EtherPad

Introducing the Time-Slider

Have you ever forgot to hit "save" and lost work? Ever wished you could go back to an earlier version of a document to see how the document evolved?

Now you can. EtherPad keeps track of all your typing in realtime. With our new Time-Slider, you can browse the complete history of a document using a familiar user interface.

When writing, I often find I have a solid draft, but as I continue to edit I realize that my editing made things worse. Or sometimes a co-worker will edit a document I started, and take it in a different direction, and I will want to go back to my version. I used to deal with this by using "Save As...", but this just creates a mess of different files. Now, instead of saving a separate file, I just create a "bookmark" in the document's timeline using the EtherPad Time-Slider.

We've also found the Time-Slider to be interesting for watching how a document got to where it is. For example, a while back we captured Paul Graham writing an essay about startups, now viewable in our time-slider UI.

How to publish your own time-slider

To publish your own document with a visible timeline, click the "Time-Slider" at the top of a pad page, then click "view read-only", and then give out that URL. (The "read-only" URL will prevent people from being able to go back and edit the pad.)

Other Uses for Time-Slider

This is a new technology, so we're interested in how it might be applied. One friend of the company suggested this might be used to prevent plagiarism for English assignments, because it provides the equivalent of "showing your work" in math. How else might the time-slider be interesting or useful? Let us know in the comments!

This Post

Naturally, this post was written using EtherPad. You can view the history here.