AjaxWrite to "Compete" with MS Word 390
prostoalex writes "Michael Robertson (of MP3.com, Linspire, SIPPhone, GizmoProject and MP3Tunes.com fame) is launching a Web-only competitor to Microsoft Office by creating a suite of applications replicating Microsoft Office look and feel. From the posting: "But ajaxWrite is just the start. We have a library of applications we have been working on to replace most of the standard PC software titles. Every week we will launch a new sophisticated program on Wednesday at 12:00 PST on ajaxlaunch.com. These programs will push the boundaries of what people believe is possible today with web-delivered software. These programs look and operate much like their traditional software cousins, but are cross-platform, loaded dynamically, and are available to users at no charge. I'm convinced if you try a few of these products you will understand how the software business will fundamentally change." ajaxWrite is the first launched product."
Not likely (Score:5, Insightful)
Not if he doesn't learn a lot more about the DOM, and fast.
I was all ready to complement the AjaxWrite team on having finally delivered the first online wordprocessor with full font-sizing abilities. Then I realized something: There are only 7 font sizes. The same 7 that are supported by every rich text editor in existance. Why only seven? Because those seven are built into the rich text editing component that's included with Mozilla and IE. If you want to allow arbitray font sizes, you have to delve down into the DOM and start some complex tweaking.
All AjaxWrite has done is hide these facts by assigning standard font sizes. Anyone with the right info [mozilla.org] could replicate this "feat" pretty easily.
Sorry, nothing to see here.
The bright side is that his app supports the Microsoft DOC format. How well it supports it is an open question, but he probably is using a library like POI [apache.org] to do the heavy lifting. Nothing wrong with that, but also nothing ground-breaking. I imagine that many users will drop this tool as soon as they realize they can't properly match font sizes.
Let's check back next week and see if his next attempt is more interesting.
Re:Not likely (Score:5, Informative)
Dave
Re:Not likely (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently, spell checkers, word counts, arbitrary font sizes, find (there's a menu item, but it's disabled), and hyperlinks are all "obscure advanced features". Here, let me fix that for you, Mike:
See? Much better. =D
Re:Not likely (Score:4, Insightful)
i'll say... like a privacy policy perhaps? does boddy who runs this thing own my content?
microsoft may have all sorts of draconian licensing policies, but at least i know what they are. with this thing i can just type up all sorts of private content that can be read easily and, apparently, legally by who knows who.
Re:Not likely (Score:5, Informative)
Regards,
Steve
Re:Not likely (Score:2, Insightful)
Please download the latest version of Mozilla Firefox from http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ [mozilla.org]."
oh great, so we've replaced OS-specific software with browser-specific software.
Re:Not likely (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not likely (Score:2, Informative)
As someone else noted, this is basically a Wordpad
Re:Not likely (Score:3, Insightful)
No it doesn't. If you code to W3C standards, the only browser that usually requires significant tweaking is Internet Explorer. The reason why IE has to be tweaked is because it doesn't support the standards. (Hello? Microsoft? I'm still waiting on DOM2 Events! *sigh*)
Thankfully, the design of Javascript means that you can patch the webbrowser for your session. It's a little tricky, but it's
Re:Not likely (Score:4, Informative)
*Ahem* From ajaxbrian [ajaxlaunch.com] on their forum:
(Emphasis mine.)
So either you're trolling, or you're not very bright. Next time keep in mind that, "fools rush in where Angels fear to tread."
still some work to do. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, this guy may think he's replaced WORD(tm) but I was unable to:
Until they get at least some of these features write, I'm forking over my $499.
Oh wait, did I just say that out loud?
All seriousness aside, one feature this really doesn't have (at least I couldn't find it) I absolutely must have is spell check. I'm kind of surprised, cuz it seems everyone is introducing some form of spell check instantiated in their latest ajax offerings (including other web word processors... e.g.,
Re:still some work to do. (Score:2)
And can we get those icons in cornflower blue?
