
Scribd in HTML - ZeroGravitas
http://www.scribd.com/documents/30964170/Scribd-in-HTML5
======
pak
These folks just went from my list of websites I dread visiting to "damn, that
is some sweet technology".

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fauigerzigerk
It may be "sweet" technology. I just haven't found out yet what the purpose of
this or the previous technology is.

~~~
rhl
This is more than a 'sweet' technology. It is a big step forward for the web,
because it means that all the documents uploaded to Scribd are now fully
indexable!

They're now all accessible by crawlers, and will start showing up in search
engine results. I believe the vision they craft (all the world's documents
living online as part of the fabric of the web) is a very powerful one.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
It's a big step forward only in comparison to what Scribd did before. The Web
has always been perfectly capable of showing indexable documents, even PDF
documents.

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ZeroGravitas
For a more standard document example, with complex math, charts etc. see:

<http://www.scribd.com/documents/5/Paper-5>

~~~
nkassis
Wouah, that one was really awesome. And in full screen mode, it's as good as
reading a real pdf. Awesome work scribd. Performance wise, Firefox seems to
have a little bit of a hard time.

~~~
GFischer
My Firefox died for a while on this one as well (3.6.3).

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warfangle
Awesome.

One note: is there a way to pin the bottom toolbar as hidden? It's kind of
annoying to read a document with it popping in and out every 30 seconds...

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mikelikespie
We're probably going to do something to improve the toolbar hiding
interaction. Thanks for the feedback.

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crocowhile
Also, using the arrows on the keyboard to move to another page would be
awesome.

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norova
If you change the View Mode to Slideshow, this allows you to change slides via
the left and right arrow keys.

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newobj
This is a major coup for Scribd. I think it's a service that people
begrudgingly and painstakingly used. But now it's just joyful, and kind of
sexy. But as someone points out - Scribd is a bridge and if the things that
they bridge to ever contain the ability to embed or convert to HTML5, what
will they do?

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mechanical_fish
Their employees will retire, to live forever on the free pizza and beer which
every geek will gratefully buy them in exchange for compelling every single
popular proprietary document format to support effort-free export to standard
HTML.

Or, you know, they'll invent something else. It's a lot to ask of a business
plan that it be good for twenty years.

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rev087
Reminds me of the Google Chrome cartoon:
<http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/> Even the colors, characters and
"objects with faces". Not necessarily a bad thing, just curious.

~~~
apgwoz
I was thinking the same thing. However, it made me respect them just a little
bit more. They could have just written a blog post and said... "We're no
longer using Flash," but instead, they took the time to build something that
a) illustrated very well their new technology, and 2) actually entertained
some of us. Valiant effort.

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flatline
This is really nice work guys. It's slightly disorienting to see HTML5 in real
use. I kept looking for a scollbar until I realized it was just a regular web
page; the scrollbar is my browser's scrollbar. (Though I think part of it was
the positioning of the toolbar at the bottom; it looks like the page is split
by the toolbar and it's not really.) The rendering in-browser is beautiful,
and much more usable than a pdf viewer on my system.

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gamache
I applaud their effort, but when I look at real documents in both formats
(e.g. <http://www.scribd.com/documents/5/Paper-5> like ZeroGravitas posted
here), the HTML5 version looks very noticeably worse than Flash (tested in
Chrome 5, Safari 4, FF 3.6). Fonts are rough or missing, kerning is shot to
hell, and layout looks like it was performed on a shake table. It resembles
the output of a poor PDF viewer.

I wonder if this was the right time to roll out the HTML5 format.

~~~
josefresco
Also super laggy when scrolling fast over the content. I never see that kind
of scroll lag and it was quite apparent while viewing your provided
ZeroGravitas link.

I have to say going from a "viewer" to having all the content on the same page
is a huge improvement.

~~~
mfarris
In order to get that level of display control, they're doing some insane
things under the hood with the HTML. It's a tag fiesta in there
(understandably -- there's no other way to do it), and complex HTML can put
some real demands on the processor -- but nothing compared to the same content
in Flash.

In Safari scrolling that document is very smooth. So much better than the
Flash Scribd. Kudos.

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anigbrowl
Fine Job, both technically and graphically. Smooth on Chrome. The only
aesthetic change I'd make is that the up/down buttons could jump, or scroll
faster - at first I was unsure what they were doing different from my window
scroll bar.

I did find one bug...On slide 14 (well actually all of them, but it's most
noticeable there) you can indeed highlight and copy the text...but not the
last character in a block. If you try to select the last character you'll
invert the selection to be from the start of the slide to your highlight point
(sometimes this includes the page frame so it looks like you've selected the
whole page). I suspect (based on my own bad habits) that it's a boundary
error, counting the length of the highlight from 1 when the string length is
counted from 0.

