Previous discussion:
http://blogoscoped.com/forum/100607.html

I like it. It is much easier to find and organize documents now. I am amused that they have introduced Folders. I thought Google has been pushing Tags and Labels? Actually, this is a good move. They look and feel like Folders, but you can have documents assigned to multiple folders. This should make Docs and Spreadsheets more comfortable and accessible to new users.

I am a little disappointed that there seems to be no new features within the applications themselves.

The launcher screen is a huge jump forward.

TonyB

So far I like the new interface. I don't deal with a lot of documents or spreadsheets but I can see that you definitely have a lot more ways to filter your files now. You can view by item type (document or spreadsheet), all documents you've shared with a specific person, all documents in a specific folder (After you organize them first), all documents/spreadsheets that you created, and all documents/spreadsheets that you starred.

You can drag a document/spreadsheet over to a folder to add it to that folder. Mambo should like that feature. :)

I think there's a small but very important part of this that we're missing: It's quick as all hell. I would rather browse my documents through Google Docs now than on my own comp. ;) It's also quite anesthetically pleasing. Superficial but important to me.

[moved from new thread]

My Google Docs just changed for me.
Here is a link for a snapshot.
http://aycu06.webshots.com/image/21645/2000807829767518453_rs.jpg
I my self think it looks rather ugly....

This is totally disgusting! Has Google given up there lite'ness--why are they trying to copycat AOL and Yahoo!? Whole books could be written about features that are missing and needed, they haven't given us any to capability, but just completely ignored all our requests--I was really excited when I heard they were releasing a new version, but theery still ignore our requests--all they did is change part of the interface to make it look clunky, Yahoo & AOL like. . . The whole side bar is completely useless, it has absolutely no functionality.

Can they at least allow you to turn on a setting to keep the old, simple, easy to use, lite, Googlie interface?

> but just completely ignored all our requests

Can you go into more detail what requests you mean?

Joshua

Did you try the new organizing features, or do you just hate the look. The new organization capability makes Google Docs alot easier to use.

In their pre-announcement they only mentioned a new interface, and new organizing features, what else were you expecting.

Those folders actually act like labels, with mutliple assignment possible – which is good, labels are superior for organization to folders, but now they are called folders, so both camps can have their own:-)

I think your right Zoli. You can delete a folder with documents/spreadsheets in it and only the folder gets deleted.

I was thinking that the new layout had a lot of potential in a future Gmail release, so I made a mockup of what it could look like, here: http://blog.verani.net/2007/06/new-google-docs-interface-is-preview-of.html

Tell me what you think of it!

Yea, I'm also a fan of the folders idea as well. They act like labels. I think they could add tags though along with the folders, just as Picasa has albums and tags. You could have a folder of documents for a certain thing, and then each document could have tags relating specifically to it.

This update according to Google:

* Looking pretty
* Getting organized
* Search that thinks ahead

http://google-d-s.blogspot.com/2007/06/entirely-new-way-to-stay-organized.html

I like the search a lot. It list the possible choices instantly.

I don't like.
This is the MS way of life and I'm here cause I like the Google way of life.
Folders? Navigation Tree? C'mon, Google Doc's new name should be Google Vista.

Looks good. On the surface, that is. Haven't navigated.

They made this sound like a big deal...
<<so you're not *overwhelmed* by the sleek look and helpful new ways of organizing your content>>

Also, June 26 is not the tomorrow of June 26... They got confused.

It would be nice if they made all of Google Docs have the same look, instead of switching to the old look when going to a document.....

Has anyone noticed the new option in the general settings tab, of right-to-left controls in the editor? (Or is this old and only unnoticed only by me..)

Xeno, that was listed on the 'Whats New' page earlier in the week but I think it's a feature from a past update.

Cool. Drag & Drop works well
I love new favicon. But name is horrible

I don´t like it, too microsoft-styled.

>> but just completely ignored all our requests
> Can you go into more detail what requests you mean?

Specifically as to formatting and compatibility. It's a relatively descent web version of Wordpad--but doesn't cut it for my MSWord documents. They dindn't worry about making the actual program better, instead they made the main page look more like AOL.