Re:still some work to do. (Score:2)
For you, the feature they'd need to get working is a grammar checker I guess
There are ways to by M$ office for less... (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 [amazon.com] costs about $125, and can be run on three different computers.
Microsoft stresses that this version of their Office 2003 is only for non-commercial use. You qualify for this edition so long as you are 1) a full- or part-time student enrolled in a K-12 institution, 2) home-schooled, 3) taking at least 6 credits at an accredited college/university, or 4) a full- or part-time faculty member and work 20+ hours at a school.
When I bought my copy, I had a child in Kindergarten. A year later, and he still hasn't used Office -- but my wife and I did.
Sorry for that advertisement for M$ products.
Oh yeah, I frequently use Open Office -- which is free, does a great job most of the time, and runs on almost everything.
Re:There are ways to by M$ office for less... (Score:5, Insightful)
If not, then you might as well download/steal it, because why pay someone when you don't get a valid license to use it either way?
Re:still some work to do. (Score:2)
All seriousness aside, one feature this really doesn't have (at least I couldn't find it) I absolutely must have is spell check.
Normally I'm a big advocate of OS-wide services for things like spelling checkers, grammar checkers, translation, and the like. Having access to them in OS X has pretty much spoiled me. I don't want to teach the spellchecker on a website or built into one more application not to mark "SNMP" as a misspelled word. And since my browser uses the standard text handling APIs, I don'
Not sure I like this.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not sure I like this.. (Score:2)
Re:Not sure I like this.. (Score:2)
Re:Not sure I like this.. (Score:2)
Hype i (Score:2)
Don't think "web based", think "browser based". The app itself can be running some stripped down web server-type component, and script language interpreters like Perl and PHP... Nothing here demands Interweb connectivity... But this app in particular is not ready to take on MS Word, not even close. There are a million nice Rich Text editors out there, for example FCKeditor [fckeditor.net]...
Re:Not sure I like this.. (Score:2)
Opposite (Score:3, Insightful)
My first thought was "Maybe for the home, but not my business." There's no way in hell I'm composing a proposal for a competitive contract on an open-source, web-based tool.
Maybe, when they release their version of Quicken, I can throw my finances up there, too.
Man, I dunno. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Man, I dunno. (Score:5, Funny)
The Power of the Web in your Hand! (Score:5, Insightful)
Many seconds. Many, many seconds.
"Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 207.67.194.7."
I want a web-based word processor so that my letter to Mom can get slashdotted?
Re:The Power of the Web in your Hand! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Power of the Web in your Hand! (Score:2)
text positioning works well enough (left, center, right, block)
but I could not get it to save, at all. I tried multiple formats, but without success. It could be a load issue. Also, it was excessively slow to initially load. Is AJAX a design that works better (quicker?) on LANs as opposed to WANs?
harryk
Re:The Power of the Web in your Hand! (Score:3, Informative)
I'm guessing that's because their server is Slashdotted. The only way to convert a file from HTML is to upload it to the server, convert it, then send it back to the client. If the server is a little busy at the moment... well...
Me thinks he needs to buy time on the Sun Grid Engine [slashdot.org].
Re:The Power of the Web in your Hand! (Score:2)
Oh, the eternal wonders of the slashdot effect!
Slashdot multiplies the seconds just like our Lord multiplied the fish and bread.
Quick review... (Score:5, Informative)
1. spellchecker isn't working yet (there, but grayed out)
2. I will let you close the window and loose you work without a warning. That's a big minus in my books.
3. And it's not handling the load from
Other that that it looks okay. Like most of the web mail apps from Yahoo and Google. Expect that I like the drop down menus, very intuitive and easy to navigate if you use regular word possessors. They will need to add online storage to make it really useful.
On a positive note... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Quick review... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Quick review... (Score:2)
I'd like to add...parses and displays
Really (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Really (Score:2, Insightful)
AJAX techniques hardly compete with traditional development languages
AJAX is for communication. It's not a development language. You still use traditional development languages on the server side. That's the point: thanks to AJAX we can do that and just use the browser as a GUI.
But lets assume that you meant "web applications can hardly compete with desktop applications."
