Google Shifts Editing From Drive to Docs and Sheets In 'Confusing' Switch 89
GottaBeMobile offers a better explanation than many other reports of a recent Google upgrade (some users would say more of a lateral move) that makes offline document creation and editing a first-class option for users of Google's office apps, but removes editing capabilities from Google Drive per se. Instead of creating or editing documents directly through Drive, users will instead be able to do this (including offline) with a dedicated app called Docs and Sheets. The article explains a few ways in which the new configuration is confusing, including this one: "Splitting out the editing functionality from Google Drive into the new Apps certainly seems odd given that fundamentally there are no new or different editing features offered in the new Google Docs and Google Sheets standalone Apps. Some users won’t appreciate having to download the new stand alone Apps to replace previous functionality, especially limited functionality."
For iOS so you don't need to go read. (Score:4, Informative)
Could someone not have mentioned that it was for iOS so I could have ignored it. Haven't used that since soon after I gave up on Windows. I'm sure there are several other Slashdotters still stuck on that, so it's fine to post such a story, but please make it clear for the majority of us who won't care.
Re: For iOS so you don't need to go read. (Score:4, Informative)
For android too.
Re:As a non drive user, this makes sense. (Score:2, Informative)
That's the way it used to be!
Google Docs existed before Google Drive. Shortly after Drive was introduced, they merged Docs into it. The existing domain docs.google.com redirected to drive.google.com after that point. I thought it was silly, as it seemed like Drive should have been the file manager (Windows Explorer) and Docs the office suite (OpenOffice).
I guess now they've concluded that too.
Re:Does anyone even use Google's office suite? (Score:4, Informative)
I use it for "simple" stuff - for instance, it's very convenient to have a place to take notes at meetings (I do a lot of that with my job). Since I always have wifi where I work it's just a matter of opening up the Drive website and creating a new document. And then everything's in one place and it's easy to find stuff with Google's search, which works on document names and document contents.
I do create some "production quality" documents from within the Docs world, and export them to PDF or DOCX so I can share. But these documents are generally simple; the complex stuff I do in LaTeX. I really do not like Word with its seven thousand ways to frustrate me and the weird layout that I've never really gotten used to since they majorly changed it years ago. Libreoffice and Google's docs editor are nice and relatively simple and I find them easier to use. But I go back to Word when I have to which is frequently since "everyone" seems to use it.
It's convenient to have the ability to open attachments (from Gmail) in Drive/docs for quick viewing, but stuff created in Microsoft's Office doesn't always convert very well.
I fully realize what Google is doing by "sucking me in" to their world and having everything I do be stored on their servers. Ever since I bought a Chromebook Pixel and got the 1 TB of Drive space, I'm always finding ways to use it. I know they just want to harvest everything I do - so for the sensitive stuff I have an encrypted (ecryptfs) partition with Dropbox that I can mount on my Linux machines, and for wholesale archival storage of sensitive stuff I use PGP and stick it wherever. If Google Drive allowed the ability to mount the drive partition under Linux like Dropbox does, I would probably "drop the box" altogether.
Re:As a non drive user, this makes sense. (Score:3, Informative)
They aren't taking away web editing. They're taking editing out of the mobile app.