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October 03, 2005

Integrating Writeboard and Backpack

I really like 37Signals’ Backpack, and I’ve found it’s a more useful tool for managing project planning than Basecamp, and it’s one of the very few things I’ll gladly pay a montly fee to use. So I’m glad that their new application, Writeboard is integrated—for free—into Backpack the day it went live.

The integration is handled fairly well. Writeboard pages are essentially scratchpad Backpack pages that don’t count against your monthly limit, and which offer the Wiki-like ability to track changes or rollback to earlier versions; it’s file diffing made accessible. But I’d like Writeboard to be more integrated with Backpack. I’d like to be able to move Backpack page units (lists, notes, or body text) temporarily into Writeboard, work on them, then promote them back into Backpack: a sort of “Writeboard This” function. Here’s a quickie mockup.

First, a normal Backpack page would get one additional function per note/list/whatever: the “Writeboard This” icon:

While it’s “writeboarded”, the version in Backpack shows the current edited version of the note, but is read-only to show that it’s in flux:

That note I chose is used as the start of a new Writeboard page, which I can edit as usual, compare differences, etc. Note the “Commit this version” button. That ends my Writeboard session and promotes the current version back into Backpack.

Update: I missed that Writeboard pages could already be linked to Backpack pages just as you’d link to any other BP page.

Further, you can import any writeboard into Backpack and even attach writeboards to any Backpack page via the new “writeboards” button at the top of every Backpack page.

Still, I like my “locked for editing in Writeboard” idea. :-)

Posted by Andrew at October 3, 2005 02:42 PM

Comments

Posted by: Joshua Kaufman at October 6, 2005 03:13 AM