Doesn't it seem amazing to you that with so very little manpower (by comparison to the traditional approac
The only thing ajaxwrite will be good for (Score:5, Insightful)
Without rehashing everything that's been said so far abotu the comparison to MS Word, let's just say, it has a long, long way to go before it's gogin to put any serious dent in the MS Office revenu stream.
Re:The only thing ajaxwrite will be good for (Score:2)
Always online for my word processor? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been in hotels with crappy net connections. It's 4am, and I can't reach my word processor, now what?
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] -- Exercise, web 2.0 style.
Re:Always online for my word processor? (Score:2)
Re:Always online for my word processor? (Score:2)
Re:Always online for my word processor? (Score:2)
It's 4am, and I can't reach my word processor, now what?
Time to get a life?
Soon (Score:2)
You and I might hate that because we remember the "freedom" of doing things on your own disconnected from that big network, but the children or their children will never even notice it.
No internet access for a device will be just as disconcerting as it i
except... (Score:2)
Josh
This is why... (Score:2, Informative)
The connection was refused when attempting to contact 207.67.194.7.
I'm sure many other people can come up with other reasons, such as error 500...
Wow - they are Already Competing ! (Score:5, Funny)
That's a great first start to compete with Word.
Now all we need is an animated paper clip which says
"You seem to be writing a letter, would you like to
a. Punch your monitor
b. Scream
c. Smile a crazy smile and run around the office, naked and screaming"
Dispatch Warlock and Ajax (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course I decided to do the same with AJAX - use no fancy tools and code something small but useful completely by hand to understand what goes on. I wrote an application monitoring web app for our distributed app at work to give a nice graphical display and enquiries. It works well enough.
However, I could never shake the feeling that AJAX was what the RAF calls 'graunching' - forcing several components together that don't really fit properly. Writing a GUI in a web browser just felt awkward and wrong. Also, you had to be very careful how you did things especially if you have 30-odd info panels on your browser window - otherwise it's breathtakingly slow. Of course, an AJAX framework would have these (very necessary) optimisations - but AJAX really does seem incredibly inelegant.
Additionally, the X in AJAX doesn't really belong - if you run a protocol analyzer, you'll find XMLHTTPRequest doesn't actually send XML at all unless you explicitly send some XML. In fact it sends any plain text you pass it, and receives plain text back quite happily. But I suppose if it was called AJA it wouldn't be very buzzword compliant.
Re:Dispatch Warlock and Ajax (Score:2)
It fits everything together well, and you don't have to write a single line of HTML or javascript.
If you can write a swing application, you can write an echo2 application.
Also, XMLHTTPRequest is just that, a request. What gets sent back is up to the server.
The difference is that it doesn't cause an entire page refresh in the browser itself.
Re:Dispatch Warlock and Ajax (Score:2)
That's because the XML DOM parsers in current-version browsers are dirt-slow, it takes way too long to parse proper XML and you don't get that fancy Web 2.0 responds-like-an-application feel from your app while it waits for your file to finish parsing.
Best practices dictate using delimited text if you have really simple conten
Re:Dispatch Warlock and Ajax (Score:2)
One Word. (Score:2)
Oh, and how about supporting some browsers that have passed the Acid2 tests and are standards compliant....you know, Opera (9), Safari, Konqueror...
Re:One Word. (Score:2)
See that arrow on the toolbar that circles around toward the left? That's Undo. I think it's also in the edit menu, but the app seems to be broken (read: Slashdotted) at the moment.
Oh, and how about supporting some browsers that have passed the Acid2 tests and are standards compliant....you know, Opera (9), Safari, Konqueror...
Acid2 doesn't matter in this case, for the same reason why Opera and KHTML won't be supported: This is a XUL [wikipedia.org] application. The upside to using XUL is that Robertson might have sp
Hmm, save doesn't quite work (Score:2)
might be because of slashdotting...
Definitely Microsoft quality (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew I was dealing with Microsoft-quality software when I tried to open the screenshot in a new tab, only to be told off for not enabling Javascript, despite having it switched on. You'd think people building a word processor in Javascript would know better.
