraries and synchronous collaborative drawing.

  16. Slashdot EtherPad by Viking+Coder · · Score: 1

    Slashdot Etherpad.

    --
    Education is the silver bullet.
    1. Re:Slashdot EtherPad by Viking+Coder · · Score: 1

      So, we're having a Slashdot discussion there. Full of "your mom" jokes and other mindless crap. And all of a sudden - BAM!

      We're hit by an ASCII goatsex.

      Ah, thank you internet for inventing another way to make me want to gouge my eyes out.

      EtherPad is dead to me, as of 11:52 AM, CST. lolz.

      --
      Education is the silver bullet.
    2. Re:Slashdot EtherPad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's so much fun in there...fuckmaster flex!!!

    3. Re:Slashdot EtherPad by Viking+Coder · · Score: 1

      Seems like they locked it down, at least the multi-user aspect. Or can other people get in to it?

      --
      Education is the silver bullet.
    4. Re:Slashdot EtherPad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think we broke it.

  17. Re:Google Docs, Abiword Collaboration,IRC, SVN etc by CannonballHead · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And while it is true they need a "google docs" account, you can do that with any e-mail address, not just a gmail address...

    Google Docs seems just as good, already in place, and better integrated with things like OpenOffice/MS Office, already has spreadsheet/powerpoint capability, etc. I fail to see the point or the hype.

    And Google Docs allows you to have collaborators and just viewers...

  18. Re:Google Docs, Abiword Collaboration,IRC, SVN etc by adamengst · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google Docs is great, but it doesn't update in real time. There's always a lag that gets in the way for quick collaboration.

  19. emacs by flynt · · Score: 1

    You can do real-time simultaneous editing with multi-tty mode in Emacs 23. I don't know how useful it is though.

    1. Re:emacs by Krishnoid · · Score: 1

      And Xemacs 21.

  20. Google Docs by jbolden · · Score: 1

    Google Docs does this really well with shared version control. I've used it several times to do this sort of thing.

    1. re: Google Docs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To all of those saying Google Docs, no, just no.

      Me and a friend were using Google Docs to edit a document together, or at least, try to.
      It was terrible, update conflicts and so on.

      THIS (Etherpad) is real-time, Google Docs is just horrible for real-time, in fact, any time, when editing with more than one person.
      One person, it works brilliantly, but collaboration is where it falls massively short.

      I had heard good things about it as well, but it is nowhere near good as people say.

      Hopefully Google will learn something from this, because it would be much easier for me personally...

    2. Re:Google Docs by ockegheim · · Score: 1

      Hehe, I've been using SubEtha Edit for years because of its coding friendly features and have never collaborated with anyone.

      If I need to create a word-processing document I use Google Docs too.

      --
      I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
  21. Already done....old news by Digitalman65 · · Score: 1

    QNX had this back in the 90's. I laughed at people shuffling a WordPerfect legal document around between 5 secretaries and having to combine their edits and get the document out before the end of the night. They could have done it in a fifth of the time had they used QNX and this awesome work process (who's name now escape me). It used QNX's message passing architecture to work it's magic. It was truly neat watching edits to a document occur in real-time - and this was back in 1991.

    1. Re:Already done....old news by jacquesm · · Score: 1

      QNX is the most under appreciated operating system ever.

      --
      MP3 Search Engine
  22. Google Docs by agristin · · Score: 2

    I love sub-etha edit and used it for a long time.

    But for almost all the same functionality and the ability to do presos, documents and spreadsheet collaboratively and simultaneously Google Docs is pretty awesome.

  23. What could possibly go wrong by ericrost · · Score: 1

    For now, we offer the free version of EtherPad as a service, which is already useful in a number of use cases. In the free versions, pads are secured by creating unique and non-guessable URLs. Only people who know the URL to your pad will be able to access its contents. In this way, you can control access to a pad. You can think of the randomly-generated URL as a sort of password.

    Boy, I hope some suckers use this for ultra secret stuff. I will be firing up my script soon enough to figure out those "non-guessable" URLs.

    --
    My Babylon
    1. Re:What could possibly go wrong by johanatan · · Score: 0

      So, you're going to start guessing strings of length 2048. Good luck. [And BTW, I bet their server will start ignoring you unless you use a botnet].

  24. It needs password protection by L0stm4n · · Score: 1

    at the very LEAST! maybe SSL + password protection. Right now anyone with the URL can hop on in and see/edit the document.

