2007JUN051514
Summary
Exporting a quick news.yc post from my blog engine to Scribd. I found adding to Scribd is batch & broken? Or is it?
I write a lot on startups, badly some say. [0] I also like using my own tools that allow me to write something quickly, then export to external sites like Scribd.
'... I also want to use some sort of online 'editor' to write markup and edit ...'
I really want to be able to post in real-time, preferably using my toolset . I don't know if I'd tolerate using other toolsets but I'll take a peek to see if this is possible. I also want to use some sort of editor, preferably online to write markup and edit online. I realise that not everyone wants to write text online. Scribd appears to be geared to pre-written, edited and formated information in different formats. I accept this. [1] My initial impression is Scribd does not appear to be geared towards real-time, information generation.
So I decided to test my impressions and try to generate information in real-time at the server. Here's what I've found.
Upload
Because I have control of my ng blogging engine [2] I can do tricky things like export content to other sites. The only way I could upload a quick post [3] to Scribd is via an upload form. [4] While you can upload existing files in lots of different formats creating a document online is difficult. In fact I have come to the conclusion that the way scribd has been structured, this may not be possible at all.
Editor
I selected the upload link [5] and found you could either publish a document OR ... edit text in a box. I was surprised by this. I would have thought a more comprehensive option for editing online. There are plenty of tools around. The ideas and technology behind this is well understood. Coming from a slashdot, flickr sort of background I'm used to having tools you can just edit information and get an instant response.
So I added a post by adding an existing post I created for news.yc. The first thing I found was you could not enter any markup. In this case XHTML. It was simply rendered, tags and all. So I drop back to plain text. No tools for adding emphasis, bold, etc. In terms of markup this is pre-historic. Eventually I did find a rich text editor in a link right next to the plain text box. I simply missed this the first time. Why this is not default I'm not sure? My only suggestion is it takes more resources. You certainly need this type of markup to improve the readability of the content.
Editor take 2
Sometimes it is possible to leverage better tools to your advantage. So it was of no surprise that I found the addition of a Facebook application using the newly created API. Facebook is mature, polished and has some slick editing tools so I wanted to see if Scribd had leveraged Facebooks editing tools ? [7] MyNotes in particular. But could not find anything beyond a upload on the Facebook Doc homepage. [8]
Despite the fact I couldn't find a way to create content in Facebook and export to Scribd does not mean it's not there now or in the future if enough users request it.
Editing
I continued. Saved the content, added a title, summary and tags (looking good) and hit enter and go to edit. What, "you can't edit the saved file?". You can edit the title, summary and tags. What about the content? Now that's a bummer. I happened to make a simple mistake so I could find no way to make changes once saved? [6]
Save, view, oddities
I also noted some oddities in the final saved document with URL links. I would have thought links would be converted to clickable urls. This problem can be avoided using the rich editor and only applies to the basic editor. Another oddity is saving the document. A document is recorded with title + summary + tags and other meta data. Finally the document itself. So I didn't bother adding the title, summary or any other references to the document. Why? I've already added them once. But I got a surprise when I find no title, summary or tag information in the downloadable text file.
No DRY storage of information here [9]. There is an assumption the document or information uploaded is discrete and contains all required meta information. A duplication. I'll have to be more mindful of this for future uploads. To me adding the title, summary again in the text will initially look funny to the reader who will see two titles, two summaries and then the content.
Things I like
There are some aspects of Scribd I really like, including
* unique url for a document
* text metrics (text statistics)
* view metrics (traffic analytics)
* selective licensing
* various download formats
* community feedback (view information, comments & voting)
These alone make Scribd useful both users and authors. Especially the feedback loop from logged in readers.
Real-time ready?
At the moment the focus appears to be on pre-existing documents and wisely so. I initially thought the tools are a little primitive but quickly found some alternatives. I'm still confused about the inability to edit saved documents. This one for me is a bit of a killer. For small snippets of information the inability to import the added meta data (title, summary and tags) may cause confusion when reading. If left out confusion in downloaded documents. I'm also surprised there is no upload for XHTML or any path to import HTML like documents at all. The one thing I really miss is an API. With an API I could simply create the text, export it dispensing with the UI supplied altogether.
