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It doesn't take away from this, but because of the title: Google Docs started much like this, but eventually they gave up on plain HTML and changed to the curre

It doesn't take away from this, but because of the title: Google Docs started much like this, but eventually they gave up on plain HTML and changed to the current model which still uses the DOM but is "complicated"(tm) HTML. I can't find the link at the moment, but I think it's interesting because despite it being the simple solution, they eventually realized it was holding back adoption amongst business users. Edit: Found the article: "Babe Ruth and Feature Lists" [0] where former Google PDM Ken Norton writes: >We were relying on the browser’s rich text surface, which used HTML as the underlying data format and caused browser compatibility nightmares. You’d bold a word and then be unable to un-bold it. Bulleted lists couldn’t be edited or deleted without screwing up the whole page or turning everything into a bullet. Centering a line would often center-align the entire document. Formatting bugs had been an annoyance for Googlers, but they were fatal for groups of students who needed to print a term paper to a teacher’s exacting specifications. 0 - https://library.gv.com/babe-ruth-and-feature-lists-1818bb8c6ca8#.sq8086m2t https://library.gv.com/babe-ruth-and-feature-lists-1818bb8c6...

paulddraper 10y ago
I've had the same experience. In order to have a great cross-platform weird processor, you've got to do it yourself.
fuck_google 10y ago
In my experience the old Google Docs worked better for (college) group work. The new one still doesn't have proper heading numbering, table editing sucks, and styling is severely limited compared to using CSS. It's also too slow/heavy for editing large documents. It seems like a case of NIH syndrome, poor product management and googlers overestimating their abilities, which has resulted in a big bloated mess that still hasn't achieved feature parity with the old one (in the places where it matters) despite years of development. In my opinion they should not have tried to imitate MS Word, but build a new kind of collaborative word processor on the strengths of HTML/CSS/JS. Now they have just a bloated slow MS Works style crippled word processor that doesn't really work for anything demanding.
jkaptur 10y ago
Here's a great technical explanation of the problem: https://medium.engineering/why-contenteditable-is-terrible-122d8a40e480 https://medium.engineering/why-contenteditable-is-terrible-1...
- marco1 10y ago
  Thanks, great read! Please see my comment on the parent to your post for a response.
marco1 10y ago
Thanks a lot! This project is mainly targeted at presenting (read-only) documents, which includes displaying and printing invoices etc. I admit, the project description could have made this clearer. Basic editing is possible, which is why it's a poor man's Google Docs. Styling is possible as well, if you don't try to bold/unbold randomly, etc. So for presenting read-only documents, this has zero of the problems that Google Docs had and the project can safely continue to use the DOM and "contenteditable".

paulddraper 10y ago

I've had the same experience. In order to have a great cross-platform weird processor, you've got to do it yourself.

fuck_google 10y ago

In my experience the old Google Docs worked better for (college) group work. The new one still doesn't have proper heading numbering, table editing sucks, and styling is severely limited compared to using CSS. It's also too slow/heavy for editing large documents. It seems like a case of NIH syndrome, poor product management and googlers overestimating their abilities, which has resulted in a big bloated mess that still hasn't achieved feature parity with the old one (in the places where it matters) despite years of development. In my opinion they should not have tried to imitate MS Word, but build a new kind of collaborative word processor on the strengths of HTML/CSS/JS. Now they have just a bloated slow MS Works style crippled word processor that doesn't really work for anything demanding.

jkaptur 10y ago

Here's a great technical explanation of the problem: https://medium.engineering/why-contenteditable-is-terrible-122d8a40e480 https://medium.engineering/why-contenteditable-is-terrible-1...

marco1 10y ago
Thanks, great read! Please see my comment on the parent to your post for a response.

marco1 10y ago

Thanks a lot! This project is mainly targeted at presenting (read-only) documents, which includes displaying and printing invoices etc. I admit, the project description could have made this clearer. Basic editing is possible, which is why it's a poor man's Google Docs. Styling is possible as well, if you don't try to bold/unbold randomly, etc. So for presenting read-only documents, this has zero of the problems that Google Docs had and the project can safely continue to use the DOM and "contenteditable".