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No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years

#31

Post by SahAssar »

noisy_boy wrote: post #29
SahAssar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"people who know what Markdown is" overlaps very much with "people who have to use google docs for work but would prefer a consistent editing experience". Basically every dev I know has to use either teams/sharepoint/office or google docs, but most are also more comfortable with using markdown and use it for technical docs. I'd love to have a google docs option of creating a "simple doc", that is backed by markdown a…

> Basically every dev I know has to use either teams/sharepoint/office or google docs I think there is another sizable set which heavily uses wiki. At my work, most people use it (a very small set of people use SharePoint for mainly PowerPoint or formatting heavy docs).

Are those devs not ever collaborating with non-tech people on documents? Also when you say wiki, do you mean a mediawiki instance or the ones included in things like github?

Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years

#32

Post by pluijzer »

danielbln wrote: post #30
adrianvoica wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Additionally, the "people who know what Markdown is but also like trusting Google with their files" demographic is vanishingly small and not who Drive is targeting at all.' <--this 200%

It's just not true at all. Knowing/using markdown doesn't make you some Richard Stallmann type.

Maybe the original author implies that you don't need to be a Richard Stallman type anymore, not to trust Google.

Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years

#36

Post by danielvaughn »

SahAssar wrote: post #19
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #6

Simple: if you make your documents in Markdown, you won't be making them in Google Docs. Stuff made in Google Docs is sticky, increases your dependence on Google, and importantly has a valuable network effect due to their collaboration features. It is in Google's best interest to encourage you to rely on their proprietary services instead of offering you alternatives that allow you to switch provider easily. Addition…

"people who know what Markdown is" overlaps very much with "people who have to use google docs for work but would prefer a consistent editing experience". Basically every dev I know has to use either teams/sharepoint/office or google docs, but most are also more comfortable with using markdown and use it for technical docs. I'd love to have a google docs option of creating a "simple doc", that is backed by markdown a…

+1, I love google docs and also love markdown. If there was a shared markdown editor with the same collaborative features as google docs, i'd probably never use anything else.

Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years

#37

Post by afavour »

e40 wrote: post #28
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #6

Simple: if you make your documents in Markdown, you won't be making them in Google Docs. Stuff made in Google Docs is sticky, increases your dependence on Google, and importantly has a valuable network effect due to their collaboration features. It is in Google's best interest to encourage you to rely on their proprietary services instead of offering you alternatives that allow you to switch provider easily. Addition…

Agree completely with the first paragraph and disagree completely with the second paragraph. There are lots of us who use Google drive at work that love md.

I’m a developer working at a company that uses GSuite. My personal feelings about trusting Google aren’t really relevant, I’d love to use Markdown in GDoc, as would many of my coworkers!

Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years

#38

Post by z3t4 »

adrianvoica wrote: post #23
modeless wrote: post #17

They have a whole app store for Google Drive. There are markdown editors in there as well as plenty of other niche things. https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2500820

Sure, if you are trusting 3rd party access to your data. Yet another layer of trust for a (niche) service that might just vanish into thin air. No, thank you.

There are probably 1000 markdown editors out there ranging from a simple textarea that only lets you write text, to Emacs, and something like Msword on steroids. The nice thing about an open market is that when you no longer like a product you can just switch to another one.

I however understand your issue with privacy as any app can just steal your content without you knowing. The solution for privacy is to sandbox/jail the app into an environment where it can just access a limited set of resources, for example you can use an apparmor profile where the app can just access a special folder, and disable all networking. That special folder could be your google drive mount.

Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years

#39

Post by moffkalast »

e40 wrote: post #28
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #6

Simple: if you make your documents in Markdown, you won't be making them in Google Docs. Stuff made in Google Docs is sticky, increases your dependence on Google, and importantly has a valuable network effect due to their collaboration features. It is in Google's best interest to encourage you to rely on their proprietary services instead of offering you alternatives that allow you to switch provider easily. Addition…

Agree completely with the first paragraph and disagree completely with the second paragraph. There are lots of us who use Google drive at work that love md.

There are dozens of you.
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