The New Collabora Office for Desktop(collaboraonline.com) |
The New Collabora Office for Desktop(collaboraonline.com) |
Now, to put on the the "feedback is a gift" and "radical transparency" caps.
From the screenshot comparison in TFA: The new one looks all Microsoft-Ribbony. That's a huge step backward. The big strength of LibreOffice or Collabora Desktop Classic is that it has a sane UI/menubar visual paradigm. (Which MS obliterated eons ago.)
But let's talk about what matters: Collabora (the online document suite) is slow as heck.
It needs to be fast-updating for shared multi-user docs, like Google Docs/Sheets or Word/Excel 365.
That should be the top priority. Full stop.
LibreOffice works fine for desktop. But, for Collabora, the web experience needs to be fast. The lag in Collabora is simply unacceptable.
People expect online, and they expect collaborative, and they expect nearly instantaneous updates (at least not painful to type and wait for screen to update).
Talk about misplaced priorities. In my very humble opinion.
I think this matters for the paying customers of things like Collabora and LibreOffice, as they're using it in a work environment. Not at home.
If the concern is business productivity, then it might be interesting to read that at least some research indicates (perhaps counterintuitively to some) that classic style is better:
"...results indicate that Excel 2003 is significantly superior to Excel 2007 in all the dependent variables...results support the conclusion that the user interface of Excel 2007 did change for the worst in comparison with the user interface of the 2003 version." [0]
[0] Morales (2010), A COMPARATIVE USABILITY STUDY OF MICROSOFT OFFICE 2007 AND MICROSOFT OFFICE 2003, https://scholar7-dev.uprm.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/a03...
In my experience, Google Docs has this, but realtime collaboration with Word is unusable. Which is interesting, because that means a huge number of existing Office 365 users have yet to experience it.
I wonder if there's an opportunity there.
I'll try to explain the gist of it, since that seems to be the question:
As you say, one facet of ribbons is they are essentially tabs. So, ribbons obscure whatever is on "those other tabs". Often, with additional annoyance of taking more space than needed to show what they do show (which often is not want is needed). And any section within a given tab can have its own peculiar (varied) layouts. (Continuing the "find it in the hierarchy - customized for the purpose to make your life easier the way a designer thought would help!" paradigm.)
Contrast with toolbars. Show the ones you need, customize them if wanted. Icons and locations are quite effective for selecting actions. They can all be seen at once. They do what they say. No constantly interpreting the interface flow to find stuff.
Now speed in editing thats a clear showstopper. And we all can agree on that.
LibreOffice has a Ribbon interface option, too.
This is a no way a complete or a fair summary of everything that has gone on; and it's been simmering for a number of years now.
Due disclosure: I am a TDF trustee.
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About Collabora Office for Desktop itself: Personally, I don't see it as being up to par. The main thing going for it is that its ribbon-ish interface is more polished than LibreOffice's. But - I don't like ribbons; and features are missing; and it feels clunkier than LO itself.
How is this project related to LibreOffice and also to what used to be called LibreOffice Online? (And Collabora Office Classic. And Collabora Online)
"We love LibreOffice. We are privileged to be the largest code contributors to the codebase, Collabora employs several founders of The Document Foundation, and many of the top committers. We offer a Long Term supported product based on LibreOffice, branded as Collabora Office Classic, and are deeply grateful for and acknowledge many skilled community contributors we work alongside, as well as the incredible range of features that LibreOffice code enables."
* Collabora Online is rebranded, and hosted, LibreOffice Online
* or rather - LibreOffice Online never really existed and it was always Collabora Online Development Edition (I cannot find any LibreOffice Online that's not just Collabora Online Development Edition)
* Collabora Office for Desktop is Collabora Online, packaged as a desktop app
* Collabora Office Classic is just rebranded LibreOffice
* Collabora (the company) is one of the biggest contributors to LibreOffice
> Ecosystem partner Collabora uses LibreOffice as upstream code to provide a web-based suite branded as Collabora Online, along with apps for platforms not officially supported by LibreOffice, including Android, ChromeOS, iOS and iPadOS.
I opened a blank spreadsheet, typed in something, tried to create a pivot table, and it only expanded the selection without showing the dialog box.
I restarted it and those bugs were fixed, but the Pivot Table UI is still the ugly non-interactive one found in LibreOffice (which Excel got rid of 26+ years ago).
Uninstalled.
It also has a basic mistake in text editor UX: the caret blinks independently of caret movement. This means that the caret is invisible half of the time while trying to navigate text. Most text editors avoid this by restarting the blink cycle to force the caret visible on each movement.
It doesn't do that on my computer. LibreOffice 7.0.4.2 shipped with GNU/Linux Debian.
From the email-walled “whitepaper” [0]: “If you need tools like the Base database module (including Java-based components) or the full Math module, Collabora Office Classic remains the right choice - Collabora Office isn’t trying to replicate those. Collabora Office will run macros, but for advanced macro authoring and debugging you should use Classic. For extreme Calc workloads (think complex Solver models or analysis across hundreds of thousands of rows) Classic is likely the better fit.”
