

Show HN: Collections, a fast multiple-account Google Docs client for Mac - jordanlee
http://beta.collections.me

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JoelMcCracken
A desktop client for a web app that replaced a desktop client. Amazing!

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mratzloff
He should use this exact phrase on the website. Sarcastic marketing FTW.

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jordanlee
I won't pretend I'm not tempted.

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JoelMcCracken
A few years from now, you'll be bought by microsoft to replace Office.

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thomas-st
psql -h ec2-107-22-171-68.compute-1.amazonaws.com -p 5732 -U u1npugarlguimh -d
ddbs2kvmqeieon

Since DEBUG=True, finding the password is left as a trivial exercise for the
reader. I wouldn't trust the service until they fix the issue.

~~~
tonyx
Hi thomas-st, thanks a lot for bring this up. we just fixed the issue and
changed credentials on the server as well. All transmission also happen
securely through HTTPS and contents are only stored on Google's server, not
ours.

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xb95
Actually, your Postgres credentials still work. I am currently able to connect
to the database and I can still view people in the role I grabbed.

I'm not sure how to validate that this is still timely, though... oh, I
created a table:

public | hacker_news_1342216769 | table | ruwdncbzdkulsh

With the current timestamp. So, if you changed anything, it hasn't actually
taken effect in the part that matters -- the exposed database.

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tonyx
thanks xb95, it took a minute to take effect, but issue is now fixed.

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xb95
As of right now, 3:16 PM PDT, I can still connect to (one of) your Postgres
databases.

    
    
        # psql --host=ec2-23-21-85-231.compute-1.amazonaws.com --port=5432 -U ruwdncbzdkulsh dc6jnvg2ce8qim
        Password for user ruwdncbzdkulsh: 
        psql (9.1.4)
        SSL connection (cipher: DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA, bits: 256)
        Type "help" for help.
        
        dc6jnvg2ce8qim=> SELECT NOW();
                      now              
        -------------------------------
         2012-07-13 22:17:51.821052+00
        (1 row)

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jordanlee
Hi Xb95, we first removed the heroku add-on and thought that it would
automatically destroy the database, but that turned out not to be the case. So
what we did to fix the issue was purge all of the tables from the database.
Now the credentials still work, but they reach an empty database without any
content. We're working on revoking the access token for all affected users
right now. Thanks for helping us through this.

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xb95
I have confirmed that there is no longer any data in the database I can
connect to. Thank you for taking care of this.

~~~
mehulkar
/xb95 rides off into the sunset.

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pk
This is a great example of a Minimum Viable Product. It has just enough
features to be useful (multiple accounts, search, editing) and no more. From
the website, they have plans to iterate quickly, with the help of what I'm
sure will be a lot of feedback from the initial release. This kind of
discipline in feature selection is admirable, and something we should all
strive for in app development.

My only critique is that in the new user dialog, the app showed a screenshot
of adding an account _before_ the screen where you could actually add an
account. I found this a little confusing (why can't I click to add my account
now?). I wouldn't mind seeing that screenshot after adding my first account to
let me know how to add another.

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xb95
Hi --

I suggest you not use this app right now. It is currently throwing up debug
pages that include information that allows someone to connect to Postgres and
dump the database containing information about your documents.

App developers -- please update your Heroku settings and/or turn this off
immediately. You are exposing confidential company information to the wild.

Thanks.

~~~
tonyx
Hi xb95, thanks for alerting us to the issue we've turned off debug mode and
reset our database credentials. We are looking through the database server
access log right now and going to make sure that 1) all connections were made
from our own servers and 2) users in the timeframe affected will be notified
of the issue access token revoked immediately.

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ernestipark
This is fantastic and solves a huge pain point. Google docs is a crutch for
most people, but the interface and accessing it is generally terrible. The
onboarding was simple. This is a good start, I'm looking forward to what you
guys do next. As for feature requests, I'd like to see collapsible sidebars,
the real estate on the editing is a bit small. Good luck guys!

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ianstormtaylor
This is awesome. Navigating Google Docs is the worst. But PLEASE do away with
the preview mode. I don't want to have to click edit all the time, and I don't
really lose anything by just always having the web view.

That and get a nicer app icon :p (seriously)

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ianstormtaylor
At least for spreadsheets get rid of it. I could see it being nice to remove
all the junk chrome that Google puts around docs though. But if I'm viewing a
spreadsheet, not being able to add to cells is useless.

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tonyx
Try double clicking on either the preview or the list of documents. That will
get you into the edit mode right away without having to click on the edit
button

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ianstormtaylor
awesome thanks!

also, if anyone wants a nicer icon i made @mattrossi's dribble shot
([http://dribbble.com/shots/530208-Google-Drive-FREE-
PSD?list=...](http://dribbble.com/shots/530208-Google-Drive-FREE-
PSD?list=47622-Google-Icons)) into an .icns file you can easily replace:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8875810/google-drive-icon.icns>

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bherms
One small criticism... Calling your app "Collections" leads to some ominous
looking emails when you contact customers: "This is Mike from Collections"
makes me immediately feel like I've forgotten to pay a bill.

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bdittmer
Kind of confused by this heroku error message I received? Are you storing my
gmail credentials on heroku? When I tried again I have a google /looking/
login screen?

<http://cl.ly/1p0M0o2t0H1E3Z1h3i0n>

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natrius
I haven't used this so I'm not sure what's going on, but I believe OAuth
involves a redirect back to servers controlled by the third party to actually
do something with the authentication token. This doesn't strike me as
necessarily fishy.

~~~
bdittmer
I guess I don't understand why they even need to store anything on their
servers?

