Whooooeee!

Google has finally realized that there are a bunch of folks out here on the Web who find labels to be a major P.I.T.A. Docs and Spreadsheets now has folders! Can you believe it? A Web 2.0 application that actually allows you to ignore those stupid tags if you want to. My cup runneth over.

This may seem like a small matter to those of you who grew up (or haven’t yet) on the Internet, but some of us go back to the days when keyboards were attached to a system of levers that, when keys were pressed, caused a metal arm to strike a ribbon impregnated with ink, which made a mark on a paper resembling a font. We called it “typing.”

In those days, after “typing,” “sheets” of “paper” were placed in “folders” made of heavier “paper,” which were then placed in “files” in a “filing cabinet.” We sort of got used to it. It was no accident that Billy Gates, bless his heart, made his creations in that image — and they did just fine for ever so long, until someone got the idea that tags and labels were more useful. Well, they certainly are useful; no argument. But a lot of us liked files, folders, and so forth, because they worked well. I love tags for photos. For documents, I like files — alphabetized — where I can find them by classification and name.

Now the fact is, labels and tags are files — they just don’t show graphically. Google (may the geek gods smile upon it) has simply returned to the old graphic interface so near and dear to us old [insert old person insult here]. In the process of doing so, it’s also spruced up GD&S quite a lot over the original Writely style, with new icons, more content, and drag-and-drop organization. All the previous documents go into files with the same names as the previous tags, and rearranging them is as simple as it is in any other Windows-type GUI.

Along with the new look and the files, it’s also added dynamic search to the system, so that now you can start typing in the search field and GD&S will make suggestions based on all the docs in your files.

If you haven’t tried Google Docs & Spreadsheets yet, or if you haven’t taken a look for a few months, it’s definitely worth your time. I’ve been doing all my writing in it for nearly two years now, and I keep liking it more and more. It even works reasonably well on dialup.

Now, if Google would just add margin controls…

[tags]google, writely, docs and spreadsheets[/tags]