    --
    superman runs linux
  25. Re:Google Docs, Abiword Collaboration,IRC, SVN etc by flaming+error · · Score: 1

    > Give us the code, let us host it locally, force user accounts if desired.

    In addition, please come mow my lawn, give me some of your famous home-made myrtleberry pie, and a copy of your house keys.

  26. Advertising articles by SebaSOFT · · Score: 0

    They annoy me, I can find applications wit Google, you know?

  27. I fear for the future of literature.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I started a group writing project with it for fun...it became a gay cop romance with in two hours.

    I fear for the future of literature.

  28. Docs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have used Google Docs, it updates rather well and unless you want to see every single word being typed, also performs quite adequately

  29. Thoughtslinger by Leif_Bloomquist · · Score: 1

    How do these compare with Thoughtslinger?

    http://www.thoughtslinger.com/

    1. Re:Thoughtslinger by Reziac · · Score: 1

      The description reminds me of Wildcat BBS chat mode -- it's all realtime too. The only downside is that it's logged in realtime as well, rather than what's on the screen, so the BBS's stored document is as messy as your typing. No reason you can't screencap it with some scrollit type tool, tho...

      Ah, hell, scrollit is for DOS; is there a similar capture tool for Windows??

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  30. Pasting in text? by mamono · · Score: 1

    I don't know if others have had better success, but I was unable to paste a moderate amount of text. A small amount of text pasted in worked, though. I guess it could be because they are slammed by Slashdot users.

  31. No Internet? by tepples · · Score: 1

    In the 2 minutes I played with etherpad it blows Gobby out of the water

    But which one works over a LAN that is not connected to the Internet, such as an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network or a Wi-Fi network whose access point/router has no ISP uplink? Not everybody can afford a 3G card and a tetherable data plan.

  32. Re:There's also the Eclipse Communication Framewor by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

    Niiiiccceee.... eXtreme Programming over XMPP or IRC.

    And to think that thanks to Slashdot, I'm already using Eclipse, so I just need to install ECF and I'm ready to go... ;)

    --
    My blog
  33. Surely this has already been done! by kno3 · · Score: 0

    Google Docs must have beaten them to this some way back, or does this offer important stuff that Docs doesn't?

  34. Waiting by Tolkien · · Score: 1

    Heh, the first time I read the title I saw "..Collaborative Waiting".

    One wonders how that'd work!

    --
    how is babby formed?
  35. online + publishers == be careful by forevermore · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For those of you intending to actually publish your work (but not having actually sold it yet), be very careful about what you do online. Many publishers will not even glance at a manuscript if it has been published in any part before, and online forums (even private ones) and document sharing services are still a very grey area.

    --
    Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
  36. GoogleDocs by JoeMerchant · · Score: 0

    Ummmmm... don't I remember doing this on Google Docs back in 2006?

  37. Re:What could make stocks possibly go lower? by ThreeE · · Score: 0

    Funny how the US still has, by any reasonable measure, the largest, healthiest economy in the world.

  38. Wow you missed out by Tiber · · Score: 1

    There's this even newer project called SCOOP. It's collaborative media. You need a webserver to make it run but it works really well from what I've been testing with it. If you would like to try joining a SCOOP community, check out http://www.kuro5hin.org/

  39. Drawball ! by sentientbeing · · Score: 1

    Look I know its not open source, and its flash based, but a text plugin for drawball would be good.

    --

    ------
    beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
  40. Re:Google Docs, Abiword Collaboration,IRC, SVN etc by sherriw · · Score: 1

    I'm trying to share a google docs document by just sending the link, and no, it requires you to log in with a google account.

  41. Re:What could make stocks possibly go lower? by jacquesm · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    maybe you should go and read the news for a bit.

    --
    MP3 Search Engine
  42. Paranoia is good, when properly placed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Paranoia is good, when properly placed. I wear a tinfoil hat all the time, but SSL web servers and 2-factor authentication help.

    In this case, tinfoil may not be enough protection.

  43. Was fun while it lasted... by digus · · Score: 0

    The network seems slow. Waiting to hear back from the server...

    Lost connection with server. Attempting to reconnect...

