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March 29, 2006

AjaxSketch…zzzzzzzz

Michael Arrington

39 comments »

As promised, AjaxLaunch has released a new Ajax product one week after AjaxWrite. This week, they’ve released AjaxSketch, a drawing program that is designed to replace desktop applications like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape.

The functionality seems to be there on a basic level, but the performance is not. The AjaxSketch servers can’t handle the load from current traffic. I can overlook flaws in half baked products, but this smells more like its quarter-baked at best. I hope next week’s product is a little sexier.

Meanwhile, AjaxLaunch also announced that over 500,000 documents have been created with AjaxWrite in the last week.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. Pig Pen - Web Standards Compliant Web Design Blog » Blog Archive » AjaxSketch

    March 29th, 2006 at 10:08 pm

  2. techmonster

    March 29th, 2006 at 11:10 pm

  3. BlueAce » Sketchen met AJAX

    March 30th, 2006 at 12:20 am

  4. I’d rather use Crayola crayons… » 0.2beW, A Non-beta, Anti-Web 2.0 Company - 0.2beW - Web 2.0 is nothing but hype and we aren’t scared of AJAX or to say so…

    March 30th, 2006 at 4:17 am

  5. tics » Blog Archive » ajaxSketch

    March 30th, 2006 at 10:52 am

  6. Zoli's Blog

    March 30th, 2006 at 6:15 pm

Comments

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  1. Kelly E. Smith

    March 29th, 2006 at 9:07 pm

    Saying that it is designed to “replace” Adobe Illustrator is a massive editorial stretch. Illustrator is one of the heaviest, most complex apps out there and I’m sure nobody at ajaxSketch would say this.

  2. Fred

    March 29th, 2006 at 9:14 pm

    This is a joke on serious web development.

  3. andr3

    March 29th, 2006 at 10:06 pm

    Fred, April’s fools is coming up, you know. :)

    If anything, these apps serve as proof-of-concept. People are starting to develop stuff without ever stopping to wonder “why would people use this?”. Oh, and adding Ajax to the name of the product must be the key to reach a wider audience.

    And even though I’m a Firefox kind of guy, I’m not that comfortable with them using XUL for this. IMO, XUL works great when developing stuff for Mozilla products, but it has no business snooping into the world wild web.

  4. Razvan

    March 29th, 2006 at 10:09 pm

    OK…just a cheap PR stunt…nothing to see here move along people :)

  5. Marc

    March 29th, 2006 at 11:31 pm

    I don’t think it is so bad. In fact it is pretty cool. Simple to use. I am sure they will keep adding more features. No performance problems tonight.

  6. Alastair James

    March 30th, 2006 at 12:25 am

    To be honest, I would say that much of the performance problems are due to the slow SVG implementation in most browsers. It seems that moving things around (i.e. dragging in the demo) is jerky because SVG is not very good at moving things.
    If I was them I would have used a flash drawing canvas. That would be much faster!

    Ajax Sketch COULD be useful if they had more structured tools for flow charts etc (like visio) and allowed people to collaborate on such documents over the web.

  7. Alastair James

    March 30th, 2006 at 12:28 am

    Anyway… wait until you all see my next project… An ajax based web browser! ;)

  8. Bart Claeys

    March 30th, 2006 at 12:37 am

    I think their next product will be an AJAX based notepad or AJAX based DOS box ;)

    Anyway this stuff is cool! Why do I say this? Because I’ve been busy creating the same application in Flash and I must say it is not as easy as you guys think! That’s why I didn’t finish this app yet :)

  9. Marquee

    March 30th, 2006 at 4:22 am

    I can’t talk for long. Gotta go get working on my AJAX car concept.

  10. Hermann Klinke

    March 30th, 2006 at 4:55 am

    “Anyway… wait until you all see my next project… An ajax based web browser!”

    Already exists: http://www.iconico.com/workshop/ajaxBrowser/

    “I think their next product will be an AJAX based notepad or AJAX based DOS box”

    Check this out: Unix Terminal in Ajax: http://www.masswerk.at/jsuix/

  11. John

    March 30th, 2006 at 5:54 am

    These apps should be called XULWrite and XULSketch because ONLY FIREFOX can utilize them. Using the AJAX name is a huge disservice to a technology that is just starting out. It could be reasonably argued that the “IE only” or “best in IE” crowd is just ignorant. The AjaxWrite/Sketch guys should know better and they are asses for making something Firefox only and attaching the Ajax buzzword to it.

  12. antigoog

    March 30th, 2006 at 6:00 am

    Assuming that in the next 2 years the majority will be using Gecko based browsers, making XUL backed web applications is really a good idea.

    But there are some things that Michael Robertson should take care of:

    1) These are the ugliest web sites I’ve ever seen! You spend a lot efforts on engineering these applications, but can’t you hire a good web designer to make your sites look a little bit professional. When visiting these sites, I ask myself “how come these sites can be featured on Techcrunch”

    2) The name.. Ajax.. no this is not ajax! there’s a mistake just at the beginning of all!

  13. antigoog

    March 30th, 2006 at 6:05 am

    But as I said, the basis is very good; I fully agree with Alastair and Marc, the simplicity is good, and this is just the beginning.

