First of all, I love LibreOffice very much as the last bastion of sanity in classic document suites, and I love what Collabora is trying to do with the online piece. So, first, a million thanks. Truly.
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.
At least to me, it seems most regular users would struggle and have their productivity reduced attempting to learn a new word processing UI. Everyone and their extended family has been trained on Microsoft products, with Microsoft UI design.
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.
> It needs to be fast-updating for shared multi-user docs, like Google Docs/Sheets or Word/Excel 365.
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.
What's wrong with the ribbon? It's basically a tabbed toolbar. Unlike a menu bar it doesn't cover up content or require extra actions to hide, and it doesn't require precise mouse movement in order to avoid accidentally hiding.
The internal guts of Collabora's data models and such are based on the LibreOffice code, right? My understanding is that it's really hard to get Google Docs-like performance with real-time multi-user editing if the whole app wasn't engineered from the ground up to make it possible, which LibreOffice wasn't.
I think UI looks is a very Subjective opinion. I am rather young so I have realy only experience the Ribbons and for me everything back to the old is a huge step back is always going to look old and dusty to me. But thats personal opinion.
Now speed in editing thats a clear showstopper. And we all can agree on that.
I'm currently working on a set of documents with 3 or 4 other people in collabora and we have no more problems than with office 365. It works. You can type simultaneously even in the same line (one types while another corrects the spelling of the previous word, etc), no problem at all.
You can switch away from ribbon styles btw, if it's not your jam. IMO it's grown on me. As for my experience, collabora thus-far has been plenty responsive.
There has been a conflict building up within the LibreOffice ecosystem, with Collabora publishing a desktop version of their web-focused LO-based suite, while TDF (The Document Foundation) has decided to hire several developers to work on an on-line and potentially mobile version. So, essentially, both "sides" are taking each other on, even though a plurality of LibreOffice commits are made by Collabora employees. There have also been some "beheading" in the form of the expulsion of a few members of the TDF, particularly the former long-time TDF board-of-directors chairperson who is with Collabora (previously Allotropia) and a couple of others - a highly contentious decision which some argue is contrary to the TDF statutes.
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.
--------------
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.
> the charter of projects like LibreOffice are fundamentally broken—they're aiming to replace Microsoft Office by cloning it, but Microsoft Office itself is part of a busted paradigm
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 was also curious. It says this in about the middle of the homepage:
"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."
On Wikipedia, there is a fairly complicated timeline chart of the various LibreOffice variants [1]. Same article also says
> 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 installed it from Windows Store, opened a blank text document, and the styles box appears to contain white text on a white background.
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).
Yeah, unfortunately this seems to combine the UI and performance issues of LibreOffice with new issues from the new front end.
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.
Seems to be a dumbed down UI with less customization, but built with shiny new browser tech (Canvas, WebGL, CSS)! Also limited macros. No embedded Java
Yes. From the original announcement: “HTML + JavaScript-based front end, powered by your system’s native browser engine (like WebKit, Chromium, etc.)”
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.”
I have super light office requirements these days and those are satisfied with OnlyOffice (https://www.onlyoffice.com/). I do believe it's an Electron app but works quite fast in my personal experience. (Probably faster than LibreOffice if it's still like the last time I used it).
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.
I briefly tried it : I don't see the point, there is no way to connect it to your online collabora instance or directly to Nextcloud or anything except your local files.
Just use LibreOffice at this point, at least it has native performances and is not an app bundled inside a browser.
> Just use LibreOffice at this point, at least it has native performances
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.
I use Collabora online all the time (via Nextcloud) but I don't quite understand why I'd use this over LibreOffice on the desktop, which feels significantly more powerful than the online tool.
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.
I’m right there with you on the desktop side. The main reason I love LibreOffice is specifically because it isn’t bloated. It has a minimal footprint and loads fast, which is a breath of fresh air compared to the resource-heavy alternatives. Keeping that speed and simplicity is exactly why it’s still my go-to.
Don't bother, I tried with a disposable email address and they make you subscribe to a mailing list before sending you the download link. When you do eventually get it, it's a 3 page puff marketing PDF.
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 & books
If 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 have to use MS products at work and use Collabora (on Linux) at home. Sometimes, I have to edit the same spreadsheet at home and at work and that usually works flawlessly, besides automatic coloring. Now, I also don't try to code in Excel, so that might be one reason. Excel graphs are also nicer.
