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29 Comments
- JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18oh sweet i didn't know excel had network multiuser instantly synchronized sharable spreadsheets!
- EBFoxbat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13I don't think Safari supports any of those WebApps
- Beetlesweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I've only used Writely before, but the ThinkFree one looks interesting. Online word processing is a great idea in my opinion, it's so easy now to transfer documents between uni and home, its a great asset.
- cyberdash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I just tried Thinkfree, I don't know if It was just the setting that I chose or what, But I found it a bit un-reponsive. I still like it though. Very neat.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6writely would be much better if they worked a bit on the multiple people editing aspect, at the moment it takes me like 20 seconds to see any changes a group member has made, and i often times get the error saying im editing a part someone else is!
something more real time would define the killer app of online word processing. - chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7"For all the attention that online apps are getting, they are obviously still in their earliest days."
thank you brains. And trying to compare these to OO is just stupid, at least rate them on what they are not what they could be. - priegog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'm surprised at how well written the comparison is. It even gives a winner! I like Writely better anyways, and since Google acquired them, I'm sure they'll transform it into something that could rival a desktop app.
- nxtwrld, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You remind of a guy that though broadcasting television in color is redundant since everyone has only got black and white TV.
Safari does not (yet) support designMode - until then no WYSIWYG editing for Safari.... - lihkin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7I like Writely!
- NoDakMAC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This is a great review with tons of detail, well done.
I would actually like to hear more about how they compare to MS Word (on 90+ percent of desktops). I would like to understand the difference between these tools and what is currently most popular (including the price difference).
Also, tell me a little about which situations are a best fit for an on-line tool vs a desktop tool. - Caliente, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4you're redundant
- joseph, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6More like, Safari doesn't support them.
- dontbejack, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Apple's fault that Safari doesn't support these sites. Safari has a poor rate of accepting standards that other browsers already do accept. That's why I ditched it for a combination of Firefox and Camino.
- Gisterogue, on 10/12/2007, -12/+14Safari is redundant.
- willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2where were the ads?
With an article that is such an obvious grab for attention, I'm surprised the author missed the oportunity to cash in with some adsense (or whatever). - simd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In some ways they don't need to rival a desktop app. They already have most of the key formatting, they allow a level of collaboration desktop apps can only dream of and they allow publishing in a variety of formats.
While many of the features available in Word and OO are very useful, and many people require them (mailmerge comes to mind), I can't help but think a lot of reports and essays would be much more useful and effective if more time was spent on the content rather than the presentation. - willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not meaning to criticize but, I can't help but wonder if a wiki might be better for the use you've described.
- Pandakopanda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The main reason why the formatting options of these online word processors are so basic, is because they rely on the underlying HTML edit capabilities provided by the browser (except for Thinkfree which uses Java applets).
I don't know about Mozilla, but the HTML edit capabilities in Explorer (contenteditable) really suck. For example, you can't specify the font size in pixels/points but only in HTML header levels (H1..H6) so there are only 6 font sizes to choose from. Also things like table editing suck and the HTML produced is really crappy. As far as I know, this situation hasn't improved in IE7.
So for the time being, online word processors have to focus on providing functionality like collaboration and not try to rival their desktop equivalents because they simply can't provide the formatting capabilities the desktop word processors have. - rax262, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What this article could really use is a feature grid... :)
- fussili, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree that for most tasks a desktop app is better. However I've been writing documentation recently using Writely and being able to simultaneously edit it with designers has been really helpful.
The resulting documentation has the advantages of being 100% accurate for all its intended purposes. There are applications like SubEthaEdit which do the same thing but Writely's built in internal hyperlinking meant that I could write the whole thing as a series of documents. Now it's all in one place for the programmers to study in all its glossaried, indexed and intra-linked glory. - techaddress, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Corporate Profile for Writely, view it here:
http://techaddress.wordpress.com/2006/09/08/corporate-profile-writely/ - Caliente, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Office 2007 Beta 2 ftw.
Online word processors are laggy, feature poor and have gaping privacy concerns. Not for me. - DarkHack, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is pretty useful for anyone who can't afford to buy Microsoft Office, or otherwise download OpenOffice from OpenOffice.org.
To those that complain about safari, I'm sure the new release will be able to view ajax or I could be wrong about that. - fussili, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I had considered it but I wasn't sure of how easy it'd be to password protect it. Writely lets you whitelist users who get access to the documents and I didn't want any details of an unreleased product leaking.
Thanks for the suggestion though :) - madmax210, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Do any of these online word processors allow concurrent editing, besides Writely?
- pelleb, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1You might also try checking out http://wideword.net which while not a feature complete word processor is far more secure than any of the above. It is fully encrypted and I (the site owner) do not have the keys.
It has a small but active following of mainly security nerds and big business users owing to it's privacy and security. - shmooth, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1decent review. he should have done more on tables. i tried to do basic table stuff in Writely the other day - basic - and it just totally didn't work. not even close. not even a hint that it was considering becoming functional in that area in the future.
my review: Writely sucks.
as for the others - who cares? who even does document editing anymore?
or, a better question - what poor souls were forced to code crappy online word processing applications? i'd rather kill myself.
just think - if outsourcing wasn't such a boom for businesses, we probably would never have heard of these crappy applications. but since they can be developed for pennies on the dollar in far-off places, they're here in full force. i can deal with ignoring crappy applications - i just feel bad for the folks who had to do it it. :) - Dog_Paddle, on 10/12/2007, -20/+5I don't think any of those sites support Safari. Boo.
Online word processing is redundant. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2And none of them compare to a local app. I was using Excel and Word since v2, even those were better than these online offerings.
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