For all you newbie web developers out there - assuming that somebody who follows a link without executing the onclick handler has Javascript disabled is wrong.
In my case, I right-clicked and hit 't' to open in a new tab. This resulted in a page opening in a new tab telling me to enable Javascript. This is not what I wanted. Then I tried holding down Ctrl and clicking the link. This resulted in a new window with the screenshot in and a new tab telling me to enable Javascript. This is not what I wanted twice over.
When I finally got what I wanted (open a blank tab, open the history sidebar, select the address of the popup window), I realised something. There was absolutely no need whatsoever to have this pop up in a new window. It's one of those annoying firms that likes popping things up for no good reason. In my experience, organisations that do things like that have incredibly annoying websites run by PHBs who don't have a clue what they are doing. If the rest of their code is like that, consider me underwhelmed.
Platform-neutral downloadable web applications... (Score:5, Insightful)
Strange that we on Slashdot go gaga for anything AJAX while deriding Java as a slow, bloated pig. Seriously, AJAX is great for making web pages more responsive but is ill-suited as an applet replacement. Give me ThinkFree [thinkfree.com] anytime.
Flame shields up...
Re:Platform-neutral downloadable web applications. (Score:3, Insightful)
AJAX is at its best when it takes a concept that fits very well into the web paradigm, and adds desktop-application-like interactivity. Google Maps is a perfect example of this. Unlike a Jav
Does anyone remember JAVA? (Score:5, Insightful)
In contrast, Java was not designed to do server-side code, and is making less sense in that application as platforms that offer better time-to-market for server-side development become accepted.
Bruce
Re:Does anyone remember JAVA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Java wasn't "designed" for anything specific; it was designed as a general-purpose language and platform. It fits very well in the large server-side application domain, and is being used there more and more. Not sure where you get your impressions.
Re:Does anyone remember JAVA? (Score:2)
(this moment being the load and initialize time of the JVM)
Re:Does anyone remember JAVA? (Score:2)
Applets and JWS only build atop the Java language and platform. Their existance doesn't mean that Java was designed specifically for one thing or another.
I'd be pissed... (Score:2)
--
Price Comparison [priceage.com] with coupons!
styles and formatting (Score:2)
NullPointerException (Score:2)
Nice program you got there.
Thumbdrive + Portable OpenOffice.org (Score:2)
Not quite MSWord... (Score:4, Informative)
AjaxWrite: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable (Score:2)
Why Ajax isn't always appropriate:
Portability across platforms is great, but we'll still need a local copy. Which would seem to bring us back to XUL...
Sounds great and I'm all for it but (Score:2, Funny)
Service Temporarily Unavailable
maybe they need an animated can of Ajax holding a Service Temporarily Unavailable sign when the service goes down.
Also I'd like to say that BSOD reads and sound much better then STU
Wiki Online WP (Score:2, Insightful)
These are the only possible advantages I can see to word processing online, outside of cost benefit. I'd much rather use MS Word or Open Office for most tasks.
Writely (Score:3, Informative)
Thinkfree Office Online (Score:2)
Warning: it's slow to get started the first time, because of massive Java-Fu.
Oh, would PLEASE give me a break. (Score:2)
My god the dumbness of people is truely
It's all about marketing (Score:3, Insightful)
Free and Open Source software needs all kinds of people. Besides programmers you need documentation writers, artists, interface designers, lawyers, activists, and marketeers. Michael Robertson is good at marketing. He is good at promoting software solutions. He uses a lot of open source software for that, including some rebranded and extended applications.
Some people claims he steals and abuses that software, without giving back. I do not agree with that, his companies play by the rules and release source when necessary.
But sourcecode is not his important contribution, marketing is. Allthough you might not like his products, the bottomline is that he is promoting free/open software, and people are using it who might not have done so otherwise.
