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Welcome Dan Williams, new LibreOffice Developer focusing on UI/UX - The Document Foundation Blog (blog.documentfoundation.org)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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excited to see what this means for the project, the poor UI/UX of libreoffice is easily its most glaring flaw imo

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[–] 56 points 10 months ago* (14 children)

Agreed, if you grew using another program, switching is hard unless it's UX/UI is superb.

When I ditched Adobe, Inkscape was a breeze. GIMP is hard AF and Krita a bit easier but it doesn't have the features I need. I ended up using Photopea, and now I've tried Affinity and it's the best Photoshop alternative I've tried yet.

Collabora is looking pretty good so far. Still a few rough edges but easier than any other FOSS office software.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Inkscape is my favourite Linux program. And the UI got so much better the last few years.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    GIMP is well worth getting used to, especially now we are post 3.0 with a proper non-destructive workflow for filters/effects. I had always found it confusing to learn, having the Photoshop UI fossilised into my neural pathways, but what unlocked it for me was following an online GIMP course for 2/3 hours, which amounted to far less time than I had formerly spent cracking photoshop or working to pay for it.

    Some great plugins are coming out now too. The Batcher plugin in particular makes GIMP (and GMIC by extension) extremely powerful for automation.

    Good times.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    I love Inkscape, it’s so intuitive! I didn’t even need to read the docs. And now that Affinity is coming to Linux I’m hoping I can switch my work to these options.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    I think it's ok for switching to be hard if the UI is built for productivity. I'm not really a "creative" worker in the most common sense, so I'm guessing GIMP's UI sucks even after you learn it, but I do know VIM is not intuitive at all, yet improves productivity compared to most IDEs/text editors. I've also worked on an application, working closely with our somewhat technical users, and they would suggest UI changes that were often not intuitive, but increase their productivity a bit (less need for using a mouse, less keystrokes/clicks and stuff like that).

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    YMMV but I've found the GIMP UI to be pretty much on a par with photoshop after having learnt the UI and learnt/modified the keyboard shortcuts. Some things are in fact better in GIMP, like panning and zooming. I've transitioned to GIMP on my own hardware but still use photoshop at a workplace.

    If photoshop was open source then I think there would be a conversation to be had but I wouldn't pay for it now that I'm used to GIMP.

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    • [–] 30 points 10 months ago (30 children)

    Yes, I feel bad recommending LibreOffice to people who only used paid software, as the UI is quite a hurdle. Installing a theme and symbol-pack was the first thing I did, even before editing or writing something...

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (23 children)

    I honestly fail to see what's wrong with the UI? Sure, it's not pretty but it is functional as it is.

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  • [–] [S] 37 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    it works, but it's far from ideal. a lot of features are tucked away behind unintuitive context menus, and on some systems you need to do a bit of configuration for it to look right. for example, it uses bitmap icons by default, so if you use a hidpi screen the icons will look atrocious until you figure out how to switch them to vector icons.

    and an ugly UI is a problem by itself. it's uninviting, unwelcoming. it gives a feeling of jank, of amateurism, and not in a good way. if you open the app for the first time and immediately think "this looks like it was last updated in 2003", it's not a good thing.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (18 children)

    The insane amount of clutter. Compare LibreOffice to OnlyOffice

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  • [+] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I never tried looking into UI options, I use just OnlyOffice nowadays but LibreOffice should consider turning that on by default if it's an option.

    OnlyOffice also has a 10/10 screen when you open it, instantly asking whether you want to open a text document, PDF, make a slideshow etc. It's just very polished and they actually put effort into the UI.

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  • [+] 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    I don't think LibreOffice is 'bad' either, the functionality is great and the foss license is superior to Onlyoffice

    But when I compare it to Word and OnlyOffice (especially OnlyOffice since it's free and open source) it lacks that polish and good default settings.

    Not everything has to be to be VIM, good defaults are very important especially for novice users. And OnlyOffice has understood that very well.

    I would like for LibreOffice to succeed. Therefore I hope they take some design cues from OnlyOffice or have a good UI developer even come up with something better. Basically I hope the guy in the post is going to town and heavily modernizes the current default LibreOffice layout.

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    [–] 23 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    software engineer, team lead, and manager at Red Hat for more than 20 years.

    Please keep this man away from ui/ux. Nerds designing UI is how libre office got in this mess in the first place.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

    Nerds are the reason computers even exist. Maybe you need to leave the internet You muscle-brained jock. Go take your protein-shake.

    More importantly who are your low-IQ monkey friends that gave you likes ?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    Ok? They can stick to building computers and people who actually use the computers can work on their usabilities. Nerds dont need ui they can use the terminal.

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    • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    Libreoffice is dope af.

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    [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    FYI: You can use the new Collabora Desktop Version of LibreOffice with a streamlined interface if you want.

    https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/collabora-online-now-available-on-desktop/

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    [–] 2 points 10 months ago*

    I mean I got used to LO's default UI and make me hate ribbon ui that come with MS OF and Onlyoffice, so I hope they improve on the default ui instead of replacing it (if they replace it atleast keep the old ui as a toggle)

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    [–] 2 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    Why do people keep saying "UI/UX"?

    UI is user interface.

    UX is user experience.

    One is to be developed (with code), and the other is to be designed (in Figma for instance). They have very little overlap!

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    [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    I just want LibreOffice not to be a sluggish bugfest on macOS

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    [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Hey I just used libre writer today. It was a smooth experience. Surprisingly easy ui.

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