This is a great feature!
It's open source: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/
I hadn't looked at the Github page in a while. They seem to have a ton of new features one of which regrettably is a very front end center AI presence.
> Based in Latvia, OnlyOffice owner Ascensio System SIA was a subsidiary of Russian-based New Communication Technologies. Due to EU economic sanctions targeting Russia, European organizations that used the commercial version of OnlyOffice were prohibited from doing so.
Not defending Russia but pointing out the hypocrisy.
However, the LTSC edition of Windows doesn't have Windows Store support, and the non-LTSC editions of Windows have become untenable to me.
Just use LibreOffice at this point, at least it has native performances and is not an app bundled inside a browser.
I don't think you've ever used LibreOffice if you think it in any way fits the description "performant". It's a great project but I wouldn't exactly call it snappy.
The few screenshots they show make this look similar to the existing online tool, which is fine for a lot of work, but like Word Online hits a wall with more complex documents.
https://www.collaboraonline.com/case-studies/differences-bet...
Here is a comparison by the Document Foundation for spreadsheets [1]. I think it speaks for itself.
Regarding Powerpoint I can't say. I can't recall when I last used Powerpoint for anything. We have an in-house system where I just select slide type, enter my text and attach pictures in a form and it builds a CI-styled PDF for me. I think its basically a LaTeX front-end, but I never cared.
HTH
[1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_Libr...
It's atrocious primarily due to MS not following open ODF. Everything is out of wack, dot point have different shapes, and spacing is wrong.
Impress is also not all that great. It's defaults are generally ugly, its auto sizing breaks and the animation pane is buggy.
Calc is much better. Writer is decent compatibility with MS
> online.
Wrong answer. I want offline.
There is no reason for an office programm to connect to the internet.
If latter would suggest checking current version of LibreOffice (which is Collabra Office Classic) as a local (i.e. on client computer) install. If former, then I'd imagine you will have to fill the form in to get access.
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46901100 Another commenter has summarised the differences between Collabora Office and Collabora Office Classic (aka LibreOffice) for us
Okay, so what does it cost?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1j7zlf2/onlyoffi...
Are the people of the USA responsible for everything the US government does? Is every single person living in China responsible for the actions of the CCP? Is every single Russian personally responsible for everything that Putin does?
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24759573>
> The LibreOffice project's imprimatur should be to stop existing[…] The editing paradigm perpetuated by the legacy of MS Office is a dead end.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23795918>
I'll amend my previous position and say that the charter should be to (a) as much as possible change the menu and dialog structure to match whatever the last "good" version of the Microsoft Office UI was, but still ultimately focus on (b) doing everything I said in those other comments.
I'm a big fan of plaintext (and things like Markdown). But I don't buy the argument that "plain text over the web is the future" or that that combination can or should supplant office.
Also remember that LibreOffice started before Microsoft Office even existed: as StarWriter in the mid-1980s. Yes, there has been a lot of borrowing between computer apps in this domain (and let's also not forget WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3 etc.); and I am even willing to entertain the possibility that in 40 years' time we will all be doing something completely different. I mean, I still think people will be writing letters and CVs and reports but maybe the apps would be very different. Anyway, until that time, we need a decent office app, with support for the world's many written languages and their quirks, without spying on users, with multi-platform support, with a decent license etc. - and LibreOffice is that.
I converted it to TXT and pulled out the only bit of interest here:
Collabora Office Collabora Office Classic
Fresh, modern UX Classic, established UX
Javascript & CSS UI to match Collabora Online VCL-based classic UI
Simpler settings / streamlined defaults Very extensive options, menus & dialogs
No Java Java used for some features/wizards/DB drivers
No built-in Base app Includes Base UI
Runs macros Full macro editor & advanced BASIC/Python/UNO
Modern web tech (Canvas, WebGL, CSS) Custom toolkit (VCL)
Fast to iterate (edit JS, fewer recompiles) Core/C++ changes typically require recompiles
Initial release – Enterprise Support is coming Long term Enterprise Supported
Quick Start Guides and video tutorials Extensive manuals & booksIf you don't give an email address, it doesn't even prompt you to ttry again. It just bugs out and redirects to a home page with a broken URL attempting to inject HTML from client side.
That's strange because the only reason for a user to use OpenOffice/Collabra is because they don't want to deal with an annoying company that makes a far superior product. If the inferior product is also run by an annoying company, why bother?
I'd still probably put Collabra above Google Docs, but definitely a step below even MS Office Online, err 365, err CoPilot App or whatever the hell they're calling it now... (naming issues not withstanding). Though MS has been enshitifying the offline versions of office a lot, not to mention Outlook in particular.
Aside: Why MS hasn't done a version of "Microsoft Access Online" with a WASM port of VBA in order to lift/shift Access apps into a hosted environment that's backed by Azure SQL under the covers is kind of beyond me. I mean, it shouldn't take too much effort at this point with the level of tooling MS has been capable of.
