[realityfactchex]

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.

[0x1ch]

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.

[realityfactchex]

> most regular users would...have their productivity reduced...this matters for the paying customers...using it in a work environment

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...

[itsrobreally]

I agree - we're coming up on 20 years of the ribbon, it is too jarring to go back to the fixed toolbars and the vast majority of computer users have no experience with the "old way."

[kwanbix]

I have worked in 3 companies in the last 8 years and we all use gsuite just fine. I will even say that I really prefer gsuite over office365 web.

[jimnotgym]

I would like an easy way to switch between the two paradigms. I got used to the ribbon

[rlpb]

> 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.

I wonder if there's an opportunity there.

[rendaw]

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.

[realityfactchex]

Ribbon vs. classic toolbars is the comparison to be made. (Sorry for saying menubar when I meant toolbar up above; that was probably confusing.)

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.

[ameliaquining]

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.

[NetMageSCW]

Unless Microsoft complete re-wrote Office to add Sharepoint collaboration features, they seem to have managed it.

[mastermage]

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.

[zapzupnz]

> The new one looks all Microsoft-Ribbony

LibreOffice has a Ribbon interface option, too.

[realityfactchex]

If both remain available options, that's fine. Sometimes the new thing becomes the default, and then the old thing gets dropped.

[wazoox]

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.

[direwolf20]

Microsoft did actual UX research about the ribbon. It's better. Deal with it.

[BloodyIron]

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.

[mosquitobiten]

Ribbon has it's uses for certain people or situations. Of course menu is much faster but again for certain people.