AjaxWrite not available (Score:2, Funny)
Too slow (Score:2)
AjaxBrowser (Score:4, Funny)
Re:AjaxBrowser (Score:3, Funny)
That's a really bad idea. You don't want to be tied to a net connection to depend on the availability of your browser. An online browser will never replace a standalone browser. You're still always going to want to have your Internet stored on your hard drive. ;)
I just tested this (Score:2)
However, if you look at the available menu, this thing doesn't even come close to Microsoft Word functionality. You can adjust the fonts, alignment, etc., basic stuff like that, and apparently insert a table (I didn't test that), but the rest of Word's functionality simply doesn't exist.
Nice try, Mike. Come back in a year whe
Not even Hype 2.0 (Score:2)
Not much better than: Gmail Composer
Less compatibility than: Writely [writely.com]
Definitely not as good as: MS Office
DANGER DANGER MIKE ROBERTSON (Score:2, Insightful)
I think Mr. Robertson should wait until his products/ideas are actually able to do what he says. But then again who d
Free Remote Desktop (Score:2)
OMG! My word processor is slashdotted (Score:2, Funny)
Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 207.67.194.7.
*The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
*If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.
*If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
Microsoft Word 1. AjaxWrite 0
Office icons (Score:3, Insightful)
Waste (Score:3, Insightful)
I dont want to store my data on someone else's server.
I'd like a copy of the Gmail interface, that I could run on my own server, and access my privately stored email.
There was a recent article on Writely, which is apparently similar to this. I went to the site, hoping to download it, and put it on my server, but it too is a 'we store your files on our server' scenario. This might cut it for meaninless drivel teens want to exchange, but not for anything important.
OpenOffice Import is Flawed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Speechless. (Score:2)
Offer a better product. Oh wait, they already got that covered.
Re:Speechless. (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry dada, but you need to get out more. [google.com]
Re:Speechless. (Score:2)
Re:Speechless. (Score:2)
Totally! Not only have none of these problems ever been solved, but it's obvious that these problems will never be solved!
I mean, unless computers get a lot smaller, cheaper, and more efficient, we'll never be able to over
Re:died already? (Score:2)
Granted they can scale up their servers to handle the load, but shouldn't they have done that BEFORE announcing to the world how they are going to kick Microsoft's butt??
UPDATE: I just got in. It looks impressive, but it is very slow. Kind of a dancing bear scenario. Will be interesting to see where they go with it and how they intend to mak
Re:It didn't work for me (Score:2)
Not really. All reasonably complex software has a pre-requisite of some sort. Having a freely available, cross-platform, open source prerequisite (that is arguably the best product inits niche) is the best kind of prerequisite IMO.
Why not just download FireFox?
Re:It didn't work for me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It didn't work for me (Score:2)
Re:It didn't work for me (Score:2)
While the app loaded, trying to use a menu item (move the mouse down to a choice) jumped to the "file" menu. So all I can do is open/close/save as...
While I like the concept, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired...
Re:JS (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yeah, great compatability guys ... (Score:2)
Re:Needs Shortcuts (Score:2)
What I'm thinking of writing, if I can find the time to bone up on all of this, would be something like an Ajax-based point-of-sale/accounting system. That, to my mind, would be a far better kind of application to benefit from this sort of technology.
Re:What is it with this Robertson guy? (Score:2)
Re:'compete' (Score:2)
Re:The only compelling thing (Score:4, Informative)
And pdf sucks anyway.
PDF does not suck. PDF rocks! The diabolical combination of MS Windows (The OS that can't multitask its way out of a wet paper bag), Adobe Acrobat Reader (the bloated and glacially slow reader), and your favorite flavor of browser sucks. People click on a link in their browser then scream as their system grinds to a halt while the reader launches and the PDF downloads, which can take significant time. The the reader itself is slow due to trying to multitask with the browser. That sucks.
PDFs on Linux or OS X are much nicer, especially when viewed by a separate program instead of a browser plug-in and especially when not using anything from Adobe. It is sad that the people who pretty much invented the standard now have such a popular and horrendous implementation of it.
Re:The only compelling thing (Score:3, Informative)