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Engst: The Mac Needs a Collaborative Editor App

by , 11:30 AM EDT, July 25th, 2006

Adam Engst of TidBITS feels there is a glaring omission in the Mac software arsenal: a collaborative group document editing and management system that works on a network, through the Internet, and on an isolated Mac. The need for this application, dubbed GroupEdit by Mr. Engst, is so great that he is looking for someone to write it.

Mr. Engst has tried combinations of applications and Web-based services, but so far nothing completely meets the needs of editors and writers. He says "Despite the utility of these tools, they haven't been designed with the needs of a group of decentralized professional writers and editors in mind. Or more to the point, they haven't been designed by professional writers and editors who spend their lives immersed in creating and editing text in collaboration with others. These tools understand the basic concepts, but miss completely on key aspects of implementation - they see the forest, but miss the trees."

Mr. Engst, along with Macworld's editorial director Jason Snell, have put together an RFP, and are willing to pay for the product's development. The RFP is available online, and they are actively looking for proposals now.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:mahuti -   TMO Staff Posts: 363 Joined: 09 Jan 2003
Tue Jul 25, 2006 12:38 pm Subject: yawn.

At least he's willing to pay.

<EDIT> Well maybe not... I didn't see anything in the RFP about payment.


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Close Name:jscotta Posts: 2 Joined: 14 Jun 2001
Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:42 pm Subject: The Coding Monkeys

Maybe they should speak to the fine folks over at The Coding Monkeys about SubEthatEdit.


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Close Name:coaten Posts: 2946 Joined: 10 Oct 2001
Wed Jul 26, 2006 4:57 am Subject:

Hmm, an interesting situation. I work in an office in which editors, sub-editors and reporters/writers/journalists collaborate to produce a daily newspaper. We all (about 120 staff) use software called Cybergraphics, which started out life as a software pagination tool for classified ads.
Cybergraphics does some things extremely well, such as hyphenating and justifying text, which it should do considering its history.
At other things, such as flowing text around a graphic, it totally sucks. I kid you not - a text flow that would happen instantly in InDesign or Quark can take a sub-editor up to an hour to get right. And then an editor cuts a par and it may have to be done again from scratch.

But, look, here's the thing. If somebody wrote some publishing groupware that could run on a Mac, and the company liked it so much that they rolled it out for all our editorial staff (ain't never gonna happen, that, but we can dream), then what would happen is the gain in production efficiency would mean at least one sub-editor would have see the door for the last time. Not at first, I'm sure, but once management noticed everyone doing as much as before in less time, well, it ain't rocket surgery...

All I'm saying is I'm careful about what I wish for. I'd love to do my paid work on a Mac, but then I also like my regular salary.

/rant


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Close Name:Rainy Day Posts: 607 Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Sun Jul 30, 2006 1:49 pm Subject:

Quote
coaten wrote:
All I'm saying is I'm careful about what I wish for. I'd love to do my paid work on a Mac, but then I also like my regular salary.


Out of every difficulty comes opportunity: You could then get rid of that obnoxious co-editor.


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