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AbiCollab Takes On Google Docs and Zoho Writer
msevior writes "Just released today, the free software AbiWord word processor, employed by the One Laptop Per Child project, tightly integrates with a new collaboration Web site to enable easy real-time collaborative editing of documents. AbiCollab.net also enables documents to be stored online, allows format conversion on the fly, stores the history of the docs in svn, provides direct links to HTML-ized docs that update as you save them, and allows easy sharing of docs amongst friends and groups. All in all, new competition for Google Docs and Zoho Writer, but featuring a real word processor rather than an app in a browser."
"...but featuring a real word processor rather than an app in a browser"
Seriously, what on earth is that supposed to mean ?
The submitter, msevior, is one of the Abiword devs, long-term.
I used Abiword several years back. I think I used every linux word processor ever made for a while several years back. Finally settled with Open's. Think it was because of compatibility issues with the rest of the world (the Real one, the one I live in) who used MS, I honestly can't recall. Has Abiword gotten better in that regard? I do know that I'm a bit too far down the road with Open, which has garnered a satisfying momentum and robustness in its own right, to switch now. Unless Abiword is a helluva lot less expensive than Open. Oh yeah, they're both free. Never mind.
Seriously, "collaborative whiteboards" and multi-user editing environments have been around since early Netscape Communicator days - but does anyone actually use or want them? Sure, a system for checking out documents so several people can make changes, but simultaneous editing of documents - what's the use case for them? Who's asking for this? Who's even using it?
This app only works as long as the abicollab.net website is functional, and they will get to see a copy of anything you do. This would only be a useful alternative
if there was a separate deployable web-service that could be INTERNALLY hosted.
The main reason for us not using google apps is that the documents would be vulnerable to privacy issues. This solution does not fix that problem.
If you have access to external web site, you might as well use a web based app.
Have you ever tried to write a document like an article with many co-authors, an interdisciplinary project report or proposal? Being able to simultaneously change the document saves a LOT of time. Over here, we go with LaTeX and SVN.
We are.
We've been having to use Gobby for collaborative writing because it's the only secure way for us to do writing sessions online. Sure, having some text formatting in a program like that would be nice, but we've been copying the Gobby sessions over to our Wiki and the formatting is done there anyway, so there isn't much of a need for that but it still would be nice for future projects.
Even down the road when we can afford to relocate and work in the same building instead of having all our studio members living in different states, we are still going to do our writing sessions with some kind of real-time collaborative writing software. You have no idea how much easier it is to make changes yourself instead of pointing at someone's screen telling them what to type, or how much faster you can both write when you can both be working on different parts of the script at the same time, or having someone edit your mistakes immediately. When you are actually discussing the story constantly with a co-writer, you really want software like this.
As for whiteboards, we'd really like to have the same real-time collaborative editing that we enjoy with Gobby for our design and art production as well. We've tried things like OpenCanvas or those online paint chat applications, and nothing really cuts it. So for that we are settling with VNC and uploading the files to each other when we need to do some serious red-lining.
Google, presumably, coz now the only feature their stripped down excuse for a word processor had over anything else has been added to a real wordprocessor.
Also, every company dumb enough to think storing internal docs on an out-of-house remote server is a good idea.
What is needed is a plugin for Abiword that can be used to save to *any* svn server, not just the hosted service. That way a company can ensure that their internal documents remain internal. It also means that you can *choose* to be at the whim of a service provider, or *choose* to go it alone.
Such a feature in a word processor would be a *huge* selling point to companies and savvy individuals alike, a selling point that can be used as a real benefit to offset to the very real costs of migrating away from MS Office.
I hate printers.
i've found GDocs useful for sharing, but not a viable competitor to MSO or ever OO.o (in terms of features). Based on your post, i've created a Zoho account and will give it a try. i use GDocs mostly for its integration into all my other Google stuff. It's convenient to be in my GMail account and then hit Documents, and there i am. Getting my friends to go to yet another site to share stuff might annoy me and my friends, as made up as they are.
What i'd really love is for docs and email to be seamless *cough* GWave *cough*. But i don't have an invite yet.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Haha, blame the design people. Apparently they really care about how a tittle piece of text looks :) I'll kill the flash off as soon as possible, but we were on a deadline.
We are working on making a downloadable "server component" available. Until we do, you'll indeed have to trust us to keep our servers online.