Google Docs add-ons, are they worth it?

Google just recently added the ability of Add-ons for Google docs web-based editors. Are they worth it? In a word, not-totally-worth-it. Let me explain.

Due to the recent release of this add-on function, not many add-ons have been made. As it is in the early stages of development for most people, it doesn't seem that big of an issue, but it is. Many add-ons are cumbersome. Some made to create diagrams, others made for outlining, and more made for highlighting. Quite frankly, add-ons have worked splendidly with many of the other applications from Google from Hangouts and the option to add certain elemental functions otherwise impossible on its contenders, like Skype, and in total the countless tons of add-ons available to the Chrome browser. It is a mystery as to why add-ons, so far, are not having the impact that they were perceived to get.

Even some diagram makers are a bit awkward. It isn't a simple drag-and-drop diagram that you fill or a simple diagram maker, but instead an awkward interface that doesn't allow for the functionality that it should. The only diagram maker that is worth-while is Lucidcharts diagrams. While it is easy and incredibly flexible, it has to take you to a different website and no longer is in docs, which others would find perfectly fine, but I find it annoying.

Simply put, docs is a text editor. That is it. While it lets others join and edit text with you, it is still a text editor and that is shown in its core. The issue being that it needs to be incredibly flexible to make some of these add-ons worth-while. Highlighting add-ons are cumbersome and still don't feel like a highlighter. One still has to select an area and click the color that is appropriate. Highlighters lets one trace what they want out of the document and it is immediate. While this isn't a real highlighter and it still has plenty of ways to improve, it is a start.

Like many other add-ons, they is limited by what Google has made available through its program. And until the inner core of the application has changed, it will be limited to very basic functions.

This has been Nickster258