Sorry I was so negative, I just was very annoyed at them.

browse, don't search.

I don't know if this has already been mentioned, but there's no 'disk usage' indicator at the bottom of the screen any more... Could this mean that there is no longer any limit?!

The old version of docs used to crash 50% of the time when I pasted using IE6 on XP. Now the front page crashes it 100% and the paste problem is still there. Shame they didn't fix the latter--which they were aware of--and the former is a disaster, however pretty it looks for the 5 seconds it stays up.

Looks nice. Hopefully we'll see more Google products like this.

I guess this is the start of something bigger. It should be easy to integrate other things into this platform – Picasa first (an album is just another document type). Presentations next. Gmail was already mentioned above by Ioannus. And then we reach GDrive a la Philippe.

Just one thing, label the folder label, for all its worth.

In the short time I've had to play with this, I think it's much better. The old Google Docs & Spreadsheets "start page" always seemed a bit amateuristic to me. I was waiting for Google to pull out something much better, and I think this is it.

For those that haven't noticed, Google have been using this exact labels/folders concept in Google Reader for ages – and it works really well. (They even call them Tags in the Google Reader interface though, just to confuse matters even more!)

This is definitely one step closer to GDrive. Philipp's mock-up was almost there! Maybe they even used to get some ideas... Heh.

"hey even call them Tags in the Google Reader interface though, just to confuse matters even more!"

Except when you add a new feed, it's called a folder.

As Dan N. mentioned in an email...

<<The presentation system can't be far from launch now. They have the icons inplace....
http://docs.google.com/images/doclist/icon_2_pres.gif >>

Just WOW!!! What a great interface... I like it already... So the presentation icon is there already? That makes me feel better...

I do not like it , I prefer Label.
The new way is soooooo "Microsoft".

Though you can still add / remove a document to multiple folders it seems harder to do (i think it is simpler if you have lots of stationary files)
I find the 'folders' name misleading as that is not what they do and they lack he hierarchy structure :(
Nice new search though :)
- imma

u are right.
U can not put one thing into two folders, but label can do this.
That is wired.

<< Except when you add a new feed, it's called a folder. >>

Yeah, that's what I meant by "labels/folders concept". You can add feeds to folders (more than one if you like) and add tags (labels) to inidividual feed items.

I think this is a good compromise as some people just don't *get* tagging or labels and prefer to think of folders. However, for anyone that *gets* tagging, they may easily get confused by Google's "folder" concept as it kind of mixes the two.

I still like the change to Folders. I do agree that nested folders needs to be implemented. That is the one big advantage of Folders over labels/tags.

Tony

<< The presentation system can't be far from launch now. They have the icons inplace.... >>

They also have some more references in the code. Does this link work for anyone?

http://docs.google.com/DialogFetcher?f=PresentationSettings&v=cxnb

And when I say work, I mean return something other than, "NOT FOUND." Something like this, for example:

http://docs.google.com/DialogFetcher?f=DocSettings&v=cxnb

If you are going to have folders, you need to have nested folders. That's the advantage of having folders. I don't see why they can't implement both. I find this a step backwards for organizing documents. Sure some people don't get tags (labels)... but that's no reason to completely abandon them when they were already in place.

I don't like the new design, ugly.

Folders, tags, labels. Why not let the users choose? You can use the concept of folders and implement it like in most operating systems. Then each folder is also tag and users can add other tags for each file. Like in Google Reader, but with hierarchical folders.

> However, for anyone that *gets* tagging, they may easily
> get confused by Google's "folder" concept as it kind of
> mixes the two.

And vice versa: someone who's very used to Windows folders, and who stored a file in two different folders, and who some months later deletes one of the folders but forgets about the other folder might not understand that the file in it is not completely deleted.

<< The presentation system can't be far from launch now. They have the icons inplace.... >>

<< They also have some more references in the code. >>

And here's yet another taste of Presentations mentioned in the Google Docs support pages:

<< You invited a mailing list, and an individual from the mailing list used the invitation to log in and access your document, spreadsheet or presentation. >>

http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=68492

Nice find Tony :)

Awesome.... I can hardly wait...