LibreOffice Online: a fresh start - TDF Community Blog
blog.documentfoundation.org
LibreOffice is a desktop application, but we get many requests for a web-based version of the suite that users can deploy on their own infrastructure. Several years ago, project members started to develop LibreOffice Online, but in 2022 the Board of Directors at The Document Foundation voted to freeze the project and put it in the “attic”, for reasons that have now been superseded. Earlier this month, the current Board of Directors decided to revoke those votes to give new life to the project, as Eliane Domingos, chairperson, put it: To start the process of freeing LibreOffice Online, and to start the journey that will lead to having an online version by the community and for the community. Now the work begins. We plan to reopen the repository for LibreOffice Online at The Document Foundation for contributions, but provide warnings about the state of the repository until TDF’s team agrees that it’s safe and usable – while at the same time encourage the community to join in with code, technologies and other contributions that can be used to move forward. We will actively work with the community to identify how to foster LibreOffice Online, including its technological basis, QA and
  • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
    2 months

    Some new EU funding in the background?

    I’m quite happy with local apps, but I could see the appeal for self-hosting if the server would scale for the client (ie laptop on the desk vs mobile phone on the road)

    • filcuk@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2 months

      For personal use, being able to replace microsoft/google offerings with little to no functionality loss is amazing

  • Railison@aussie.zoneEnglish
    2 months

    How’s this project going to interact with Collibre Collabora (sorry!)?

  • Reygle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    My first gut reaction was “Neat, but no thank you” but the more I think about how many clients COULD be using a cloud hosted privacy respecting platform instead of 365, I quickly bit my lip.

  • unmagical@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2 months

    I hope they’re able to move toward a client first renderer instead of the image tile approach they used previously. That was kinda a network hog and cludgy to use.

  • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2 months

    OMG YES!!!

    This makes me really happy because it’ll make collaborating with friends on things a lot easier.

    • Jean-luc Peak-hard@piefed.socialEnglish
      2 months

      Check out CryptPad.org, it’s:

      • Open Source; so it can’t be taken away from you should the org cease to exist.
      • Self-hostable; although you can use or pay to use other people’s instances.
      • Collaborative; with real-time editing like Google docs
      • Federated; so you can collaborate with others whether you’re using a self-hosted instance or using any other server.
      • End-to-end encrypted: The server admins can’t see any of your data.

      Only downsides so far is that the UX is a bit slow when first loading documents and there are no mobile apps.

      EDIT: Forgot to add the important par, they recently added support for OnlyOffice in the browser, which to me, was a pretty big deal.

      • Vogi@piefed.socialEnglish
        2 months

        Love Cryptpad, but am I the only one for whom the loading indicator gives a bad flashback to early js framework web development where every website was 16 times the initial load time, 4 times the overall size and just more buggy. Website SPA or not have rarely a good reason to have a loading indicator for the initial load the browser already does that.

  • conorab@lemmy.conorab.comEnglish
    2 months

    Fingers crossed this can be a viable replacement for Collabora Online with Nextcloud, which has been a nightmare.

    • gabmus@retrolemmy.comEnglish
      2 months

      has it been a nightmare? I’m genuinely asking because I have it set up (with nextcloud master container) and although I don’t use it very often, the times I do it seems quite alright

      • conorab@lemmy.conorab.comEnglish
        2 months

        I recall spreadsheets being particularly painful on mobile when I’d try to select multiple rows and it would select way more at a time but would need to fouble-check that or find a screen recording if I made one at the time.

        The main issues is there was a bug where if there is an open session for a document in Collabora (including dead sessions say from mobile) and that Collabora server is shut down in the wrong order, then all changes including if you click “Save” will be lost. A bug was opened for this and closed by making sure the servers shut down in the correct order, but I don’t know if that fixes cases where the servers a hard shutdown.

  • Squizzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    As someone who is slowly moving off big tech, are there plugins or themes for these office suites that bring then more in line with modern UIs for office suites.

    I hate Msoft and Google but the gsuite has a nice clean set up. Microsoft less so but still doesnt feel as unwieldly as open office. I was doing a doc last night and ended up getting the chrome flatpak and signing into docs.

    • kossa@feddit.orgEnglish
      2 months

      Open Office =/= Libre Office

      The latter is a long standing fork of the former and considered the “FLOSS standard office suite”. It has a “modern” ribbon UI, but you have to set it like that, it usually comes with the “old layout” by default.

      OnlyOffice is another office suite which brings a ribbon UI by default.

      While not open source Softmaker Office mimics Microsoft Office the closest (and claims the best available MS file format compatibility, but I cannot say anything about that).

    • Domi@lemmy.secnd.meEnglish
      2 months

      If we’re talking about online editing, Collabora has web editors based on LibreOffice but with a modern UI: https://www.collaboraonline.com/

      They are really great and can be self hosted (e.g. with Nextcloud).

      For offline editing, as already mentioned, LibreOffice has an optional ribbon UI and OnlyOffice looks pretty modern as well.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2 months

        For a second I read OpenOffice instead of OnlyOffice and was perplexed how one would call that modern lmao

  • commander@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    That’ll be nice to see. I like Collabora but haven’t tried hosting it. Opening that up and LibreOffice up side by side with the tabbed interface, barely any different. Maybe LibreOffice exposes way more buttons in each tab so maybe more intimidating but it looks pretty good compared to what I remember when the tabbed interface was first made available. Looking forward to seeing this progress

  • ilsimoneviaggiatore@feddit.itEnglish
    2 months

    Great!

    I’d love to see libre office on my personal nextcloud instance. That would be an easy and effective “feature” for nextcloud which could be adopted by many business. They’re already running Nextcloud, maybe, for the digital sovereign.

    Anyway, thanks for your efforts!

  • Tenebris Nox@feddit.ukEnglish
    2 months

    I think Libre Office is fantastic and I’m glad to see the back of Microsoft. But I miss how useful mail-merge was and how limited it is in Libre. It’s my only small complaint among so many cheers for Libre.

    • 3abas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      Because you can use it on any device without having to install the whole app and sync the data separately… It’s super convenient, and cross-platform.

      It’s still self hosted and you own the data.

      • TheHive@feddit.orgEnglish
        2 months

        That’s one thing I really love about the whole self hosting deal. I find more and more apps that I can run on my server und just utilize it on all my hardware. Only have your phone on you? No problem. Working on your companies computer? Just open the browser.

        No reason to install and maintain stuff on 4 different devices

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
        2 months

        yep… I write all my papers in Google because I can access the files anywhere, and nothing beats PaperPile for referencing yet.