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The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

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Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#121

Post by jodrellblank »

jimbokun wrote: post #109
alyssumclimbs wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 'feature' seems ripe for a MS Word add-on, if it catches on. I doubt everyone will abandon their word processing software and user Etherpad.

"I doubt everyone will abandon their word processing software and user Etherpad." They will probably give up Word for something, eventually. Especially among the current generation, writing is something done online; a blog, an email, a tweet, writing on someone's wall. At some point, it stops making sense to have a word processor distinct from the web. Right now, Word has more features that people like than online wr…

Microsoft could make the online tool that replaces Word

Something like Windows Live Writer 2009?

http://jalaj.net/2009/01/22/enter-windows-live-writer-2009/

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#124

Post by rokhayakebe »

anatoly wrote: post #123
rokhayakebe wrote: post #24

Etherpad technology marks the Beginning of the End of comment spamming, although that is not what it is intended for.

Wouldn't that penalize people who write comments in their editor, then copy-paste into the comment box?

Wow. Who does that? I do not mean this in a sarcastic manner, but this is the first time I hear of it.

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#125

Post by ananthrk »

pg wrote: post #117
ananthrk wrote: post #56

As others have mentioned - a great experience to watch PG writing essays. However, I was put off by the speed. Is this because PG was typing so fast or is it the player? Is it possible to control the speed (other than the Prev/Next link at the top)?

It's the player. Controllable speed is high on the feature list.

Great! Good luck to the team.

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#126

Post by blinks »

pg wrote: post #48
aak wrote: post #41

What exactly about this makes it the most surprising thing you've seen in two months?

Being able to watch how I write. It's like seeing a photograph of oneself for the first time. I had no idea how often I restarted sentences, for example. There's other stuff I want to see that should be even more interesting. When it's replaying, I want to be able to see characters that make it into the final version in one color, and others in another. Then I'll be able to tell when I'm writing well and when I'm wri…

  There's other stuff I want to see that should be even more 
  interesting. When it's replaying, I want to be able to see 
  characters that make it into the final version in one 
  color, and others in another. Then I'll be able to tell 
  when I'm writing well and when I'm writing badly.
How about coloring text based on their age in the work? That is, characters added in the last edit are bright blue (or green), and as they age without changing, they fade to black. That would be extremely cool to watch.

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#127

Post by jimbokun »

jodrellblank wrote: post #121
jimbokun wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I doubt everyone will abandon their word processing software and user Etherpad." They will probably give up Word for something, eventually. Especially among the current generation, writing is something done online; a blog, an email, a tweet, writing on someone's wall. At some point, it stops making sense to have a word processor distinct from the web. Right now, Word has more features that people like than online wr…

Microsoft could make the online tool that replaces Word Something like Windows Live Writer 2009? http://jalaj.net/2009/01/22/enter-windows-live-writer-2009/

"On running the installer ..."

If it has an installer, it doesn't count as an online tool, as far as I'm concerned.

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#128

Post by bendtheblock »

unalone wrote: post #26
pg wrote: post #2

I've been wanting to play back the writing of an essay for years. Since Etherpad saves every keystroke, I convinced the founders to add a way to play them back. "Startups in 13 Sentences" was the first essay I wrote on Etherpad. Now I'm going to write all of them on it. Playback is just one little feature of Etherpad, but think of the implications of this alone. Among other things it will make cheating impossible in…

This is an incredible thing to watch! Can you do this with any piece of writing on Etherpad? What a great way of bringing attention to a start-up: make something that's inherently fascinating due to features. This is unlike anything online I've seen before because the functionality just doesn't exist anywhere else. So it's a great thing to watch and it also tells you about the service. I like that you keep constantly…

This is great, and the article itself is excellent. Regarding "going back to eliminate unnecessary language", as Stephen King said, "2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%".

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#129

Post by julianz »

Interesting - this is exactly how journal recovery used to work on VMS. I remember watching my mother edit documents in the MASS-11 (http://www.stanq.com/blog/?p=11) word processor on a VT-100 terminal. If her session fell off she'd ring an operator and he'd play her session back on the screen; it looked exactly like this!

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#130

Post by anatoly »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #124
anatoly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that penalize people who write comments in their editor, then copy-paste into the comment box?

Wow. Who does that? I do not mean this in a sarcastic manner, but this is the first time I hear of it.

Many people. There's even a moderately popular firefox plugin to automate the process (the name escapes me) - it invokes your editor for you, then when you save and exit it copies the temp file into the textarea.
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