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jordanlee
Hi bdittmer, we don't store any of your content, nor any of your passwords. We
only store meta data that describes the organization of your documents and do
so server-side so that we can add features in an upcoming release that we
otherwise wouldn't be unable to add.

~~~
sjwright
Storing stuff? Isn't that what my hard disk is for? If I wanted a cloud
solution, I'd just log into Google Docs directly.

I would have thought the _whole point_ of an app like this is to take
advantage of the benefits of native UI, not to add yet another point of
failure.

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Wump
Offline editing would be a killer feature.

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btipling
Super nice, but I worry about the slower webkit in webview. If it is much
slower, you would get a better experience in the browser, despite the nice UI
additions in this app.

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modeless
Why would an embedded web view be slower than Safari on a Mac? Mac OS doesn't
have the restrictions on generated code that iOS does.

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jarek-foksa
This is the case at least with apps from Mac App Store. Safari uses WebKit2
which is a private framework. If you want to ship your app on Mac App Store
you have to use WebKit1 which does not support split-process model. Flags that
enable GPU accelerated compositing are also private on Lion.

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Spittie
I know that this isn't really related to the application, but anyway...
Please, don't let the browser scale the images for you. I don't like opening a
site, and seeing something like this
(<http://sadpanda.us/images/1078451-DUYING8.png>).

Beside that, this client seems something really awesome, especially the
ability to easily edit docs from different accounts.

~~~
natrius
What browser are you using? I thought modern browsers did a better job of
scaling. Chrome does, at least.

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Spittie
Firefox. Yes, it's a know problem and there is already a patch, but as always
is taking forever to get approved. And yes, Chrome do a better job, but still
it doesn't look totally right.

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barclay
Hmm. Dunno if it was syncing, or what, but it just sat there consuming CPU
(170% across both cores) for a while. Finally killed it.

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philmcc
One of my favorite things about this is its presentation. You've placed your
app in something that people lust after (a macbookair) and then something
'cool' inside of that (x-men).

Probably more compelling than a screen shot of a spreadsheet or a table, I bet
it triggered an "I WANT THIS" reflex that I wasn't consciously aware of.

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rgbrgb
Last semester I did a big group project using Google Docs but we kept running
into an issue where the spacing was different on everyone's computers. The
title page would look perfect on one computer and overflow to the next page on
another. This was in Chrome on OS X and Ubuntu. It really made me pine for
native apps.

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dantheman0207
I recently did a small group project in which we shared a .doc on dropbox
between users on Windows and Ubuntu. We had the same issue, as well as
disappearing page numbers and other spooky trivia. Multi-user document editing
is hand-wavy art at best.

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ddt
I love it. I have three different Google accounts I use for docs and being
able to not have to open up a new tab just to see the other docs is worth the
download. The only thing I'd want is a little bit less agnosticism about which
docs belong to which accounts.

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emmelaich
Curious, why did you use a bit.ly url for the app? Shortened urlsm have their
places, but I'm a little leery of them,. (<http://bit.ly/MlUfJm>)

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xwowsersx
An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please
try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.

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septerr
Awesome! Now I don't have to switch accounts! Sparrow for Google Docs. Now
make an app for iphone! It's annoying to open webpage to access google docs on
iphone :/

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clutteredname_
Looks like this app is getting lots of traffic. FATAL errors abound.

Looking forward to this. Anyone know a reason it can't support offline
editing?

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kposehn
I think this is brilliant. There may be concerns about speed, but I think that
for now the convenience and features should overcome that.

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kuhn
Great idea, just wish it wasn't crashing on me. Also the security issues which
the others have are a bit of a worry.

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kuhn
I should add the error I'm getting is:

"An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served.
Please try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details."

This happens when I clicking allow on the oauth permission screen.

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Groxx
They use Google Docs for the bug/feature submission pages. For some reason,
that tickles my funny bone.

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i_cannot_hack
Great! All I felt was lacking were some options on how to sort the documents
in the sidebar.

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tonyx
Right click in the list of documents and you'll see the option to sort by
title, date created and date last modified. Let me know if this is helpful.

~~~
pk
An icon to access the sort menu would make the interface a little easier to
use. Context meus are nice, but they should be a shortcut to an action rather
than the only way to trigger it.

I also noticed that the search box only searches document titles. It would be
nice to have it filter document titles as you type, and then perform a full-
text search when the user hits enter (like Google's online Drive search).

Awesome app, keep up the good work!

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mross462
Couldn't get past clicking next.

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mratzloff
_Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could
not be served. Please try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details._

~~~
josiahq
FATAL: too many connections for role "ruwdncbzdkulsh"

~~~
matthewphiong
Django DEBUG = True

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filip01
The quotes might seem like a good idea but they're actually just obtrusive.

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_mayo
This is awesome. Are there any plans to port this to other platforms?

~~~
jordanlee
Thanks! There certainly are, but not for a little while. Which would you
prefer we support first?

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_mayo
Personally, I would love a native Linux version. Especially since there's no
official Google Drive client currently available for Linux.

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chad_oliver
I second that.

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aroman
Thirded.

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forgetcolor
ignore if you're still using snow leopard. requires 10.7. (boo)

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swaraj
couldn't install: <http://screencast.com/t/L9SQeTqQT>

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septerr
Oh and Thank You!

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robinjondavid
love it!

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annatonger
nice!!

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franzus
Why is it free? Take money for it.

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mcrider
Probably not a good idea for a beta release...

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adv0r
Good work guys, i tried it but...I don't really understand why do we need a
desktop client. With google drive all the documents/colelction are available
offline and accessible with one click from spotlight "cmd+space -> name of the
document - et voilà"

