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The New Collabora Office for Desktop

collaboraonline.com

41–50 of 128 posts

Re: The New Collabora Office for Desktop

#41
post #21

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…

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.

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

Re: The New Collabora Office for Desktop

#42

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.

OnlyOffice is nice if you ignore the Russian background of it. I wouldn't trust it. https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1j7zlf2/onlyoffi...

This is honestly news to me. I had no idea.

Re: The New Collabora Office for Desktop

#43
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.

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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.

Re: The New Collabora Office for Desktop

#46
post #8

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.”

[0] https://paste.c-net.org/FuriousWhistler

Re: The New Collabora Office for Desktop

#47
post #40

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.

Re: The New Collabora Office for Desktop

#48
post #47
post #40

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 regularly both libreoffice and collabora online and I can say the former is snappy compared to the second. It can take a longer time to open thought, mostly on Windows.

Re: The New Collabora Office for Desktop

#50
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).

Uninstalled.

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