4 ms·

Google Docs is simply a web storage. The actual "office" part, specifically the text editing, is done by a rich text control embedded into your browser, which i

by tx 19y ago

Google Docs is simply a web storage. The actual "office" part, specifically the text editing, is done by a rich text control embedded into your browser, which is written in C++ or plain C i.e. it is as much "web" as Office itself, only many times less powerful. Closest Windows desktop equivalent? The mighty WordPad circa 1994! You could have completed your Linux switch without Google Docs. AbiWord kicks GDocs' butt, as well as KWord, I am not even talking about Sun's junk. We tried to use Google docs and for anything more complex than 2-3 paragraphs of simple text it was inadequate. You can't even control line spacing for god's sake.

cstejerean 19y ago
Maybe it didn't work for you. I use it to manage my resume for example without a single problem. I can access it from anywhere, share it with people, track changes and email word or PDF copies. I haven't used a desktop word processor in the last year (unless I'm opening some file from a backup disk that I haven't had a chance to upload). And wordpad was a pretty decent editor. The problem is it couldn't open word files sent by others (so I always had to install Office or convert files to RTF). Turns out most word documents render just fine in RTF.
cstejerean 19y ago
I'm pretty certain the rich text control in Google Docs is not written in C/C++ and is not built into the browser. It's implemented in Javascript. Or are you saying the web browser is written in C/C++?
- tx 19y ago
  The entire browser's set of controls is written in C or C++ and is provided by underlying OS the browser runs on. On Windows it's RichEdit control. On Linux it's something else. There is no API in existence that lets you do anything outside of browser limitations. JavaScript is only used to manipulate API of those controls, but not to implement controls themselves. This means that "Office" part of Google Docs is implemented by FireFox/IE/Safari, where google only provides storage for their output. I blogged about this "web apps nonsense" a few days ago: http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2008/02/web-vs-desktop-nonsense.html http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2008/02/web-vs-desktop-nonsens...
  - cstejerean 19y ago
    Everything in the browser eventually comes down to C/C++. But as far as I can tell controls like the Yahoo UI Rich Text Editor are implemented in pure Javascript. And by this I mean it modifies the DOM in Javascript (and the browser handles rendering the updated DOM) as opposed to using browser magic (like an ActiveX control in IE). If I'm wrong, could someone please point me to documentation explaining exactly how these RTE's are implemented?
mpc 19y ago
Hi, I'm pretty certain that there is no embedded rich text control used in gmail/google docs. It's pure JavaScript. Can you post any links as a reference?

by tx 19y ago

cstejerean 19y ago

Maybe it didn't work for you. I use it to manage my resume for example without a single problem. I can access it from anywhere, share it with people, track changes and email word or PDF copies. I haven't used a desktop word processor in the last year (unless I'm opening some file from a backup disk that I haven't had a chance to upload). And wordpad was a pretty decent editor. The problem is it couldn't open word files sent by others (so I always had to install Office or convert files to RTF). Turns out most word documents render just fine in RTF.

cstejerean 19y ago

I'm pretty certain the rich text control in Google Docs is not written in C/C++ and is not built into the browser. It's implemented in Javascript. Or are you saying the web browser is written in C/C++?

tx 19y ago
The entire browser's set of controls is written in C or C++ and is provided by underlying OS the browser runs on. On Windows it's RichEdit control. On Linux it's something else. There is no API in existence that lets you do anything outside of browser limitations. JavaScript is only used to manipulate API of those controls, but not to implement controls themselves. This means that "Office" part of Google Docs is implemented by FireFox/IE/Safari, where google only provides storage for their output. I blogged about this "web apps nonsense" a few days ago: http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2008/02/web-vs-desktop-nonsense.html http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2008/02/web-vs-desktop-nonsens...
- cstejerean 19y ago
  Everything in the browser eventually comes down to C/C++. But as far as I can tell controls like the Yahoo UI Rich Text Editor are implemented in pure Javascript. And by this I mean it modifies the DOM in Javascript (and the browser handles rendering the updated DOM) as opposed to using browser magic (like an ActiveX control in IE). If I'm wrong, could someone please point me to documentation explaining exactly how these RTE's are implemented?

mpc 19y ago

Hi, I'm pretty certain that there is no embedded rich text control used in gmail/google docs. It's pure JavaScript. Can you post any links as a reference?