Access was the distilled VB + Database apps kind of thing that a lot of SOHO really thrived on, and they could totally (re)capture that market with a bit of legacy uplift/support along with a newer model/design. Displacing the winforms models with webforms and a dedicated server/service system. 3 versions to start, a legacy/support, a bridge and a new model where it's TS/JS and monaco for editing instead of VBA/wasm/webforms in a browser/canvas. People are running older versions of Windows in wasm/x86 emulation... making that pretty and wrapping hosted access runtimes should be somewhat reasonable. Shouldn't it?
I really, really want them to be successful, but I cannot pretend it's a pleasure to use at all.
Typing in a word processor should not have input lag in 2025. It wasn't just a little lag, but the type and watch it catch up kind of lag.
It took basically a corporate control for Audacity to make its' difficult transition to a better design from its' mediocre one. That said, I'd love to see something modern transformed from The Gimp's core in a similar way. That doesn't even begin to cover what you might want in terms of inter-app collaboration...
KdenLive, Blender, Gimp, Krita, InkScape, Audacity and other tooling, as an example, all use different UI/UX base libraries, and no clean way to cross-integrate features between them if someone wanted to assemble an open-source Adobe alternative. There's no baseline equivalent to even MS/Office's use of COM/DCOM for interoperability.
It definitely has its bugs and it eats up tokens/context like crazy. But it make product development so much easier and faster, while providing great design
Also, other commenters report that the real-time collaborative editing experience in Office is more sluggish than in Google Docs, and this is consistent with my own admittedly very limited anecdotal experience, and if this has persisted for years it may well be for deep architectual reasons.
I choose not to participate in that, it's fishy. Others do better.
Good thing no one is making that argument. That's a fabricated quote.
> the second most used 'app' on a PC/laptop after a browser
This is supposed to be a rejoinder? You're just undergirding the thing that you're purporting to respond to—that when it comes to the dominance (or, if you prefer, relative importance) of actual multi-/cross-platform ease-of-access between browsers versus 90s-era suites like MS Office and LibreOffice, the office suites lose.
> until that time, we need a decent office app, with support for the world's many written languages and their quirks, without spying on users, with multi-platform support, with a decent license
We do need that. Which is why I described it. And LibreOffice is in a worse position than it should be with respect to filling this hole because of its failure to embrace the actual multi-/cross-platform and ease-of-access benefits afforded by the ubiquity of standard Web browsers and the formats they understand, contra the formats that the 90s-era office suites produce (useless to anyone who doesn't have that office suite or a quasi-compatible one installed).
I don't think it matters since Universities will not be taking Google Doc submissions unless it's core ed classes, any beyond it will be LaTeX anyways.
https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions
And I can tell that while at CERN, those using LaTeX on paper submissions were the minority, on ATLAS TDAQ/HLT group it was a mix of Word, and FrameMaker.
It was said in the distant past that the last 10% of the time everyone is using different features — the long tail 90% of features. You had to implement them in your software.
When did we switch so we adapt our workflows instead, and only use the common features now? And software doesn't have to implement the long tail?
The author doesn't discuss users' existing familiarity with Office 2003 and they only mention the word 'training' once, that "software design to interact with technology should require the least amount of training as possible" whilst never acknowledging that training in, and even qualifications in, the use of the Office suite was very much a thing in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Even then, the most problems were had in Excel. Advanced usage of Excel is done by technical people who would have had some training. Word and PowerPoint weren't shown to have significant difference in usability; arguably, Word is the program most people forced to use the Office suite spend their time in.
Never mind the ways by which the Ribbon and computers have changed since Office 2007. Options moved around, the Ribbon height reduced, screens having gotten wider to compress fewer options into submenus…
The author states at the end of their conclusion:
> In order to determine if the result of the study with respect to the Excel 2007 application persists and are not due to the learning curve the experiment can be repeated with users having at least three years using this version.
Do you know if the author or anybody else followed up?
It would be more interesting to see a comparison between Office 365 now that the interface has effectively become the de facto standard (same as Windows, macOS, mobile, tablet, and the web version) and Google Sheets (which retains the menus, toolbar, etc.).
I'm no lover of the Ribbon myself but I feel like there's better evidence for it not being the ideal interface than this which wouldn't have convinced me even at the time.
This isn't the proof that'll bring down the titan.
> Do you know if the author or anybody else followed up
I would love to see more recent and similarly thoughtful work on the exact same subject. If I find more, I'll try to remember to come back here and comment. Definitely, I am interested in the clearest evidence regarding whether either paradigm is "actually" more usable, and not just the result of some confounding variable(s).
With a null hypothesis that the classic toolbar is no better than the ribbon, I just wanted to see some data (instead of assuming that what users have now has to be more efficient for those users just because it's what the market-leading product has been giving users for about two decades).
- The Zoomer
- The Boomer
- The Clanker
Some people give regular users too little credit. A major reason they are such terrible users is because the software they are given is terrible.
Fix the software, and the users' ability is, to a measurable degree, fixed.
Existing familiarity is nothing compared with the daily additive benefits of better tools.