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Dropbox Paper

dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox Paper

#121

Post by Osmium »

wodenokoto wrote: post #46
ungzd wrote: post #21

After looking at landing page, it's completely unclear what it is. Powerpoint with comments? Pinterest for enterprise? Google Wave with Material design? "Create, review, organize" — but even Quake level editor is about creating, reviewing and organizing.

It's Google docs but instead of being aimed at producing documents for prints, it is aimed at producing document for online consumption (multimedia) These documents can be used for notes about ideas, documentation, business plans, etc., etc. Kinda like webpages, but with an easy-to-write interface, collaborative chat, and easy user access management. Honestly, I thought the landing page showed that quite well. It did…

> It's Google docs but instead of being aimed at producing documents for prints, it is aimed at producing document for online consumption (multimedia)

Honestly, not a bad idea when you think about it. It seems strange that we're still use word processors/pdfs in an increasingly post-paper world. The web, I think, solves a different problem, and in any case not everybody should have to be a web designer to be able to produce a good document for designed for computer-first consumption.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#122

Post by petetnt »

thepumpkin1979 wrote: post #93
petetnt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything that you said in that post also applies to Dropbox Paper, sans the desktop app which Dropbox doesn't (AFAIK) offer.

Really? I couldn't find the spreadsheet, the table functionality is like Markdown-like tables to me

Yeah, sorry my bad, the table functionality is not nearly a replacement for spreadsheets, we have been using Numbers / Excel / Google Sheets and embedded those to the document if we have needed more robust data tables.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#123

Post by lphnull »

ungzd wrote: post #21

After looking at landing page, it's completely unclear what it is. Powerpoint with comments? Pinterest for enterprise? Google Wave with Material design? "Create, review, organize" — but even Quake level editor is about creating, reviewing and organizing.

At first glance, I just assumed that dropbox was creating their own competitor to trello, but with dropbox built in.

How is this any different than trello?

Re: Dropbox Paper

#125

Post by sambe »

I haven't tried it, but I get that familiar feeling: you are stepping outside of your core business in a way that will be easily shut down if not making targets. See Carousel in Dropbox's case (nice product, very few complaints, presumably little to zero profit) but companies tend to treat these as moonshots instead of new businesses - it has to be a roaring success to last.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#126

Post by bassman9000 »

ungzd wrote: post #21

After looking at landing page, it's completely unclear what it is. Powerpoint with comments? Pinterest for enterprise? Google Wave with Material design? "Create, review, organize" — but even Quake level editor is about creating, reviewing and organizing.

Haha, exactly my thoughts!

Document-driven workflow management? Enriched-Wave-like collaboration tool?

BTW, why every. single. pitch. video. today has to have this huggy-feely-casual voice over?

Re: Dropbox Paper

#127

Post by amlozano »

nine_k wrote: post #120
ktta wrote: post #30

Another closed file format. I think we're are in need of a lightweight document format, which is more complex than markdown, but needn't be as complex as docx. A quick google shows some results which look like pet projects of small business which have obviously failed (since I've never heard of them before) All of these new document formats that are pushed by big companies (some are really great I actually love using…

One of the problems is that people want different things from a "simple document format". Some want rendering-agnostic structure, like Wiki / Markdown / Org mode, that emphasizes structure and text, with things like links, tags, etc. Other want to print centered headers on level 1, and left-aligned for level 2, and body text with a particular font, with fragments in a different color, and pictures with text flowing a…

I feel Latex can is the best tool that can both of these jobs simultaneously.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#128

Post by RachelF »

ungzd wrote: post #21

After looking at landing page, it's completely unclear what it is. Powerpoint with comments? Pinterest for enterprise? Google Wave with Material design? "Create, review, organize" — but even Quake level editor is about creating, reviewing and organizing.

It's a hard landing page to understand. Took quite a bit of effort to understand what it is.

Dropbox used to be good at simplifying things. If the landing page is this confused it doesn't bode too well Dropbox Paper.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#129

Post by amk_ »

ktta wrote: post #30

Another closed file format. I think we're are in need of a lightweight document format, which is more complex than markdown, but needn't be as complex as docx. A quick google shows some results which look like pet projects of small business which have obviously failed (since I've never heard of them before) All of these new document formats that are pushed by big companies (some are really great I actually love using…

Docx is basically a zipped container for XML + embedded images. What if there was a .mz (zipped markdown) format that markdown editors would treat as a single file for the document + embedded materials?

Re: Dropbox Paper

#130

Post by ryanisnan »

lphnull wrote: post #123
ungzd wrote: post #21

After looking at landing page, it's completely unclear what it is. Powerpoint with comments? Pinterest for enterprise? Google Wave with Material design? "Create, review, organize" — but even Quake level editor is about creating, reviewing and organizing.

At first glance, I just assumed that dropbox was creating their own competitor to trello, but with dropbox built in. How is this any different than trello?

The use-cases that I see between something like Trello and Paper seem quite different. I'm using Paper so far to create an itinerary for an upcoming trip. It seems to be working quite well thus far. Displays on mobile nicely. Image layouts seem to be a bit clunky, but, to their credit doing it nicely is no easy task.

I would never use Trello for something like that.

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