*doc
I was initially hoping for *.doc support. It's kind of the odd one gone missing in the list of formats you would expect to be able to open. Perhaps you could utilize the native ipod touch support for doc somehow?
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I was initially hoping for *.doc support. It's kind of the odd one gone missing in the list of formats you would expect to be able to open. Perhaps you could utilize the native ipod touch support for doc somehow?
I wish it were that easy
Rest assured we've been researching this since the beginning of development. Unfortunately, Word and Excel viewing doesn't seem to be a public feature open to developers like ourselves.
Writing a Word or Excel parser/renderer from scratch is completely out of the question right now. We're hoping that Apple makes this feature available in a future software update but we're also researching any freely available document converters we may be able to leverage internally, so that when you click a .doc file, TouchFS can convert it to PDF and view it normally, all behind the scenes and unknown to you.
I think a document converter
I think a document converter running on the event of displaying document would be very nice.
I don't wish to criticize the software, because I think its great, and it seems to be the only solution for transferring files to iPod touch from windows without jailbreaking. However, I question why this is the most expensive of the file-transfer apps, while a few of the others support office docs without mentioning any names.
No Offense Taken
It may actually help if you do mention some names. We'd love to see how other developers solve the same problems we're encountering. I've seen some "file storage" apps that store your files on their servers. The nice thing about this is that they can convert the documents to some iPhone friendly formats on their servers as you store them. The bad thing is you always need to stay connected to the network to access/view your files. I have an iPod Touch, so that wasn't an option for me, what w/the limited WiFi support in my area. I haven't seen a local file storage app that views Word and Excel files though.
TouchFS started because I'd grown used to using my iPod as an external storage device, so that's its main objective...let people take their files w/them. Treat your iPhone/iPod as a giant thumb drive. The file viewing is an added bonus, but we will be constantly adding support for new file types.
As for the price, my team spent a few months away from our children and families and wrote a (mostly) WebDAV compliant web server from scratch...no small feat of engineering. *smile*
While we realize the price will not attract billions of users, the users it does attract will be happy to know that all foreseeable updates will be free...free for a long time. Our objective at TouchFS is to continue adding new features and improve the software until everyone feels they've got their monies worth.
I personally think being able to walk around w/30GB or so of my own files, being able to view some in the palm of my hand, and being able to transfer them to any Windows, Mac or Linux computer I may encounter is worth $14.99.
Rest assured, we'll be improving the software until everyone else does too. *smile*
Now...about those "other" apps...what have you seen? *smirk*
"Other" Apps
There is an app that I know of that 'similar' (but also very different) to TouchFS; FileMagnet.
Apparently it supports .doc files, with Powerpoint, Excel and iWork compatability coming soon.
Hmmm......
Don't forget the non Mac
Don't forget the non Mac Users. :-)
File Magnet is OK only if you have Macs.
For us people that have PC's at work and not macs, File Magnet is no good.
true, and honestly the only
true, and honestly the only reason I choose touchFS in front of filemagnet.
Once the files are on the ipod though, both apps are very similar and they face the same restrictions. Filemagnet can open office files, touchFS can not.
We're on this folks but need help
We've actually just purchased FileMagnet so we can see exactly how it behaves. Since they have a .doc viewer, there's hope we'll be able to offer this soon too.
Incidentally, are you happy w/their .doc rendering? Does it display the same as the built in email app or mobile Safari?
We're still experimenting, but any info you can offer will only help us update TouchFS which everyone will receive for free.
Please...*smile*...this is quickly becoming top issue. :)
Did anyone mention we're cross platform? *smirk*
What about DataCase?
You might also want to take a look at another similar app - DataCase - which has yet to be released. It's currently in beta and is due to be released next week. It looks fairly impressive on their website (http://www.veiosoft.com/) although obviously you can't purchase it yet. They claim to support Word, PowerPoint and Excel files.
I'm still trying to decide between TouchFS, FileMagnet and Datacase. FileMagnet does look good but I like the idea of cross-platform access and the ability to access the iPhone without using a dedicated app on my Mac. So it looks like it's gonna be a race between TouchFS and DataCase. I wish we could download trial versions. May you could utilise the beta approach like DataCase have done? :-)
Anyway your app looks great and I shall definitely be purchasing either TouchFS or DataCase once I've got the chance to compare them both.
Cheers,
Stu
Wow...very nice looking I must admit
Looks like a very nice application. Now I really feel bad...everyone else has figured out this doc/xls/ppt viewing problem...except us. *smile*
We've actually purchased FileMagnet ourselves to see how it handles certain files and such, and it's pretty clear that the system web browser component is displaying the Office documents, 'cause they look EXACTLY the same in FileMagnet's viewer as they do in Safari on the iPhone. Never fear though...that means there's hope we'll be able to do the same thing just as quickly.
As for DataCase, it looks like they're running an SMB and FTP server...very nice. We were originally toying around with doing that very thing, but WebDAV was quicker to implement. We'll be looking into adding other connection options like this as well in future updates though, I can assure you.
Regardless which application you end up purchasing, I sincerely appreciate your feedback and your interest in TouchFS.
PDF viewing
Firstly, I would like to congratulate the team for the effort and for keeping future updates free for existing users. I'm currently experiencing a few problems, especially with viewing large pdf files. TouchFS seem to crash when large files are being viewed. When its working properly though, the lack of a search function or the function to skip to a particular page means that users have to scroll down manually - can be tedious sometimes. I sincerely hope that office compatibilty will be added quickly and the problem with viewing pdfs can be polished up soon as well.
Cheers
Office and iWork Viewing Will Be In the Next Update
I mentioned this in my last blog entry, but am so thrilled about it, I'll mention it here too...
The next update which should be in your hands in two weeks, will have Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and iWork (Numbers, Pages) document viewing.
As for the performance and feature set, we–like pretty much all other developers–are using the Safari components in our own software to display these files. The draw back is that we're locked into the features available in Safari...meaning no page jumping or searching right now, and graphic-heavy files may stutter as they scroll.
We're busy looking into other ways we may be able to provided this to you, without using the system components, but have not made any appreciable progress.