EtherPad out of private beta | Hacker News Reader

EtherPad out of private beta

etherpad.com

91 pointsanuraggoel35 comments

I had the chance to use EtherPad as part of a job interview while it was in private beta. It was supposed to use Skype and EtherPad to get the full effect. Skype broke, but EtherPad worked great. The ease of getting code to the interviewer, and (I imagine) the ability to see the way I wrote the code were really helpful.

If you're doing a phone screen interview in the future, I highly recommend using EtherPad.

Wow, great use case. I wonder if EtherPad can focus on such a niche and charge for it (with other relevant features).

They actually know about the use case: it's one of their 5 suggested use cases: http://etherpad.com/ep/about/product#uses5

But you're right, marketing specifically to software shops could be a good way to make a profit.

Nifty. Pity there aren't more syntax options (just JS)

Here's a test URL to toy with: http://etherpad.com/qtUr4Iw3mr

It just sits there saying "connecting..." So does that mean no other user online, or my Javascript is broken, or my net connections is down, or they are slashdotted, or what?

This probably means there's an incompatibility with your browser/ISP/firewall combination. If you click the "reconnect" button, it will submit diagnostic info to help us debug, or you can mail support @ etherpad.com for help.

and http://etherpad.com/ljwzgV6xks

Very cool - thanks for making it easy for the rest of us to try :)

I've used Google docs to do collaborative work with people and it's served me pretty well, but Etherpad seems like a solid option.

Ah, so it is a web-version of something like SubEthaEdit? (http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/)

I think the private, for-pay service in your FaQ sounds like an interesting potential replacement.

For those of you interested there is a great interview with Etherpad by Phill Windly at IT-Conversations http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3985.html

Ow! My eyes!

Seriously, hire a designer to smooth out your site, it's well worth it.

Ow! My eyes!

Please design a new favicon. The current one looks like an ode to mid-nineties shareware sites.

The volume on the screencast is way too low.

It'd be interesting to know what changed from last time, if I remember right it was something to do with database overload?

Don't mean to pry, but it'd be cool to know what the original issue was...

Looks pretty neat. I'm still trying to find the Emacs keybinding option...More seriously, some basic formatting options may be nice, for actual document production vs., as some others mentioned, a fancy chat system.

My first thought was that a version control repository and editing system could be built on top of this that would actually allow two people to see each others' edits simultaneously but compile only their own revisions until a commit occurred.

there's subethaedit as others mentioned, and there's also gobby:

http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/

It seems to response quite quickly at this point - as quickly as the demo shows in the etherpad.com demo video. Those of you who tried pclark's test/toy link: try signing up and selecting a color for your editing. Pretty slick!

I'm wondering what their business model is? No ads yet. Will this just showcase their hacking abilities?

Corporate versions with security and active directory authentication. Rich text, images, spreadsheets in a paid-for version. Branded versions to include in your own site.

Since it generally requires at least two people who need to communicate then at least one of them is likely to be prepared to pay.It's not just an eyeballs=advert web2.0 thing.

Yes, exactly.

There is an alternative here : http://collabedit.com/

(seen in a slashdot comment on this page : http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/21/1626208 )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonedit

However, their site is currently down. And yes, that was an offline app, so etherpad is much better.

Is this like chat reimagined or am i just crazy?

When you want to test out Etherpad and don't already have text you want to edit, you tend to use it like chat. But even then you can do things you can't do with chat, because you can see what the other person is typing and start responding before they finish (like in a real conversation). I've suggested to the Appjets that they might want to make a variant of Etherpad aimed at chat.

Like in the old unix talk :-)

I used to prefer this mode, but some of my friends hated it.

Does it scale well past 2 people talking? Seems like that could get difficult to show on screen.

It's certainly quite fun, but not sure if it's more useful.

That would be great. Plenty times we are required to quickly chat with someone, but we dont want to add them as IM contacts (think interviews). This would be a great solution for one time chats.

No and no. Chat is linear. EtherPad bends the space time continuum.

I agree with you. (Although I've just had a chat-like experience on it.) (And somehow it reminds me of the unix talk command)

Is EtherPad out of beta functionally equivalent to EtherPad in beta?

Yes.

I can't believe it's Javascript !!!

Seriuosly - Excelent job!

Anyone know when AppJet with Comet support be released?

Strictly speaking, AppJet already supports Comet, but the full support that's used in EtherPad is part of the next major version of the AppJet platform. From the sound of the ITConversations interview linked above, the new platform won't be out until a bit after Enterprise EtherPad.

The simplicity argument kills the discussion for me. It can't be right that to achieve columness, one has to wade through cascades of ever more esoteric articles explaining how to hack CSS.

FANTASTIC!

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