    HTTP ERROR: 500

    key not found: scope wrapper

    RequestURI=/
    Caused by:

    java.util.NoSuchElementException: key not found: scope wrapper at scala.collection.Map$class.default(Map.scala:169) at scala.collection.mutable.HashMap.default(HashMap.scala:33) at scala.collection.Map$class.apply(Map.scala:80) at scala.collection.mutable.HashMap.apply(HashMap.scala:33) at net.appjet.ajstdlib.native.CodeData.free(LibrarySupport.scala:233) at net.appjet.fancypants.FancyPantsServlet.execute_i(executionservlet.scala:348) at net.appjet.fancypants.FancyPantsServlet.execute_p(executionservlet.scala:235) at net.appjet.fancypants.FancyPantsServlet.execute(executionservlet.scala:221) at net.appjet.fancypants.FancyPantsServlet.doGet(executionservlet.scala:160) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:707) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:820) at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:502) at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1124) at com.oreilly.servlet.MultipartFilter.doFilter(MultipartFilter.java:57) at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1115) at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.handle(ServletHandler.java:361) at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.handle(ContextHandler.java:766) at net.appjet.fancypants.FileContext.handle(downloadable.scala:748) at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerList.handle(HandlerList.java:49) at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerCollection.handle(HandlerCollection.java:114) at net.appjet.fancypants.FileDispatchMain$$anon$7.handle(downloadable.scala:302) at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:152) at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.handle(Server.java:324) at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handleRequest(HttpConnection.java:534) at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection$RequestHandler.headerComplete(HttpConnection.java:864) at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseNext(HttpParser.java:533) at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseAvailable(HttpParser.java:207) at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handle(HttpConnection.java:403) at org.mortbay.io.nio.SelectChannelEndPoint.run(SelectChannelEndPoint.java:409) at org.mortbay.thread.QueuedThreadPool$PoolThread.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:522)

    Powered by Jetty://

  44. Re:Google Docs, Abiword Collaboration,IRC, SVN etc by x102output · · Score: 2, Informative

    Na, Google Docs does not do this. This is REAL-TIME collaboration, updating on the screen as you type.

  45. CollabEdit by Maexxus · · Score: 4, Informative

    This has been done before, http://collabedit.com/ :)

  46. No Notepad++? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm) has recently come out with version 5.1. One of the best features of this release is the document sharing plugin to go with a very powerful (though, scin regex kinda blows for positive look aheads) notepad tool. I give it full stars as a sharing tool. able to customize ports and you can even have multiple of them on 1 host if your only way to go is to have buddy SSH into your comp and pull up his own session of it.

  47. Moonedit? by Vo1t · · Score: 1

    have you tried Moonedit? http://moonedit.com/indexen.htm

  48. PabloDraw by mr_stinky_britches · · Score: 1

    One of my favorites of this type of thing is PabloDraw. It is more geared towards group ascii/ansi art collaboration though.

    --
    Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
  49. Re:Google Docs, Abiword Collaboration,IRC, SVN etc by FleaPlus · · Score: 1

    Ah, so it's like Google Spreadsheets, but applied to documents?

  50. Beta is now closed... by drosboro · · Score: 1

    They've just posted a message on their blog saying they've gone to a closed beta. Apparently they weren't expecting to be slashdotted! :)

  51. Why not use CVS? by mahadiga · · Score: 1
    • CVS check-in the document
    • CVS check-out the document
    --
    I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
  52. Buzzword! by whorfin · · Score: 1

    http://www.buzzword.com/

    Windows, OSX, Linux (including 64 bit with Player 10).

    Share a document, allow multiple co-authors, change history...what more could you ask for?

    --
    Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
  53. Fairly complete list of these things by Rademir · · Score: 1

    Here's a fairly complete list of current and past efforts at this sort of thing (and since it's a wiki, feel free to help make it more complete).

    --
    ourpla.net is your planet
  54. better choices by speedtux · · Score: 1

    The reason why something like this hasn't caught on before on UNIX (Emacs had this in the mid 90's and it wasn't the first) is because there are better ways of doing it: UNIX users use concurrent version control and wikis for collaborative editing. For pair programming, shared screen sessions via VNC are good (during pair programming, only one person should edit at a time, the other person should watch). In those few cases where real-time collaboration on within the same buffer is needed, Google Docs is a reasonable choice.

  55. Inkscape by grahamperrin · · Score: 1

    Correct. http://groups.diigo.com/search?group_name=collaboration&what=Inkscape for some comments.