After seeing this article, I had to check out Autodesk’s online sketching app. (link here) Its very simplistic, only has “online” saving (for which you must be logged in) but seems to work pretty well. Haven’t tried printing yet, tho.
Is there a future in this? Online drawing & CAD apps, maybe even 3D a viable option? What if Blender were an online app? :rolleyes: Post your thots.
EDIT: found out that it has an “export” feature for several formats, including SVG. No direct printing, but downloading should allow such local actions. Interesting.
Why do people want to put up with online “applications” with flaky support for witty features that are even more simplistic than in a small simple freeware program with a hard to use interface that’s used by only one person on this planet and lies somewhere at soureforge.net rotting away in its own puke?
Keep my Blender offline please, there’s no need for it to go online. It won’t make you better renders by taking it online.
(perhaps faster, because of a torrent-like rendering network, but that’s something whole fully different)
One reason I can think of is uptime. In the event of your own system going down, all you really need to get back into business is a web browser. You can pretty much get that from any machine at all anymore. You can get access to that from a local library even.
Another reason could be broadening of available platforms. By making web based applications like that, you don’t have to worry about stuff like Mac/Windows/Linux… Heck, you can even open it up beyond that and say that it will likely work on phones and handhelds. Pretty much anything that supports a web browser… especially if they keep most of the technology server-side.
I’m sure there are a multitude of other reasons… that was just what I came up with within the first 5 seconds of reading your post.
Blender wouldn’t need an online version. Not only would it divert manpower resources from the core offline Blender towards managing the online version, we already can run it from a thumbdrive.
Heck, you can even open it up beyond that and say that it will likely work on phones and handhelds. Pretty much anything that supports a web browser… especially if they keep most of the technology server-side.
When would anyone want to do that? I would rather just open up my laptop. Surely things would done much faster.
Now of course, an oekaki would be a different matter altogether. Using a simpler online version for painting artwork, because it allows strangers to collaborate on projects and share/learn new drawing skills. Especially the “replay” function.
My system goes far less often down than my connection to the internet, and I do not see any changes in that for the forthcoming years. It happens every now and then that things do not work for a few hours… until a few days… or even weeks.
Net-downtime can kill your productivity much faster than pc-downtime when you make backups and all that (and improve it in other ways :ba:).
A pc is much more important to get work done than a connection to the internet.
Another reason could be broadening of available platforms. By making web based applications like that, you don’t have to worry about stuff like Mac/Windows/Linux… Heck, you can even open it up beyond that and say that it will likely work on phones and handhelds. Pretty much anything that supports a web browser… especially if they keep most of the technology server-side.
It’s cool, but what’s the use of Blender on a watch or phone? I can’t even browse the web on my phone because it’s so tiny. How would I manage all those vertices on such a tiny screen. Project them into a hologram in front of me and manipulate them in free space with my fingers? Yeah, that would be cool, but there’s still no watch needed for that. Heck, I haven’t been wearing a watch for over ten years now so it would not be an option for me anyway :ba:
Also, why would I worry about Mac/Windows/Linux? The ony reason people say that is because they are using Linux or a Mac. That’s your choice. Get program vendors to fix their sorry issues, but leave the rest of the world alone. There are better ways to kill performance than putting things into a webbrowser (whatever form it takes, it will always be slower, and computers are still not fast enough, never will be either, until some AI takes over and starts designing itself, but I don’t see that happening soon either).
I’m sure there are a multitude of other reasons… that was just what I came up with within the first 5 seconds of reading your post.
As you see, there are a multitude of ways to debunk them as well
(I might come across as angry or something but that’s because I’m in a hurry :p)
No, I don’t believe that either. The only way it could die is if this stuff got pushed into peoples noses (yes, there’s indeed a striking resemblance to the way that drugs-dealers work), by companies who want their income to be safe (and have people pay per month or even per use), or by people from the other side (linux, os x) who push for it to make either money as well (see Red Hat) or just want everything to be online because they think it helps making things more compatible with their systems.
And then there are the people who actually use this stuff and want to do their work or hobbies without pulling their hairs out because they’re out of money to pay for programs/services and downtime for that big interweb.
Online programs used to be cool, but that’s about it. There’s a reason why all the web-3d (and other) initiatives died…
It will “work” of course, if you mean the features it’s supposed to have perform as advertised when you press the right buttons. If you mean, is it worthwhile, then for some applications, such as teaching or collaborative efforts, it might be more efficient to use than downloading an image, marking it up, and uploading it again.
However, behind every such effort is a salesman with a business plan, who hopes to make money someday. Autodesk is not your friend, it is a corporation. As such, it must profit. I’m sure nothing would make them happier than to give away internet access boxes and have you pay subscriptions for the internet tools that your new access box is to pathetically weak to run internally.
King Gillette made his fortune in an earlier era doing the same thing with razors and blades. Priced razor blades lately? They’d be a lot cheaper if straight razors and strops were still commonly available.
It may not be relevant to you and the way you live your life right now but… in some areas like Japan (see above) PC’s are on their way out. Many people would much rather work on smaller more portable devices (yes, smaller and more portable than laptops). Devices like the iPhone and the new iPodTouch are bringing practicality to the portable web experience.
“You” wouldn’t worry about Mac/Windows/Linux… producers of software products would/do. If they can produce a product for one single platform that every person with a computing device can use then, that will be the route they go… eventually.
You’re a consumer… you’re thinking all about product “now”. For developers and hardware manufacturers, they are more concerned about what’s coming. 5 years ago, no one probably suspected how big web based email would become. Now, I hardly know of anyone that doesn’t use it. Even in corporations, they have Exchange Server running with all the web add-ons and actual software email clients are becoming extinct.
This type of thing may not ever affect you personally but then again it may. The whole personal computer thing is still relatively new in this world and it could very well disappear from our lives as quickly as it came in.
Anyways, I’ve more or less answered what the original poster had asked so, I’m ducking out of this debate.
Yes, webbased email can be useful, but again… that’s something completely different compared to a program like Blender.
Email is one of the things that makes the ‘web’. You actually need the web for it. It won’t work without the web. So that comparison is a bit pointless to me.
Same goes for other online ‘apps’ that make it easier to communicate with each other, send things to each other and so on. It’s a logical conclusion that making those web-based could be the right thing.
A web experience on an iPhone could be nice, but only for doing Google-searches and reading news.
Well, I don’t know about others, but personally, I’m not really interested in news anymore, so only Google is left. I have lived without it before and I can save my butt without it. It’s like a girlfriend: it’s nice to have, but it’s not a fill-in replacement for your life. It extends your life.
It could be used for discussion boards, so you can post messages from anywhere, but hey… I have a life to live as well.
Therefore, I don’t see any use in mobile internet (and don’t get me even started about the prices…)
Using a simpler online version for painting artwork, because it allows strangers to collaborate on projects and share/learn new drawing skills. Especially the “replay” function.