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Dropbox Paper

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Re: Dropbox Paper

#171

Post by criddell »

wodenokoto wrote: post #52
akeck wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been playing with passing markdown+css file+image tree to: pandoc {options} -H file.css --self-contained. It base64 encodes the images directly into the HTML5. The css in file.css is wrapped in and is inlined in the header. The result is a fat HTML file with all the basic bits to make an article included. Exact line: pandoc --standalone --toc -V "toctitle:'Title'" --self-contained --to html5 -H article.css -o fi…

For the longest time (5 or 6 years, way longer than Electron) I have been puzzled as to why there didn't exist a document format for offline websites/apps, that are basically a zip file of HTML+CSS+images+javascript. That way you could build simple, easily distributable multimedia documents and web apps.

Isn't that basically Microsoft's compiled html (chm) files?

Re: Dropbox Paper

#172

Post by whywhywhywhy »

hackcrafter wrote: post #5
mikenew wrote: post #2

As a former user of both Mailbox and Carousel, I think I'll pass.

Were those not acquisitions that withered as opposed to Dropbox new product ventures? To be honest, I read through that whole page and I really am not sure I understand what "Paper" is. I'm guessing it's like slack + specialized components (lists/document snippets) and file sharing designed around collaborating on a product or more generally a project...

>Were those not acquisitions that withered as opposed to Dropbox new product ventures?

Why on earth should that make any difference to the end user? Bottom line is they shipped them and then canned them.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#173

Post by smpetrey »

The iOS app is a complete mess. I can't delete notes, I can't access Archives, I can't rename folders nor delete them. I can't move notes between folders.

This leads me to believe the app was rushed but apparently there's a version history I the App Store. I left as much feedback as I could through the app but man, yikes.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#174

Post by grayclhn »

isarat wrote: post #57

Initially when Paper was launched I tried and left the product quickly. I was using Quip a lot for my work as it's more developer friendly and easy to manage. I use Paper more and more these days with my team though we are into Google for Work. Google Docs is a tough cookie and an office replica. Those who are in to markdown, they would hardly go back to anything else for formatting. The only catch with markdown is a…

This has been my experience too, but paper's LaTeX rendering has been the killer feature for me.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#176

Post by Waterluvian »

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.

Dangit. I came here to get an explanation of what this is. It looked like a joke page making fun of designers.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#177

Post by vacri »

dragonwriter wrote: post #168
IgorPartola wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook was originally an online equivalent of a yearbook, where you know, there are lots of pictures of faces.

It was, more specifically, the online equivalent of a face book [0]. Which implies an answer to why name a product after printed media when it is not for print -- because it serves as an online equivalent or replacement. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_book

However, a face book is a highly specific thing, where as 'paper' is about as generic as you can get - even wasps make it. Can I mop up a spill with dropbox paper? Make a hat out of it? Cut out a coupon? Make a saw[1] out of it?

Not to mention that it's far from the first product named 'paper' in our tech bubble.

[1] https://youtu.be/rYfkhdKcEiE

Re: Dropbox Paper

#178

Post by apepe »

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…

You may want to try authorea.com - open format, based on Git, and it supports LaTeX and Markdown in addition to a WYSIWYG similar to Dropbox.

Re: Dropbox Paper

#180

Post by kpatrick »

synchronise wrote: post #108
brianpgordon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Wave is exactly what I thought of. Like Wave, this is a polished, high-quality, sexy solution for a problem that simply doesn't exist. People are going to ooh and aah over it, and then keep using Slack and Google Docs. s/Wave/Paper in this Wave obituary from 2010: > Wave brought together elements of instant messaging, e-mail, microblogging, and collaborative editing in a single service that strongly emphasized…

There was a project that forked Wave when it was handed to Apache, can't remember the name but it seemed nice to use

Apache Wave https://incubator.apache.org/wave/

The spiritual successor was OpenSocial gadgets, also now gone except in some corporate spaces.

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