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Welcome Dan Williams, new LibreOffice Developer focusing on UI/UX 🥳 (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Wazay2@sh.itjust.works to c/programming@programming.dev

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https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/12/04/welcome-dan-williams-new-libreoffice-developer-focusing-on-ui-ux/

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[-] Saithe@lemmy.blahaj.zone 43 points 4 days ago

Thank god

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 7 points 3 days ago

I wouldn't expect the UI/UX to magically improve, in the same way that e.g. Audacity's is, or Blender's did back in the day.

LibreOffice is ancient and enormous. It would take a decent sized team several years to overhaul its UX.

[-] deeferg@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Has Audacity gotten better since I used it as a teen to record songs around 2010? Loved the product but my god was it ever tough to look at.

[-] DanWolfstone@leminal.space 3 points 2 days ago

It has! The current project lead shows some of the ideas in a video

[-] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

Congrats Dan!

[-] skisnow@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

srsly though it's astonishing just how much global geopolitics hinges on whether this is successful. MS Office is the main blocker to the EU migrating off US tech.

[-] andioop@programming.dev 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Thrilled. I recently started trying LibreOffice thanks to a friend of mine and I admit that as someone used to Microsoft Office or Google Workspace, I feel like a total idiot always searching up "how to [do something] libreoffice" for things I know how to do already in Office/Workspace (or am confident I could figure out by fooling around in them for a few minutes).

[-] Aufgehtsabgehts@feddit.org 10 points 3 days ago

That doesn't make you an idiot, instead it indicates how bad the UI of LibreOffice is.

And they hired someone with a focus on the MacOS-Version, so don't hold your breath for any improvements in the foreseeable future on other platforms.

[-] Stitch0815@feddit.org 3 points 3 days ago

Do you really think it's that bad? Is it modern? No. But is it necessarily bad? At least I don't think so.

I think it focuses on consitency with other FOSS Software. And the consensus currently seems to be a focus on sidebars, which I personally like.

But also: I know nothing about UX/I design or design in genreal D

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

I just uninstalled it because it's impossible to have a normal full sized static scroll bar that doesn't disappear and has buttons. For an application centered around scrolling, this is a major major major flaw.

[-] Aufgehtsabgehts@feddit.org 5 points 3 days ago

It is such a powerfull software and capable of so much, at least LibreOffice Calc, which I use a lot. But the UI doesn't keep up with it, a lot feels hidden. And that is a shame, because it prevents new users to see that it is a great alternative.

[-] andioop@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It could just be me expecting a Sheets or Excel-like interface (I would bet Sheets UI was made specifically to be an easy transfer from Excel), and my brain being stupid when asked to learn a new one (or expecting to learn a new interface too quickly… but then again I don't usually have trouble with new software and interfaces, so maybe it really is bad UI), but thank you for the reassurance!

Sad for others who might not see improvements because of the macOS focus but still thrilled for myself, because I use LibreOffice on my Mac. This will only bite me too when my Mac kicks the bucket and I have to get a new laptop which I have already decided will run Linux.

[-] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 19 points 4 days ago

Welcome to the team, Dan! Can't wait to see where you take things. :)

[-] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 days ago

Please fix horizontal scrolling in Calc first 😩 it's a PITA to work with sheets that have wide columns.

[-] ulterno@programming.dev 0 points 3 days ago

It is so for anything having tables, from what I see.
Dev has to consider whether snapping is a better idea or smooth scrolling is and toolkits seem to have snapping as the default.

[-] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

Well, the biggest comparison I can draw is Excel and it does not have this visual limitation. Make it a toggle if people prefer, but sometimes a column is wider than your screen width, which renders the sheet unusable.

[-] ulterno@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I don't really remember enough about Excel anymore, but considering that I don't remember having that problem despite how many years I used it, I guess that is the case with it.

And yes, a toggle would be nice. In fact, a few months ago, I was thinking of putting up a request over to the LibreOffice team, when I was working on the table view of another OSS project, but then procrastinated until I forgot. Honestly, if there are enough people that have a problem with this little thingy, it'd be better off fixed. Specially in the Qt implementation at least, it really is just a boolean toggle even for the developer.

Would you like to put up a bug report to them?

[-] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This has been reported many times over many years. From what I understand it's not easy to fix.

2011:

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40917

[-] ulterno@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Hmm. Well, I guess they are not using the Qt Widgets TableView then.
Perhaps I'll take a look too, next time I feel like.

Oof that's a lot of reports. And even a survey

[-] Korne127@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Honestly, since I switched from LibreOffice to OnlyOffice, I'm much more happy with it; it looks and feels so much better and more mature

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

The header navigation, and normal scroll bar.

[-] ap1werks@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago

he's seem some shit, and he's gonna see more!

[-] myfunnyaccountname@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 days ago

Liquid glass coming soon.

[-] Kissaki@programming.dev 11 points 3 days ago

Liquid glass? Sounds hot. 🤡

[+] Aufgehtsabgehts@feddit.org -9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Meanwhile the state of the UI/UX on Linux: I dare you to rotate your paper in LibreOffice Writer to ~~portrait~~ landscape in under a minute, if you haven't recently used the function.

