Imagine being able to edit a page within Google Docs and have all changes exposed as node revisions?

Comments

tjcook’s picture

tjcook commented

Yes, would be sweet, rather than trying to get FCKeditor or TinyMCE up to the level that Google is able to provide. The integration would be extensive and complex--how are images uploaded both to the google doc and Drupal?

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

So, there's a few problems with this.

The first problem, is that the Google Docs API is pretty limited for Documents.

To be able to do something like this, the following would have to occur:

1) A node would have to be initially created, with the Docs option selected (CCK field perhaps).
2) This initial node would then be uploaded to Google (which the easiest way would be as an HTML file, however, the node would have to be properly formatted into an HTML file).
3) The location of the document is stored in a field associated with the node, for later retrieval.
4) You could then edit the "node" on Google Docs ... but ...
4) ??? Magic happens. You're going to end up having to query Google Docs and checking the last modified date or something like that, probably via a cronjob. Google Docs doesn't have a way to "fire off" changes.

Now, this could be avoided, if the Doc itself is made publicly readable, and then is just embedded on the page load of the node. This would definitely be possible, and much easier. The question is, is this what people want? Basically a "GoogleDoc" Document type, that doesn't store the node content within Drupal, but instead caches it internally somehow and pulls from Google as it expires? Much easier route, not sure what people wat.