Rendering more complex documents isn't as perfect as pdf, eg column-spacing or
margins can look a little bit off, but that's a minor cosmetic flaw that I'm
sure will be fixed.

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jerf
I've noticed Chrome itself has some highlighting issues. Another example: Put
some text in on <http://www.eeemo.net/> , which is the Zalgo text generator,
which works by putting lots of Unicode character decorations on your base
text. Chrome demonstrates some very strange highlighting/copy/paste
interactions on that page if you try to copy the Zalgo-ed text out.

My guess is that it's not a Scribd bug, and I also suspect there's probably
not much they can do to fix it.

~~~
anigbrowl
Hmm, seems fine for me with Chrome beta 5, but you might be right. I don't
have FF installed right now to compare.

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camtarn
That is extremely cool. I always found Scribd really frustrating to use - the
disconnect between my normal browser use and the embedded Flash reader felt
about the same as the disconnect caused by viewing the same file in Acrobat
Reader, so I didn't really see the point of it.

If browsers take this onboard as a common HTML5 scenario to be optimised, and
it becomes a viable, quick and plugin-free way of reading any document online,
I will be very happy :)

Kudos to the Scribd team for the mighty effort this must have taken to
implement.

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tsuraan
As somebody who dreads scribd links (I won't install flash), this really looks
like a good step forward. PDFs are still better viewed in okular, but I could
see this being useful for viewing MS formats. Really slick interface, too.

~~~
someone_here
Likewise, I won't install okular. Evince is the only game in town.

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Janteh
Tried it on my iPhone, only the first three frames show some text (no images)
and the rest of the sheets are blank. I believe it is the future though,
anyone with an iPad who can try this out?

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sgift
I have no iPad, but Opera 10.52 (Windows) has a similar behaviour: The first
three frames are there (with images), the rest of the sheets are blank.

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john2x
Opera 10.53 on Mac OS X Tiger and the same thing happens.

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tomerico
Comparison of HTML5 display and Flash on chrome + win7:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2601554/comparison.png>

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tomlin
Initially I was expecting the purchase of opinion through the long-played
Flash vs. HTML5 gang/mob, "Down with Flash" signs high in the air, binary
opinionated nonsense that is so common.

Respect paid to Flash for its use when it was needed.

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DrSprout
Was it really needed? Most of the stuff I've seen on Scribd was basically pdfs
in an iFrame, except replace iFrame with Flash.

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kmb128
How will this change affect API users or those who have embedded Scribd
content on their sites?

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snowmaker
We are working on a migration path that will switch people over to the HTML
versions (unless they don't want it). Are you one of those people? If so ping
me directly - jared at scribd.

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mattberg
I was wondering about this too. I often get document conversion errors (using
the JavaScript API), especially with UTF-8 documents. Think HTML5 will help?

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snowmaker
Honestly, I'm not sure. Send me your Scribd username and I'll take a look.

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nitfol
Much better than their Flash interface. But completely broken in Firefox 3.0.x
(under Red Hat; can't advance past the first page and there are no pictures)
and the fonts are too big under Iceweasel 3.5.9 (under Debian). Until they
stop requiring a log-in to download the original PDF so I can view the content
in a decent viewer, I'm going to continue cursing every time I accidentally
follow a link to scribd.

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qhoxie
Would you mind emailing me screenshots of the issues you are seeing? We are
trying to document all inconsistencies, and your help is much appreciated.

quin -at- scribd.com

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tomjen3
Nice. I have hated scribd for years, because their flash app sucked enormously
and I just wanted a PDF.

But this is better than that - now scibd is actually useable.

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seunosewa
When viewing flash slides, the scrolling is annoying. I prefer to hit right
and get the next page. Can't this be simulated in HTML5?

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qhoxie
Sure thing; the view mode switcher is in the middle of the toolbar at the
bottom. Select slideshow mode from there and you're set.

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aboodman
I wonder how Scribd pulled this off wrt HR. I mean, they must have had a
sizable investment in Flash engineering. Did those people leave? Did they just
start doing HTML stuff instead?

