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LibreOffice 5.1 Officially Released
prisoninmate writes: After being in development for the last three months or so, LibreOffice 5.1 comes today to a desktop environment near you with some of the most attractive features you've ever seen in an open-source office suite software product, no matter the operating system used. The release highlights of LibreOffice 5.1 include a redesigned user interface for improved ease of use, better interoperability with OOXML files, support for reading and writing files on cloud servers, enhanced support for the ODF 1.2 file format, as well as additional Spreadsheet functions and features. Yesterday, even with the previous version, I was able to successfully use a moderately complex docx template without a hitch — the kind of thing that would have been a pipe-dream not too long ago.
They're just haters. No modern computer user can honestly say they'd prefer searching through dropdown menus over the ribbon that focuses on putting the most used features at the users fingertips.
*Raises hand*
I dislike the ribbon. But then I'm a keyboard shortcuts guy. I know dozens of them for MS Office, and whenever there's a feature that I use often, I look up a keyboard shortcut if possible.
Which means the ribbon is useless to me. It takes up a bunch of space with buttons I don't need, and on the rare occasions when I need a feature advanced or rare enough that I don't know a shortcut, it's often not even on a ribbon button -- I end up going through advanced feature dialogs anyway. I use a Mac at work, so luckily I still have the drop down menus, which are usually at least twice as fast as wading through a bunch of non-intuitive icons in a half-dozen ribbon tabs with 20 buttons each.
Text was invented for a reason -- it communicates quickly, clearly, and efficiently. So I find it a lot easier to navigate when I'm searching for a feature I don't know -- which is the only time my mouse generally goes up to that part of the screen.
If you actually use the ribbon for common everyday tasks, I can understand how it might be useful for you. I'm not against offering a ribbon interface, but I do think it should be one option rather than the only one. I'm not a "hater." I just work differently and I'm just glad Mac versions of Office still give the menu options.
I deal with it just fine, as do most people who care to run Linux.
I pay nothing for Linux. I pay nothing for LibreOffice. I don't complain about having to do a little work, which has the side benefit of allowing me complete control and choice over what I have on my system.
If you want it all done for you, more like if you want it all done to you, stay with Microsoft.
Social isolation for Linux geeks is a stereotype which, like most stereotypes, don't apply universally, and in this case (Linux users) I suspect don't apply even to the majority.
Nice try, but you get a fail on this one.