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.
Hmm. I can't actually find the link to start using it to try it out. ? It offers a Free Demo that is behind some kind of details harvesting form. I don't want a demo. Is this usable enough to move a small (6 people) team away from google sheets ? hard to say since i can't test it and it doesn't say what the cost is. Stop hiding your shit behind hard to navigate/use/privacy invading bullshit. Just let us use the stuff. If you must gimp it, do it in a way that doesn't stop us using it first.
Is your team looking at the cloud version or a local install?
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.
Man, welcome to the current millenium. Somewhat. I really love FOSS but LibreOffice’s bulky and awkward UI was always too much for me. Happy to see Collabora doing it a bit better.
From my understanding Amazon at least internally uses Salesforce's Quip product which is closer to Google docs than office (live collab). There's still MS office use as well depending on org. Just curious, were you suggesting libreoffice as a cost savings measure or are you just sick of Quip?
Honestly, OnlyOffice works extremely well for my purposes, and I install it on all my friends' PCs. It looks a lot like MS Office and is quite compatible with a variety of documents I've tried, in my experience.
I don't care about dated looks. I do find MS Office's pressure to use OneDrive frustrating and annoying. Honestly, older UIs for office suite products just feel more direct and responsive than the clever ribbon bars. Excel used to be svelte (25 years ago or more...) Now it feels bloated and clumsy. LibreOffice Calc (same parentage as Collabora Office) feels more like Excel used to feel. Similar complaints about Word.
realityfactchex|24 days ago
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.
0x1ch|24 days ago
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.
rlpb|24 days ago
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.
rendaw|23 days ago
ameliaquining|24 days ago
mastermage|24 days ago
Now speed in editing thats a clear showstopper. And we all can agree on that.
zapzupnz|24 days ago
LibreOffice has a Ribbon interface option, too.
wazoox|24 days ago
direwolf20|23 days ago
BloodyIron|24 days ago
mosquitobiten|24 days ago
einpoklum|24 days ago
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.
--------------
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.
cxr|24 days ago
<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.
Aissen|24 days ago
karel-3d|24 days ago
How is this project related to LibreOffice and also to what used to be called LibreOffice Online? (And Collabora Office Classic. And Collabora Online)
aaron_oxenrider|24 days ago
"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."
abdullahkhalids|24 days ago
> 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.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#History
mickelsen|23 days ago
Kwpolska|24 days ago
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.
ack_complete|24 days ago
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.
eviks|24 days ago
layer8|24 days ago
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.”
[0] https://paste.c-net.org/FuriousWhistler
ronsor|24 days ago
This is a great feature!
dizhn|24 days ago
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.
mastermage|24 days ago
honktime|24 days ago
guimi|24 days ago
yeah879846|24 days ago
eole666|24 days ago
Just use LibreOffice at this point, at least it has native performances and is not an app bundled inside a browser.
jorvi|24 days ago
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.
scblock|24 days ago
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.
seven237|23 days ago
HexDecOctBin|24 days ago
https://www.collaboraonline.com/case-studies/differences-bet...
whyleyc|24 days ago
I converted it to TXT and pulled out the only bit of interest here:
gowld|24 days ago
If 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?
eviks|24 days ago
zingerlio|24 days ago
Propelloni|24 days ago
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...
unknown|24 days ago
[deleted]
thedudeabides5|24 days ago
esafak|24 days ago
hulitu|24 days ago
> online.
Wrong answer. I want offline.
There is no reason for an office programm to connect to the internet.
solarkraft|24 days ago
9x39|23 days ago
jaffa2|24 days ago
browningstreet|24 days ago
2b3a51|24 days ago
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
jonathanstrange|24 days ago
Okay, so what does it cost?
szszrk|24 days ago
solarkraft|24 days ago
Squarex|24 days ago
nusl|24 days ago
tiahura|24 days ago
drzaiusx11|24 days ago
bigfatkitten|23 days ago
TheAmazingRace|24 days ago
tomtomistaken|24 days ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1j7zlf2/onlyoffi...
nico|24 days ago
nritchie|24 days ago
karel-3d|24 days ago
I really, really want them to be successful, but I cannot pretend it's a pleasure to use at all.
scottmcdot|24 days ago
boobsbr|24 days ago
esafak|24 days ago