Scribd Streamlines Embedded Docs With iPaper 2(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Scribd Streamlines Embedded Docs With iPaper 2
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/10/scribd-streamlines-embedded-docs-with-ipaper-2/
4 comments
Hi Matt, thanks but I wasn't directly involved with this new iteration of iPaper, it's the work of Ed, Michael and Barish at Scribd. Good to hear from you!, cheers :)
He he, I'm clearly behind on the project changes in the last year! Either way - iPaper 1.0 was an excellent foundation :)
I still don't get scribd: http://blog.bradgessler.com/i-dont-get-scribd
Can't agree more. And they want me to sign up in order to see or download a plain PDF, thats not going to happen.
Scribd would be much more useful if they supported predictable URLs of a document in their various formats. For example, if I uploaded My_Awesome_Document.docx, it could throw it into an URL like http://www.scribd.com/bradgessler/My_Awesome_Document.docx and let me enter URLs like
I'm probably just a vocal minority.
http://www.scribd.com/bradgessler/My_Awesome_Document.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/bradgessler/My_Awesome_Document.doc
I'm probably just a vocal minority.
While it's nice that it doesn't look like a shit Flex app anymore, the interaction behaviors are still awful -- let me use my goddamn scroll wheel!
Google's PDF viewer used for attachments in Gmail is better by leaps and bounds -- I hope they start using it in SERPs at some point. I wonder if an API could be hacked together for use from a Firefox extension...
Google's PDF viewer used for attachments in Gmail is better by leaps and bounds -- I hope they start using it in SERPs at some point. I wonder if an API could be hacked together for use from a Firefox extension...
In what browser does your scroll wheel not work? It works for me in firefox and safari.
The Firefox 3 + Flash in the current Ubuntu.
Something else might be fucked, as none of the buttons on it's little toolbar seem to do anything.
Something else might be fucked, as none of the buttons on it's little toolbar seem to do anything.
Do you have js disabled?
Will try to test on ff / ubuntu
Will try to test on ff / ubuntu
I do not have JS disabled, as I am not a mouthbreather.
Just checked at home on Gentoo x86_64 / FF-3.0.10 / Flash-10.0.22.87 -- and got identical behavior.
The old iPaper works, except that when embedded normally the scroll wheel doesn't work (but it does when viewing the swf directly).
The new iPaper fails embedded or directly -- clicking / dragging and the contextual menu works, but none of the toolbar items work. Scrolling doesn't work at all.
Just checked at home on Gentoo x86_64 / FF-3.0.10 / Flash-10.0.22.87 -- and got identical behavior.
The old iPaper works, except that when embedded normally the scroll wheel doesn't work (but it does when viewing the swf directly).
The new iPaper fails embedded or directly -- clicking / dragging and the contextual menu works, but none of the toolbar items work. Scrolling doesn't work at all.
Wow, this is much better. Loads quicker too.
I know that many folks on HN much prefer raw pdf's to a flash viewer, but JR (sole programmer for iPaper) has done an amazing job single-handedly replacing a multi-billion dollar company's product: Macromedia's FlashPaper.
JR is a quiet, but very friendly french canadian, an avid roller-blader, and was previously one of the programmer's on the Assassin's Creed ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed )
When I worked at Scribd, JR and I shared an office while he was writing the first version of iPaper. The sheer complexity of getting all the fonts worked out and embedded images and searching and compression and streaming in the document for faster load times etc etc was quite a feat for a single developer. He would come in early and leave late, all the day working with an amazing focus. He's a real work horse.
I remember when his Programming Erlang book arrived - he devoured it in a couple of days and re-architected the iPaper system to more efficiently stream the documents to the viewer. Despite the iPaper viewer being in flash, there are some very sexy technologies under the hood.
Anyway, just wanted to shed some light on the guy behind the product. It's not a team of highly paid flash code monkeys - just JR quietly working away to make billion dollar company's products obsolete.