[-] kaulquappus@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

To add one datapoint: I actually installed LibreOffice just now just to try it out. I went via

Format > Page Style > General [this tab was open by default] > Orientation: Landscape

If that is the correct way, then it was, IMO, hard to miss and fast to find. If it was the wrong way*, however then I'd say I find the menu labels misleading.

*I am not quite sure, because the dialogue had the Title "Page Style: Default Page Style", so I would have expected pages in all new documents to now start out in landscape orientation, but I opened a new document, and the page was in portrait orientation. So, I think I did what I tried to do - change orientation only in the current document - in spite of that (misleading, thus proving your point?) dialogue title.

[-] tomenzgg@midwest.social 14 points 4 days ago

Layout > Orientation > Landscape (I presume you meant that since the default orientation is Portrait)

Took me about 3 seconds.

[-] Aufgehtsabgehts@feddit.org 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

For me it was under Format - Page Style, burried in some long dropdown menu. It is absolutly not user friendly, if you are new to the software or don't use it very often.

I needed one minute to find it and I kind of knew what I was searching for (a window with all the settings for the page). The UI should be made in a way where the slowest user (apparently me) will find such essential functions fast, like in every other writing software (MS Office, OnlyOffice, Google shit, ...).

So for me the UI of LibreOffice is a bad one.

[-] tomenzgg@midwest.social 7 points 3 days ago

To be fair, you seem to be using the original UI that mirrored Word 2003's UI (which, when I first switched over to Linux back in 2012, I was positively thrilled about Writer having as it was basically a drop-in replacement for Word, then).

I dunno if I just occasionally used Word too many times since then but I find the old UI impenetrable now, as well; but LibreOffice has support for the Ribbon UI (and 2–3 similar ones, I think), as well. Maybe you might find it easier?

I almost never switch the orientation of Writer so I genuinely was pretty much finding how to do it for the first time.

[-] Aufgehtsabgehts@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago

Maybe that's a point that Dan Williams can address: The default presets are important. With your UI I would have found it much faster, because it is where I would expect it to be.

Tantacrul/Martin Keary has some nice videos about how he redesigned Audacity and Muse Score. The point about how important sane presets are comes up quite often.

[-] egrets@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

When you install LibreOffice now, the set-up guide encourages you gently to use the newer, friendlier tabbed interface. I don't know if the same is true for in-place updates.

[-] PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

42.07 seconds. Have never used the function before. I just used the "search commands" function.

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 7 points 3 days ago

24 seconds.

[-] ulterno@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago

<15 seconds.
Including starting LibreOffice Writer. This is on a 5400RPM HDD and Writer was definitely not cached, since I haven't opened it in days.

Now how long did it take to start MS Word on my laptop again?

[-] Aufgehtsabgehts@feddit.org 3 points 3 days ago

I think you and many of the downvoters are missing my point:

If the default setting leads me to an UI, where I, an average user, needs so long to find such a basic function, then the UI is bad. And I am very patient, but if you want to convince the average MS Office user, that Linux + LibreOffice is an alternative, then it needs to be better then this.

And I am obviously disappointet that they hired someone with a focus on MacOS and not Linux, where a big UI/UX overhaul would be needed. It sais in the article, that the new hire will also look at overall improvements beside MacOS, but that won't be enough to polish the UX to the point where people would prefer LibreOffice over MS Office.

[-] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 days ago

Can you remember the first time you used any MS office software ? Yeah that's right, like a toddler trying to stand up and walk for the first time...

We are so used to MS that we can't switch to anything else, because evey other software doesn't do it the "same way as MS".

It's not a question if LibreOffice works the same as MS Office, but how much time you're willing to invest to learn a new tool that isn't Microsoft.

If your 30 years MS experience isn't able to switch paradigm with that change, that's okay... Just stay with Microsoft and let the newer generation take the lead :)

[-] ulterno@programming.dev 0 points 3 days ago

where I, an average user, needs so long to find such a basic function

I am not sure about that.
The default UI is similar to the old MS Office Word and the new alternative (which from what I remember, LibreOffice actually asks you to choose from in a dialogue on first start, so you don't need to look through menus to set your preference) uses the newer tabbed paradigm.

And while I do prefer the new one, I didn't find the old one any harder than MS Office Word 2003 or the older version that came around Win 98.

The only thing that made me different from the average user back then, was that I actually read and understood user prompts before clicking "Next" or whatever.

[-] kaulquappus@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

To add one datapoint: I actually installed LibreOffice just now just to try it out. I went via

Format > Page Style > General [this tab was open by default] > Orientation: Landscape

If that is the correct way, then it was, IMO, hard to miss and fast to find. If it was the wrong way*, however then I'd say I find the menu labels misleading.

*I am not quite sure, because the dialogue had the Title "Page Style: Default Page Style", so I would have expected pages in new documents to now start out in landscape orientation, but I opened a new document, and the page was in portrait orientation. So, I think I did what I tried to do in spite of that (misleading?) dialogue title.

this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026

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