Online word processors and AJAX apps in general

[Squeak]

The recent acquirement of Writely by Google, has brought this promising new use of AJAX to the top of my attention stack, so to speak.

Some questions:

Are there other worthwhile online word processors? The only one I've been able to find is
http://www.zohowriter.com/Home.do

Could this be the beginning of the end for big expensive, monolithic, installed office applications, in particular MS Office? If not, then why?

 

[davepermen]

one: privacy
two: editing big files. espencially with some complex functions in, and all the fuzz.. thinking of an online-excel-port with thousands of data-records in, with complex interdependencies, formating, etc.. for simple stuff, it's fine, of course. it's similar to comparing webmessenger with the ordinary messenger. (while on another level, of course)

 

[Diplo]

The main problem with Ajax interfaces is that HTML Forms do not have the rich range of widgits you get in, say, Windows/X-Windows Forms. (WebForms 2.0 should help this, when it comes and if Microsoft bother to follow Opera/FireFox). The other problem is that they are a lot more complicated to develop than tradtional applications, especially when you have to target different browsers with (potentially) different implementations of CSS, JavaScript, DOM etc. HTTP is a stateless environment which presents lots of problems for complicated apps. Never-the-less AJAX is an exciting development and will lead to much richer web-based applications.

 

[davepermen]

not to say it means much more work on the clientside for the system to render the html app and interpret all, compared to doing it directly in an ordinary app designed for it.

 

[Natoma]

The recent acquirement of Writely by Google, has brought this promising new use of AJAX to the top of my attention stack, so to speak.

Some questions:

Are there other worthwhile online word processors? The only one I've been able to find is
http://www.zohowriter.com/Home.do

Could this be the beginning of the end for big expensive, monolithic, installed office applications, in particular MS Office? If not, then why?

I like this one as well.

http://www.fckeditor.net/