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Ask HN: Change Control for Non-Coders
Formerly a writer of code, exploring writing prose.
Is there a diff tool that can track changes better than MS Word "Track Changes" but not as complex as git?
Plain text with possibly markdown. Local or cloud.
- scastiel 4y agoI was looking for such a tool (I use Markdown), but in the end I kept using Git. It turns out it’s also pretty good for non-code content :)
- SentinelLdnma 4y agoAgreed. But I need non-coder noobs to also use it (i.e., an Editor, fellow writers without dev background). I suppose I could write them something with big easy buttons that only performs the actions they need.
- ausudhz 4y agoGit has plenty of open source GUIs that would help.
- thorin 4y agoThe main reason that track changes is so horrendous to work with is that MS formatting is a lot more complex that ascii. It does kind of work, if you are strict about the kinds of changes you make and start from a fairly fixed template. Some kind of markdown would be better but even that gives complexity which just isn't there with code.
- solardev 4y agoThe Google Docs revision history is pretty nice and a lot easier to work with then either Git or Word. Also MediaWiki might be another option. Janky though compared to gdocs
- SentinelLdnma 4y agoDidn't know gdocs had history, thanks for the pointer.
- solardev 4y agoThe "suggest changes" mode is also really nice, for multiplayer documents