  14. Rydal Williams

    March 30th, 2006 at 6:30 am

    Simplicity is good, but can we really replace our desktop applications with web applications? I’m all for web applications but not every app can be used over the web, probably at the basic level.

  15. Alastair James

    March 30th, 2006 at 6:41 am

    I think for an app to be a good candidate to be ‘ajaxified’ and put on the web, it needs to be reworked to suite the advantages of the medium. What are the advantages of web based software? Well its not speed or the UIs, because generally they suck. Rather, its the fact that anything on the web is instantly sharable! Whats the point in a Web application storing its files on your pc? None! All these web applications should allow multiple people to work on documents (with visioning / locking etc.). Thats the power of the web after all!

  16. Alastair James

    March 30th, 2006 at 6:51 am

    “Assuming that in the next 2 years the majority will be using Gecko based browsers, making XUL backed web applications is really a good idea.”

    Sadly, I dont think that will be the case :(

    I have been thinking of the sutibility of using XUL for web applications. Its so easy! But, of course only runs on Gecko browsers.

    I was recently thinking of the possibilty of creating a XUL -> HTML compatibilty that would convert XUL (or at least a rich subset) into XHTML / javascript. I dont think it would be that hard. After all, I have a selection of XHTML / javascript GUI components that do similar things to their XUL relations, but in a much harder to use way!

    XUL-lite anyone?

  17. kmx

    March 30th, 2006 at 8:16 am

    You know, I still don’t understand how an all-purpose cleaning product can make my web experience that much better!?

  18. Carlos Garcia

    March 30th, 2006 at 8:20 am

    If you want to see a really impressive Rich Internet Application for publishing content from the Web to the Web, check out Scrapblog - http://www.scrapblog.com

  19. Saul Weiner

    March 30th, 2006 at 9:17 am

    I agree with the comments before. PR seems to trump a fully ready product these days. That’s just bad news.

  20. kmx

    March 30th, 2006 at 9:28 am

    Saul,

    It all seems kinda bubble-1.0-esque, eh? Fancy logo, website, but no business plan.

  21. andr3

    March 30th, 2006 at 10:18 am

    Using XUL for webapps goes against all the principles people like Zeldman and Molly have been fighting for.

    Unless people come up with a way to convert XUL to an open format, I’m going to see it like a language to develop stuff for the browser, not the web per se.

    Yes, I agree that the awful looking websites are a big turn off. First impressions count a lot, and the name didn’t help as well.

    Not all webapps are good webapps.

  22. nox

    March 30th, 2006 at 11:40 am

    This is quite possibly the worst implementation of web 2.0 I have ever seen. Web 2.0 needs to be shot down-it’s just like web 1.’s bubble, except this is supposedly ‘prettier.’ Yuck.

  23. Marquee

    March 30th, 2006 at 12:36 pm

    Hey kmx, it makes it all bright and sparkly :)

  24. BlogReader

    March 30th, 2006 at 1:13 pm

    andr3 Unless people come up with a way to convert XUL to an open format,

    You’re saying “open format” but I don’t think you know what it means.

  25. andr3

    March 30th, 2006 at 1:34 pm

    Ok, I might have used the term without thinking.. it’s hard translating to english my thoughts in portuguese. :P

    I should have said widely supported format, no? It’s like OpenLaszlo. It’s open, but it has to be converted to some other format (Flash or html+js) in order to achieve cross-browser compatibility. What if Laszlo started spitting their XML to the browsers? Do you see IE or Opera supporting Laszlo/XUL in the future? I don’t. And I don’t see the W3C getting behind each and every XML format for UI design out there… they already have XForms for that, don’t they?

  26. subscriber

    March 30th, 2006 at 4:22 pm

    I want ajaxCAD now.

  27. Blaze

    March 30th, 2006 at 4:59 pm

    Yes, right, illustrator ;)

  28. Shirish

    March 30th, 2006 at 6:00 pm

    AJAX Bubble 2.0!!

  29. antigoog

    March 30th, 2006 at 6:37 pm

    and maybe soon; AjaxAjaxWrite..

  30. BlogReader

    March 30th, 2006 at 8:43 pm

    andr3 What if Laszlo started spitting their XML to the browsers?

    I’m not sure what you’re getting at. You don’t like laszlo as it combines two formats together? I suppose you don’t like metadata in your MP3s either.

  31. andr3

    March 31st, 2006 at 7:59 am

    That’s not what I meant, and I didn’t want to make a case based on OpenLaszlo alone. I kind of tolerate OpenLaszlo because they attempt to conform with existing formats. They don’t force or expect the browsers to support their own format, even being an open one.

    Oh, I love the metadata on mp3s.. are you comparing XUL to ID3 on mpeg-3?

    And why the anonymity?

  32. Roger

    April 4th, 2006 at 1:02 pm

    Hisham El-Emam is one of the developers behind this.

    Check out….

    http://sliver.objective2k.com/85

  33. Jeff Roberts

    June 9th, 2006 at 9:41 am

    XUL-lite or XFORMS on Swing - that’s what I’m looking for at the moment. We have data we want to be able to configure from either a WebApp or from a Swing Thick App, and we want to send the same UI representation to either. I’m surprised not to find more of this out there - reminds me of the pre-Java days when we were trying to write apps that ran on both Unix and Windows by abstracting out the UI and writing plugins for each OS. (What? Oh, I’m 41. Why?) :-)

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