Where desktop LibreOffice has eleven top level menus (including Styes and Forms, added in the last few releases), Collabora Online has eight. Reducing Complexityįor long-time users of desktop LibreOffice, Collabora Online's first impression may be of how much is missing. In other words, Collabora Online offers the chance to rethink what features are required and how they are arranged in the editing window. Often, changes are needed simply to give the online versions a tolerable speed. Online versions rarely include all the features of their desktop originals, and – at least in theory – the difference in context may make users more receptive to major interface changes. These multiple appearances help to accommodate varying user preferences.īesides the convenience of an online version, Collabora Online offers a rare chance to rethink the interface. For, instance, paragraph formatting is available in the main menu, the toolbar, and some keyboard shortcuts, as well as the recently added sidebar. The problem is compounded by the fact that many features appear in several different places in the editing window. Although the removal of duplicate code has given LibreOffice some breathing space, and the last few years have seen frequent rearrangements of menus and dialogs, the general trend has been that the code continues to grow, and the interface has become more complex and less user-friendly.
However, developers have typically been reluctant to remove these, apparently on the off-chance that an older document or an inexperienced user requires them. Features like the embossed lettering effect, shadowed text frames, or graphical bullet, which were commonly used in the first decade or so of the development of the code that evolved into LibreOffice, are now widely considered excessive by designers and rarely used. Yet many features are typographically obsolete. Over the years, features have been added, but few, if any, have been removed. With its long history, LibreOffice faces a growing problem of legacy support for documents made in earlier releases. Moreover, with government departments in the United Kingdom actively considering the implementation of LibreOffice as a cost-savings measure, Collabora Productivity is in a strong position to deliver LibreOffice to a new audience. With employees like Michael Meeks, one of the founders of The Document Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees LibreOffice, Collabora Productivity has a long history of contributions to open source. Figure 1: Compared to desktop LibreOffice, Collabora Online has a simpler, less cluttered interface.Ĭollabora Online is developed by Collabora Productivity, a division of Collabora, a leading open source consultant in the United Kingdom.
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