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I think that there is a huge market for simplified office tools. Why don't we have standalone Google Docs for desktop? And I am not talking about a web app but

I think that there is a huge market for simplified office tools. Why don't we have standalone Google Docs for desktop? And I am not talking about a web app but a fully functional desktop one.

runn1ng 14y ago
I would much prefer 100% free (as-in-speech) Google Docs alternative. I want to be able to install Google Docs-like application on my own server.
- pekk 14y ago
  Why not just run an office suite locally if that is your requirement?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - Piskvorrr 14y ago
    Not locally: I've seen many organizations admire the synchronization and collaboration features of GDocs, with a major caveat: the data is centralized in the cloud provider's hands, not the organization's. "Oh look, you don't own your data anymore" is a very theoretical scenario, but "oh look, you suddenly can't access your data anymore, we're not bringing them back, and you have no recourse" has happened with many cloud storage services, for various reasons. Hosting your own network-based office web-app solution would be convenient for many...especially for the security.
    - gcr 14y ago
      If organizations rely on google docs so much, why don't they back up their google docs archive every {day,hour,minute} ? I'm sure there's an rsync for google docs or something. Having to revert back to emailing saved word documents for a week or two is far better than losing everything for a week or two.
  - runn1ng 14y ago
    I don't want to run it locally. I want to share docs with the internet, or with a small team, have integrated history, have instant editing, have the possibility of more people editing it. I want to have instant access to it from any computer with a browser. Etherpad sort of does that, but not 100%.
    - harshreality 14y ago
      Except for continuous editing or live visibility of edits in progress, that's a lot like a wiki with wysiwyg editing. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WYSIWYG http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WYSIWYG You could probably extend wikis like mediawiki to have live visibility of edits, at the cost of performance. Separate db or redis storage for in-progress edits, and query that before retrieving the last static version of the page...
- jeffcutsinger 14y ago
  There's always Feng Office. I can't speak to how fully featured or mature it is. http://www.fengoffice.com/web/opensource/ http://www.fengoffice.com/web/opensource/
  - runn1ng 14y ago
    This seems interesting, thanks for the pointer.
- drchaos 14y ago
  There's a in-browser version of LibreOffice being worked on since quite some time (first announcement was in 2011[1]), but there's not much information online about the current status. They have video[2] and a wiki page[3] which at least shows how to enable it (custom build required): [1] http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/10/14/libreoffice-conference-announcements/ http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/10/14/libreoffice-co... [2] http://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/2011-10-10-lool-demo.webm http://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/2011-10-10-lool-demo.w... [3] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Using_LibreOffice_in_a_Web_Browser https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Using_LibreOffice_in_a_W...
anonymouz 14y ago
AbiWord seems to fit the niche of a lightweight word processor. That said, the advanced features of LibreOffice don't really get in the way if you don't use them and you can simply ignore them, so there seems little reason to develop a simplified office suite just for the sake of it.
Someone 14y ago
Reading http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-can-use-the-new-chromebook-offline-7000006103/ http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-can-use-the-new-chromebook-offl..., it seems the Chromebook tries to fit that market or at least one close to it.

I think that there is a huge market for simplified office tools. Why don't we have standalone Google Docs for desktop? And I am not talking about a web app but a fully functional desktop one.

runn1ng 14y ago

I would much prefer 100% free (as-in-speech) Google Docs alternative. I want to be able to install Google Docs-like application on my own server.

pekk 14y ago
Why not just run an office suite locally if that is your requirement?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Piskvorrr 14y ago
  Not locally: I've seen many organizations admire the synchronization and collaboration features of GDocs, with a major caveat: the data is centralized in the cloud provider's hands, not the organization's. "Oh look, you don't own your data anymore" is a very theoretical scenario, but "oh look, you suddenly can't access your data anymore, we're not bringing them back, and you have no recourse" has happened with many cloud storage services, for various reasons. Hosting your own network-based office web-app solution would be convenient for many...especially for the security.
  - gcr 14y ago
    If organizations rely on google docs so much, why don't they back up their google docs archive every {day,hour,minute} ? I'm sure there's an rsync for google docs or something. Having to revert back to emailing saved word documents for a week or two is far better than losing everything for a week or two.
- runn1ng 14y ago
  I don't want to run it locally. I want to share docs with the internet, or with a small team, have integrated history, have instant editing, have the possibility of more people editing it. I want to have instant access to it from any computer with a browser. Etherpad sort of does that, but not 100%.
  - harshreality 14y ago
    Except for continuous editing or live visibility of edits in progress, that's a lot like a wiki with wysiwyg editing. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WYSIWYG http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WYSIWYG You could probably extend wikis like mediawiki to have live visibility of edits, at the cost of performance. Separate db or redis storage for in-progress edits, and query that before retrieving the last static version of the page...
jeffcutsinger 14y ago
There's always Feng Office. I can't speak to how fully featured or mature it is. http://www.fengoffice.com/web/opensource/ http://www.fengoffice.com/web/opensource/
- runn1ng 14y ago
  This seems interesting, thanks for the pointer.
drchaos 14y ago
There's a in-browser version of LibreOffice being worked on since quite some time (first announcement was in 2011[1]), but there's not much information online about the current status. They have video[2] and a wiki page[3] which at least shows how to enable it (custom build required): [1] http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/10/14/libreoffice-conference-announcements/ http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/10/14/libreoffice-co... [2] http://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/2011-10-10-lool-demo.webm http://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/2011-10-10-lool-demo.w... [3] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Using_LibreOffice_in_a_Web_Browser https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Using_LibreOffice_in_a_W...

anonymouz 14y ago

AbiWord seems to fit the niche of a lightweight word processor. That said, the advanced features of LibreOffice don't really get in the way if you don't use them and you can simply ignore them, so there seems little reason to develop a simplified office suite just for the sake of it.

Someone 14y ago

Reading http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-can-use-the-new-chromebook-offline-7000006103/ http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-can-use-the-new-chromebook-offl..., it seems the Chromebook tries to fit that market or at least one close to it.