Back in the day when I was doing webdev, there was a pretty serious schism
between webdevs and flash devs, and never the twain met. Maybe this is less
true now.

~~~
ilike
I dont think Scribd made too much investment in Flash developers. On server
side they were using "PDF2SWF" released under GPL by Swftools.org. My
understanding is that, initially they were using 'FlashPaper' to display
documents in front end.

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josh33
I feel like the real accomplishment here is that they are converting documents
to websites on the fly - complete with font-faces and image positioning. How
do you do that? If that's possible, will we need front-end layout developers
in a few years (we'll probably still need animation/transition development,
right?)?

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latch
I'm totally in that "this is great" camp.

That said, can someone familiar with HTML5 explain, or provide a link, for the
seemingly crazy source? Is this a result of the work-in-progress framework
that creates these? Or is this really what it takes? Kinda looks like the
source out of .doc --> .html conversion.

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ck2
Nice! But scrolling that page makes my cpu cry in Firefox...

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stanleydrew
No problem in Chrome.

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ck2
Slightly less load in Chrome for me but it's still significant.

What probably matters is I am using Windows XP with integrated graphics on the
motherboard.

Are you using Windows 7 with discreet?

I am betting a Flash version would have the same or more load so the issue is
probably moot.

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stanleydrew
_Are you using Windows 7 with discreet?_

No I'm running 64-bit Ubuntu 10.04. I do have integrated graphics though. I
agree that Flash wouldn't likely be any better.

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petercooper
Looks nice, but it suffers from the typical "page with too much JavaScript +
fancy features" sluggish scrolling issue (I'm only talking 8-10fps vs a more
regular 20-30fps here, but I'm sensitive ;-)). This problem is reduced, but
still present, in Chrome, even. Good start though.

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qhoxie
It's really quite atypical, but all things considered, that problem is quite
difficult to get around in this case. We do, however, plan to put significant
effort into optimizations.

~~~
petercooper
Considering you are almost emulating what Flash does natively, it is an
awesome effort already. I dare say that with Chrome's continuing improvements,
it'll be barely noticeable soon. That said, people running slow machines might
have more issues.

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neonfunk
Wow. I would love to see a technical write-up about how they generate these
documents. (I assume they're programmatically generated...?) How do they get
around issues of font licensing? (Where do the font file themselves come
from?) Really, really cool.

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snowmaker
Awesome! I am psyched for the interest ... we'll publish an explanation of the
tech details next week.

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afshin
I know it's been said here a couple times, but positive reinforcement is good:
I used to get annoyed every time a document was linked to on scribd, and only
went there grudgingly. In my mind, this is a complete 180 and a very welcome
upgrade.

~~~
qhoxie
As an engineer on the project, things like this are amazing to hear. Thanks so
much for the feedback!

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jamesbressi
Great work! My browser doesn't come to a halt when I click a link to visit
scribd! Huuuuuge PLUS. I would avoid your site because of this experience, but
will no longer fear.

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ck2
By the way, I like how they used a semi-geeky woman to present this (well at
least in 'toon form).

Are there actually female coders at Scribd by any chance or was this just a
marketing concept?

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qhoxie
No female coders here presently - but we are hiring and welcome any
candidates! All of marketing is female, though.

~~~
lenni
Haha. Seems to be the norm in tech firms. I know it is where I work.

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bh42
Wonderful! I honestly never liked the flash choice. I always wished for
something like google's _view as html_ , but done right. And this may be it!

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jasonlotito
Wow. Sweet.

Quick quesiton, is there a way to enable this by default on the main site? I
notice that if you go to /doc/, it shows Flash, and if you got to document,
it's HTML.

So, from the front page, I click on Scribd in HTML link, and it takes me to
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/30964170/Scribd-in-HTML5>

Edit: NM, I see the light blue box on the right side there. >_<

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rradu
What's unclear to me is if they're gonna keep showing Flash to those browsers
that dont have HTML5 capability. I haven't seen this noted anywhere.

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mikelikespie
Believe it or not, it supports IE6, 7 and8 out of the box. Was not easy
either.

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tyler
That's an understatement.

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nostrademons
Finally! I've always wondered why Scribd went Flash; it made their usability
_less_ than the documents they were copying, most of the time.

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Sindisil
Works well overall, but the damn toolbar is fixed width, so it gets clipped
when the browser window is smaller than 1024 wide, which is lame.

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qhoxie
Yeah, we need to fix that. I imagine we will take care of that soon.

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unohoo
The illustrations are kick ass - gave me a feeling i was reading a comic
strip. +5 just for this document.

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audionerd
It would be great to see Adobe products export to HTML5 like this.

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fgimenez
Wow, I might actually start clicking the [scribd] link now!

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swolchok
What does this mean for their copy protection? How can they prevent people
from downloading/printing works now?

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lsb
It's a shame that the link on the last page to Special Agent Productions takes
you to a Flash splash screen.

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j_b_f
This is absolutely going to get scribd bought by Adobe. It's a no-brainer.
Case closed. Amazing work, guys!

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willchang
Great technology, underwhelming choice of a font. g's that look like q's are
rather distracting.

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va_coder
I can't navigate with arrow keys

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harpastum
Try switching the 'view mode' in the bottom bar (just to the left of the
search field) to 'Slideshow'. Arrow keys should work once you do that.

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jacquesm
Didnt' we do this yesterday ?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1326047>

And the day before yesterday ?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1322768>

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ujal
keyboard support?

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qhoxie
There is keyboard support in some of the view modes. We will be adding more in
the near future.