Will I use Scribd? Yes. But the question is I will have to adapt my approach taking into account the short comings I've discussed. [10]
Reference
[0] google search, "A simple selection of posts to news.yc"
<http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://news.ycombinator.com+bootload>
[Accessed Tuesday, June 5th 2007]
[1] Sometimes I have to do it the dumb way way using CUT + PASTE. Especially if sites don't allow API access or 'RSS feed hoovering' like Facebook does so well.
[2] nextgen or ng, "my blog engine testbed"
<http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/tags/ng>
[Accessed Tuesday, June 5th 2007]
[3] To me a quick post is less than 100 words. A title and some text, maybe a link. A really short post say to twitter is only 140 characters (about summary size) and not worth posting.
[4] Scribd, "upload link for content"
<http://www.scribd.com/upload/>
[Accessed Tuesday, June 5th 2007]
[5] Scribd, "upload link for adding new documents"
<http://www.scribd.com/upload/>
[Accessed Tuesday, 5th June 2007]
[6] If you know of a way to edit saved document leave a comment.
[7] Facebook, "Editing tools"
<http://www.facebook.com/notes.php>
[Accessed Tuesday, 5th June 2007]
[8] Facebook, "Scribd Application Doc on Facebook"
<http://apps.facebook.com/scribd/home>
[Accessed Tuesday, 5th June 2007]
[9] DRY, "Do Not Repeat Yourself"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_repeat_yourself>
[Accessed Tuesday, 5th June 2007]
[10] Document metadata
* Author: Peter Renshaw (bootload)
* Date: 2007JUN060039
* Title: Scribd is batch & broken?
* Url: <http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/531106994/>
* Comments: First appeared on my 'bootload' flickr blog, 2007JUN051514
* License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You can read more about the license here.
2007JUN051514
Summary
Exporting a quick news.yc post from my blog engine to Scribd. I found adding to Scribd is batch & broken? Or is it?
I write a lot on startups, badly some say. [0] I also like using my own tools that allow me to write something quickly, then export to external sites like Scribd.
'... I also want to use some sort of online 'editor' to write markup and edit ...'
I really want to be able to post in real-time, preferably using my toolset . I don't know if I'd tolerate using other toolsets but I'll take a peek to see if this is possible. I also want to use some sort of editor, preferably online to write markup and edit online. I realise that not everyone wants to write text online. Scribd appears to be geared to pre-written, edited and formated information in different formats. I accept this. [1] My initial impression is Scribd does not appear to be geared towards real-time, information generation.
So I decided to test my impressions and try to generate information in real-time at the server. Here's what I've found.
Upload
Because I have control of my ng blogging engine [2] I can do tricky things like export content to other sites. The only way I could upload a quick post [3] to Scribd is via an upload form. [4] While you can upload existing files in lots of different formats creating a document online is difficult. In fact I have come to the conclusion that the way scribd has been structured, this may not be possible at all.
Editor
I selected the upload link [5] and found you could either publish a document OR ... edit text in a box. I was surprised by this. I would have thought a more comprehensive option for editing online. There are plenty of tools around. The ideas and technology behind this is well understood. Coming from a slashdot, flickr sort of background I'm used to having tools you can just edit information and get an instant response.
So I added a post by adding an existing post I created for news.yc. The first thing I found was you could not enter any markup. In this case XHTML. It was simply rendered, tags and all. So I drop back to plain text. No tools for adding emphasis, bold, etc. In terms of markup this is pre-historic. Eventually I did find a rich text editor in a link right next to the plain text box. I simply missed this the first time. Why this is not default I'm not sure? My only suggestion is it takes more resources. You certainly need this type of markup to improve the readability of the content.
