280 Slides launches (YC Winter '08) | Hacker News Reader

280 Slides launches (YC Winter '08)

techcrunch.com

69 pointssharpshoot39 comments

While I am generally very skeptical of half-assed reimplementations of existing tools with a stamp "now in the browser!!!", 280 was probably the first case when I said to myself "this is damn nice!"

Very well done. So much different from the typical crappy and laggy "online app" experience I've seen before.

And THANK YOU!!! for not using Flash.

I agree. But not only are the technical problems with most rich applications fixed by 280 north, but the UI is beautiful, easy to use, and awesome as well.

"And THANK YOU!!! for not using Flash."

The whole "Objective-J" thing is fascinating. From this, looks like they have ported at least some of AppKit to compile into Javascript webapps:

http://280slides.com/Editor/1212695713/DocumentController.j

Looks like they have brought the Mac development experience to the web in a far more literal way than I expected.

I don't understand why Flash is so bad. The general concept of having a plugin with a rich built-in API makes sense for a lot of reasons (natively compiled code in the plugin, smaller download of additional code). The problems with Flash are: (i) it's proprietary, and (ii) it's not on 100% of browsers. (i) is mostly a complaint from developers based on principle, and (ii) -well- isn't true for Javascript either if you include mobile browsers.

Disclaimer: my app is built on Flash.

P.S.: 280slides is great! And very impressive this was done with JS.

Flash sucks balls if you have an older mac (1ghz). I don't know how it performs generally on an older pc, but for me, its just aweful. I hate anything online that uses flash.

Flash sucks balls because it only works well where Adobe wants it to work well, as opposed to openly accepted standards like HTML/CSS that work good enough on nearly every computer in operation.

Damn impressive work with Javascript, guys!

We are rapidly getting to the point where it's almost difficult to tell at a glance if you are using a web-based app or a client-based app.

A JavaScript application is a client-based app. The only difference is that you go to a url that loads your client app, versus having it already installed on your system.

It's a pretty big difference though from downloaded desktop software.

How? Don't you consider Flash, Java, and Silverlight applications to be downloaded software? What if it's an AcitveX application that's served through your browser, is that a web based application?

Hrm, I've always used the verbage 'web-based app' for anything that funneled its way over to the Internet and was stuck in my browser. (Versus something that hung out on my hard drive.) Do you guys think it's inaccurate to call an app like this one that is 95% Javascript 'web-based'? If not, what is a more accurate word?

It resides on a web server, you access it via a web browser, it's a web-based app.

Do you consider a Java Applet to be a web based application?

I see two levels in the hierarchy: first there's "desktop" vs "web", then within "web" there's "client-side" vs. "server-side" (or more commonly, some combination of the two).

Straight up HTML and CSS pages powered by your favorite server-side technology (PHP, Rails, J2EE...) are clearly server-side web apps. I'd say page-based web apps that add some dynamism via JavaScript (like Hacker News, Reddit, etc) are still mostly server-side with a little bit of client-side stuff.

280 Slides is still a web-app, but it's almost entirely client-side.

However, the lines are blurring with things like Google Gears (err... "Gears") and Adobe AIR.

They have an unreleased wrapper to make their web-based apps deployable as desktop-only apps too.

I used an early version of this to make my slides for startup school.

That looks technologically impressive. I heard they will be releasing their Objective-J tools as open source, is there any truth to that? I'd love to see what's running behind this.

Does anyone know how long this took?

We started slides at the beginning of Y Combinator in January. Since then we've written both slides and a significant portion of our framework.

Any news on whether you're planning to open any part of it and if so, an estimated time?

Absolutely, and, as soon as its ready :)

I can't wait to start using this framework.

Congratulations! It is impressive product. The site is little slow but expected. I like how clean the editor looks and you added all the necessary functionalities without using Flash. Wish you great success in future.

I have to admit, I right-clicked looking for the "About Adobe Flash Player 9" thing

me too!

It looked much like flex UI at first impression

Clicking on the next slide button or the slide itself just took me to the top of the page.

EDIT: I'm not complaining, I used the actual slide builder and that was awesome. It's miles beyond any of my hacks :).

Me too. I also got an error message pop-up. But hey, it's a brand new service. I'm not judging.

The embeds definitely have a few kinks to work out. Until then, you can view the same presentation here:

http://280slides.com/Viewer/?user=187&name=My%20test%20s...

Fixed.

Wow! They have done an amazing job! Definitely light years ahead of anything else I've seen (that works in a web browser)..

You guys are really really impressive.

Crashed my firefox but that crashes at everything and is damn slow. works like a charm in Safari.

The video embed were not working though...

Crashed my firefox but that crashes at everything

Worked fine for me in 3rc2 - might be your plugins?

I really like the interface and way it works. Well done!

Sounds like a great product but I wasn't able to connect to the site... is anyone else experiencing the same issues?

The TechCrunch embed has bitten us a bit harder than expected. We're actively working on it!

Sorry about that, try again, it should be much better now.

Congrats Guys, I saw you at IO at 'birds of a feather' for a little pre-launch demo, very cool.

Why a Keynote clone? The implementation is beautiful, but I don't see why you'd choose an app that relies on full screen mode and control via remotes.

A bit slow, but seems nicely polished after a very quick run through. Nice work.

i don't want to be the mean guy and although I realise the technical challenge, it feels very slow and unresponsive (i tried it on IE 7, AMD Turion 64 which should be more than enough)

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