GDocsDrive is a desktop client for Google Docs which enables folder uploading with a simple drag and drop. It makes Google Docs a Google Drive (GDrive) on your desktop.
I ran into GDocsDrive the other day while looking for something that would allow me to access my Google Docs from my desktop. Seek and you will find right? Well it took me a while to actually find something that was remotely close to what I wanted.
It is still not quite exactly what I want but it is very close, and after a few emails back and forth with the Founder of Cloud Drive Software, Jerry Wang I feel more confident that they are going in the right direction. Here are some of the issues I have had and Jerry’s responses to those items.
Feature Requests I Made:
My Request: “Versions (Revisions) – Currently when you re-upload a doc/file it just makes a new copy in Google Docs rather than updating the old doc/file and adding to the revision history.”
Jerry’s Response: “You are definitely correct : Versioning is a vital important feature. Actually we are working on this big feature and plan to include it in the future versions of GDocsDrive. It does need some time, so please be patient.”
My Request: “Drag & Drop onto collection folder to upload (left hand panel).”
Jerry’s Response: “The feature about draging and droping on the left panel (either for uploading or for moving) used to be included in the pre-released version, but all the drag/drop operations were not very stable and conflicted with each other sometimes. So we removed them in the final released version. We plan to make all of the drag/drop operations right in the future version.”
My Request: “Double Click open in default program.”
Jerry’s Response: “As to the double click feature, now Google already supports office files, PDF, image files, audio and video files, and will support more in the future. Is it necessary to add a local application connection to the files? Actually, this feature is very easy to implement, but I am not sure if it is necessary.”
Issue I Noted:
My Issue: “Speed – I have literally hundreds of “collections” with 5-20 files in each collection. I realize bandwidth has a lot to do with this. However when logged in directly to Google Docs vs using GDocsDrive there is a noticable speed difference, for me at least.”
Jerry’s Response: “The uploading speed problem: on my computer (in China), I cannot see a big difference between GDocsdrive and Google Docs webpage. I would appreciate it if you would tell me how much slower it is.”
Other Questions I Had:
My Question: ” I have multiple accounts for Google Docs, obviously I can sign in and out of each one with GDocsDrive. I also have multiple computers that I personally use (Office desktop, personal laptop, home desktop). Do I need to purchase a copy for each location? I know with a few other programs I use (PHPDesigner & others) they have multi device licensing available. I think you could make a little more on the product if you offered a single device, 3-5 device (one or the other, not both) and enterprise license versions. For reference here is how PHPDesigner does it http://www.mpsoftware.dk/buy.php. In our office I help run two companies and have 5 “users” some of these users have access to both companies info in Google Docs and some have only one company access. 2 of us only would use your product only at their assigned workstations and 3 of us would use it at work, home & laptop. If you had tierd licensing I could see how a company like our would purchase 2 single install license and 3 multi device licenses.”
Jerry’s Response: “One license can be used on one computer used by several users, or on several computers used by one user, but not both. So basically, if you have several personal computers used by yourself, one license is enough. Actually, you can find the license instruction when you install GDocsdrive, maybe I should add it in readme.txt and the website.”
My Question: “How long till Google aquires you? =)”
Jerry’s Response: “Till now, I do not see any clue for Google’s acquiring 
”
Final Thoughts:
First I have to say that I am honestly impressed that Jerry is actually willing to take time from his day to answer my question rather than sending out canned responses. Kudos Jerry!
As for my request for “Double Click open in default program.”, I do find this necessary. I also realize though that many may not. My main reason is because Google is known for not keeping exact formatting on heavily formatted Microsoft Office documents. The web version always gets a little tweaked. Also as mentioned in a previous post, it would be nice to be able to open Illustrator or Photoshop files or other “non docs supported” files in their native programs, but that’s just my 2 cents.
I will also be testing out the speed issue I am seeing on my end and seeing if I can produce some sort of benchmarking for Jerry. Who knows maybe I am just imagining it /shrug..
The licensing question I had was not something I was able to find on the GDocsDrive website. I should have thought to look inside the program itself but I didn’t. However I think Jerry is on the right track with adding it in a readme.txt and on the website.
One more thing I didn’t think of until after I had heard back from Jerry was icons. The GDocsDrive icons are just flat out ugly. They should look into using the famfamfam.com silk icons, much better cleaner easier to look at, again though, that is just my opinion.
Full Disclosure:
I did not get, nor did I ask for any type of compensation or free product for this post about GDocsDrive. I honestly think this is a really good product headed in the right direction and simply wanted to help support these developers in any way I could. So please check them out!
