The authors of the Dropbox file storage service presented a service that can help teams work together and discuss projects.
Tools play an important role in the creation of the game. The more convenient it is, the, in theory, faster (and with less blood) the product will be developed. Game development tools are often referred to as engines. However, of course, they include various file managers, development environments, and even wiki engines, with the help of which complex documents are created today, which have replaced design documents.
Office documents, like Word and Exel, have always played a solid role in development, no matter how funny it may sound. The main problem with them was that it was never convenient to share them. If the source file was changed, it had to be re-sent to all the people working with it.
Google largely solved the problem by presenting Google Docs in 2010. In fact, many people use it today.
Now Dropbox has decided to enter the territory of online offices. Yesterday, she officially not only announced the new Dropbox Paper product, but also announced the beginning of its closed beta testing (you can apply here).
According to engadget, this is a minimalistic text editor in which several users can make changes to one document at once. Unlike the already mentioned Word and Google Docs, the Dropbox product does not have a lot of text formatting capabilities. The main task of Paper, according to the creators, is to share ideas, and, of course, to discuss them, regardless of what tools are used to implement them.
“The work today is very fragmented,” product manager Matteus Pan shares his vision of the situation. “I can work in PowerPoint, someone else can write code, and someone else can [write something] in Google Docs. The teams really want a single platform to bring all these ideas together in one place.”
Dropbox Paper was created just for the latter.
Product managers can create task lists in it and immediately distribute them among the participants using “@”. You can also write code directly in Paper – and the editor will understand it and design it correctly. And, of course, any file that is stored on Dropbox can be inserted into the text. If the link is shared, the editor will prepare a preview of it. It will do the same with documents created in Excel or PowerPoint. Plus, Dropbox Paper supports Google Docs.
Since the product is created with the expectation of collaboration, it seems logical not only to be able to comment on any change in documents by project participants, but also that access to project folders is available by default to all its participants (although it is possible to create private folders/documents). A useful feature is also the search about the project.
At the moment, Dropbox Paper looks like a lightweight version of Google Docs, as well as a kind of nod towards the long-closed Google Wave service. Time will tell whether it can become an important tool to help in development. What we are interested in now is what tools you use to distribute/discuss tasks.
A source: engadget.com