LibreOffice: The Next Five Years • Hacker News Board

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#11

Post by teekert » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

fock wrote: post #5

so basically iceweasel vs. firefox again. I'm fine with that (and still miss the icon)

Could be that the enterprise will include some cloud sync for auto backup (like O365/OneDrive), of course that will not be free. Best case (call me naive) but it could just be that the personal edition simply does not ask for the syncing, worst case, it will nag you constantly.

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#12

Post by Mekantis » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:19 AM UTC

maxmouchet wrote: post #7

As much as I love free software, LibreOffice interface feels old and ugly (to me, at least). It would be nice if there was more focus on the UX/UI design in open source projects. Of course, most programmers are not UX/UI designers, and designers don't tend to work for free on open source projects.

There's also the question of how open open source programmers might be to some UX/UI designer stepping in and trying to force their vision on the project.

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#13

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:20 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#14

Post by pizza234 » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

Jonnax wrote: post #10

I haven't used Libreoffice in years. Did they ever update the UI styling? I remember it had a very "java" look to it. You know that feeling when you open an app, you know it's going to be a bit janky.

Do you happen to be on Mac? On Debian-based systems, AFAIK, there are specific packages for DE integration, for example, for GTK3, which makes LO look native (although, I think that the styling is highly customized, because of the functionality requirements).

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#15

Post by pulse7 » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

maxmouchet wrote: post #7

As much as I love free software, LibreOffice interface feels old and ugly (to me, at least). It would be nice if there was more focus on the UX/UI design in open source projects. Of course, most programmers are not UX/UI designers, and designers don't tend to work for free on open source projects.

Beauty/ugliness is subjective. For some it is "old and ugly", for some it is "retro".

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#16

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

Jonnax wrote: post #10

I haven't used Libreoffice in years. Did they ever update the UI styling? I remember it had a very "java" look to it. You know that feeling when you open an app, you know it's going to be a bit janky.

[deleted]

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#17

Post by kungato » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:28 AM UTC

Is there any electron gpl based Word and Excel alternative? I always imagined running on top of electron helped you skip a lot of work and helped the app not look like shit/LibreOffice

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#18

Post by maxmouchet » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:29 AM UTC

pulse7 wrote: post #15

maxmouchet wrote: post #7

As much as I love free software, LibreOffice interface feels old and ugly (to me, at least). It would be nice if there was more focus on the UX/UI design in open source projects. Of course, most programmers are not UX/UI designers, and designers don't tend to work for free on open source projects.

Beauty/ugliness is subjective. For some it is "old and ugly", for some it is "retro".

I agree, and programmers (at least on HN) seems to prefer minimalist and/or retro interfaces.

However I'm pretty confident that if I show such an interface to non technical people, they will feel that it doesn't look nice, compared to whatever proprietary app they use on their phone, Windows/Mac, ...

I personally don't use Word nor LibreOffice (I use mostly LaTeX), but if we want free software to become more popular, there must be a focus on the design.

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#19

Post by anoncake » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:31 AM UTC

kungato wrote: post #17

Is there any electron gpl based Word and Excel alternative? I always imagined running on top of electron helped you skip a lot of work and helped the app not look like shit/LibreOffice

You know what helps skip a lot of work? Not needlessly rewriting things.

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#20

Post by openfuture » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:32 AM UTC

It's weird to me that people complain over "old and ugly" interfaces. Consistency is worth so much more than fad-chasing. Learning something is more worthwhile if you are able to trust that it won't change underneath you.

Take MS Office for example, I was made to learn how to use it in elementary school, we had an exam where we got a printed out page and had to reproduce it in an hour. This was supposed to be fundamental computer knowledge like learning to type.

I still have the same keyboard layout as back then but MS Office now has some janky "ribbon interface" which bears no resemblance to how it used to be. Although it should be criminal for public schools to teach proprietary software, we can forget about that for a minute and instead consider how futile it is to teach things that are not open standards or at least free software. You have absolutely no assurance that this knowledge will still be applicable even just a few years later.

My hope is that free software projects will attempt to preserve old interfaces (making them accessible via initial configuration) when they make updates. Besides, you shouldn't be replacing your GUI if your architecture hasn't got a clear separation between presentation and core logic.