Editor take 2
Sometimes it is possible to leverage better tools to your advantage. So it was of no surprise that I found the addition of a Facebook application using the newly created API. Facebook is mature, polished and has some slick editing tools so I wanted to see if Scribd had leveraged Facebooks editing tools ? [7] MyNotes in particular. But could not find anything beyond a upload on the Facebook Doc homepage. [8]
Despite the fact I couldn't find a way to create content in Facebook and export to Scribd does not mean it's not there now or in the future if enough users request it.
Editing
I continued. Saved the content, added a title, summary and tags (looking good) and hit enter and go to edit. What, "you can't edit the saved file?". You can edit the title, summary and tags. What about the content? Now that's a bummer. I happened to make a simple mistake so I could find no way to make changes once saved? [6]
Save, view, oddities
I also noted some oddities in the final saved document with URL links. I would have thought links would be converted to clickable urls. This problem can be avoided using the rich editor and only applies to the basic editor. Another oddity is saving the document. A document is recorded with title + summary + tags and other meta data. Finally the document itself. So I didn't bother adding the title, summary or any other references to the document. Why? I've already added them once. But I got a surprise when I find no title, summary or tag information in the downloadable text file.
No DRY storage of information here [9]. There is an assumption the document or information uploaded is discrete and contains all required meta information. A duplication. I'll have to be more mindful of this for future uploads. To me adding the title, summary again in the text will initially look funny to the reader who will see two titles, two summaries and then the content.
Things I like
There are some aspects of Scribd I really like, including
* unique url for a document
* text metrics (text statistics)
* view metrics (traffic analytics)
* selective licensing
* various download formats
* community feedback (view information, comments & voting)
These alone make Scribd useful both users and authors. Especially the feedback loop from logged in readers.
Real-time ready?
At the moment the focus appears to be on pre-existing documents and wisely so. I initially thought the tools are a little primitive but quickly found some alternatives. I'm still confused about the inability to edit saved documents. This one for me is a bit of a killer. For small snippets of information the inability to import the added meta data (title, summary and tags) may cause confusion when reading. If left out confusion in downloaded documents. I'm also surprised there is no upload for XHTML or any path to import HTML like documents at all. The one thing I really miss is an API. With an API I could simply create the text, export it dispensing with the UI supplied altogether.
Will I use Scribd? Yes. But the question is I will have to adapt my approach taking into account the short comings I've discussed. [10]
Reference
[0] google search, "A simple selection of posts to news.yc"
<http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://news.ycombinator.com+bootload>
[Accessed Tuesday, June 5th 2007]
[1] Sometimes I have to do it the dumb way way using CUT + PASTE. Especially if sites don't allow API access or 'RSS feed hoovering' like Facebook does so well.
[2] nextgen or ng, "my blog engine testbed"
<http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/tags/ng>
[Accessed Tuesday, June 5th 2007]
[3] To me a quick post is less than 100 words. A title and some text, maybe a link. A really short post say to twitter is only 140 characters (about summary size) and not worth posting.
[4] Scribd, "upload link for content"
<http://www.scribd.com/upload/>
[Accessed Tuesday, June 5th 2007]
[5] Scribd, "upload link for adding new documents"
<http://www.scribd.com/upload/>
[Accessed Tuesday, 5th June 2007]
[6] If you know of a way to edit saved document leave a comment.
[7] Facebook, "Editing tools"
<http://www.facebook.com/notes.php>
[Accessed Tuesday, 5th June 2007]
[8] Facebook, "Scribd Application Doc on Facebook"
<http://apps.facebook.com/scribd/home>
[Accessed Tuesday, 5th June 2007]
[9] DRY, "Do Not Repeat Yourself"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_repeat_yourself>
[Accessed Tuesday, 5th June 2007]
[10] Document metadata
* Author: Peter Renshaw (bootload)
* Date: 2007JUN060039
* Title: Scribd is batch & broken?
* Url: <http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/531106994/>
* Comments: First appeared on my 'bootload' flickr blog, 2007JUN051514
* License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You can read more about the license here.