3 ms·
A relevant point of concern: Google Drive isn't actually downloading documents. Maybe someone's already brought this up, but I just tried Google Drive's deskto
by mkr-hn 14y ago
A relevant point of concern: Google Drive isn't actually downloading documents.
Maybe someone's already brought this up, but I just tried Google Drive's desktop application for the first time. It downloads what amounts to a shortcut that's a text document with a link to the file on Google Docs.
The benefit of syncing is lost--you don't have a copy of a usable file you can open in another program or save somewhere. Even Microsoft's SkyDrive downloads real documents made in the web version of Office.
- michaelwww 14y agoThe files on my Google drive are actual files, which I proved to myself by disconnecting from the internet and viewing them. Maybe there is a problem with a specific Google app?
- mkr-hn 14y agoI assumed that was for using Google's web apps offline. Did you verify the files on your hard drive contain something more than a link?
- michaelwww 14y agoYes, I have contents saved locally and in the cloud. But I'm not using Google Docs, just a my own files. Edit: yes, I tried a spread sheet and won't work offline since there is no offline spread sheet app. There may be a way to make it work offline as a packaged app.
- mkr-hn 14y agoI'm talking about files made in Google Docs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428762
- justinschuh 14y agoI can't figure out what you mean about the benefits of syncing being lost, because the data is clearly synced. However, I can explain the "shortcuts" you're referring to. Those are for native Google Docs, which don't have a universal representation in other applications (they're tied to remote or locally stored web state) unless you explicitly chose to export to another format. Whereas Microsoft's SkyDrive is just raw MS Office Documents. The tradeoff between the two is that with Docs you get real-time editing and collaboration, but if you want a real local copy you'll need to target a specific export format. Whereas SkyDrive always keeps a local copy, but it requires you to explicitly save and resolve conflicts if you want to collaborate with another user. Of course, if you want to you can just use Google Drive as a dumb file syncing mechanism without real-time collaboration or online editing. You just don't use Google Docs and tell Drive not to convert files to Docs on upload.
- mkr-hn 14y agoI opened a .odt file in Docs, but Docs cloned it into a new document and created a [filename].gdoc file in the local Drive folder. I don't see a way to work with the original file. It's nice that I can choose formats when exporting, and even export in bulk, but I want to decide which formats I work in. And it relies on this feature always being there. It won't even let me just open a .odt. It opens in some kind of previewer when I click the file. Opening it takes clicking in a menu to select "Open in Docs." Then it clones to that magic format that's ethereal until exported.
- justinschuh 14y agoUnfortunately, this is the same pain every application has with managing external and native formats. In the case of Docs, the state for online editing and collaboration is deeply integrated with the browser, and doesn't have an analog in external formats. So, those features just aren't supported if you're not using native Google Docs, because the underlying support doesn't exist in other formats. And if you are using native Google docs, then the only way to get the document in another format is to export it. Accepting all that, I still don't understand the claim that the document isn't synced.