14 DAY TRIAL // I've been looking for some time for a software like the one I'm about to review. Finding it was a thing of chance. I saw the name Gobby and because it didn't make me thing of anything I checked it out.
Gobby is a software that allows multiple users to edit over a network one or several documents. It's a free and easy to use collaborative editor. It's not the first of its kind but the fact that is easy to use and cross platform might make it the best choice for most of us.
I can see a huge potential for this software. Imagine how useful this would be for working on a project with your colleagues. Each one can do its part in putting together what should be the final result and if one has questions about something other members can help by editing the part of the project or can give pointers using the integrated chat. Working as a team is a lot more efficient and the final program should make everyone happy since you can see there what's going to be in every minute. Since Gobby works over the Internet the users can be ten meters away or on the other half of the world.
Gobby is written in GTK and it's cross-platformed so it doesn't really matter what operating system are using the others. It works well also on Windows and OS X.
Perhaps I should start describing it to give a better understanding of Gobby. When you open it for the first time you don't see anything special. It's a simple and clean interface. All the buttons are very intuitive so you don't need any previous experience or any related knowledge for using this software. Creating and joining a session can be made in a snap.
When you create a session you'll be asked for a port, for a name, for a color and optionally for a password. Gobby also provides support for restoring a session so you'll have easy access to previous Gobby work. The server can either open a document from the hard drive or create a new one. When this happens the document will be available in a document list. If there are several users typing fast you should consider creating the session at a user that has a good Internet connection because even if it's just text, the server needs twice the bandwidth required for each user. This can be a problem for dial-up lines but in this modern world it's unlikely that such connection will be used.
When joining a session you'll have to enter the hostname of the server, the port which in most cases will be the default one, a name and a color. In case the name or the color is already used you'll be asked to choose a different one. The server supports passwords so in case a password is set you'll have to enter it. After joining a session you'll just be able to chat with the users that are already there. If you want to start editing a document you'll have to open the document list and subscribe to one of the documents existing there. Each time the server opens a document it will be available in the list.
When you start writing in a document the text will be highlighted with the color that you choose. So will be the text written by other users. If you want to see which users are currently available and what part is written by them just open the user list. There it can be seen the name, the color and what file each user subscribed to.
Gobby is a great tool for teams of programmers. One reason is that Gobby supports syntax highlighting. A lot of programming languages are supported and this helps a lot when you are working at a project. Unfortunately it doesn't support automatic recognition for the language used but this should not be a problem since the one who is programming knows at least what language he is using :).
Some settings related to different preferences are available in Gobby, but since it doesn't have so many features you can't expect too much from that section. I think there are two essential things that should be implemented in Gobby: a spell check and some file transfer. It's obvious how good would the spell check be for people that are editing documents in Gobby and the file transfer feature would be great for programmers that want to send a library or some documentation.
I think that the chat also needs some improvements because at this stage it doesn't handle links and you can't send private messages. Since Gobby is a young application I'm expecting to see some of this features available in the future. The development of Gobby should definitely be encouraged because this software is one of a kind and has a lot of potential.
The Good
Mainly it is good that the software is easy to use and you can use it at full potential even the first time. In Gobby the focus is on the actual work and not at all on the interface and some other stuff. Sintax highlighting is a good feature essential for programmers.
The Bad
Not much bad things can be said about this software except that some features are badly needed. Some of the absent features are the spell checker, the file transfer feature and some stuff related to the chat.
The Truth
The truth is that Gobby has a great potential and a lot of people would have to gain using this software. It's so easy to use that even people with very little PC knowledge will be able to handle it. I'm really looking forward to see its evolution and I'll definitely spread the word about this great small software.
The screenshots below show Gobby in action:
