Browser based Libreoffice

vyas · March 2022

They use something called LOWA.

https://www.makeuseof.com/use-libreoffice-in-web-browser/

Bring it on, Mr. Lowa Lowa….

Though personally I am not sure why I should download a 300 MB install in my browser cache (?). Plus, NC (or Yunohost) allow me to do the same. As Collabora.

Edit 1: also Onlyoffice as mentioned by @sanvit below.

So what really is the utility of web based Libreoffice? Is it a case of too little, too late ?

(I use LO in offline mode extensively)

Edit2: the 300 MB download does take time! 10 minutes and counting on my 200 Mbps connection. Even turned off VPN. Interesting that the status says

Qt for WebAssembly: soffice

soffice.bin (from the Staroffice era) brings back fond memories link to my blogpost

MikeA · March 2022

Interesting... but it feels like I am using a browser based VNC accessing it lol. Weird latency.

sanvit · March 2022

There's also OnlyOffice as well
https://www.onlyoffice.com/document-editor.aspx

angstrom · March 2022

@vyas said:
They use something called LOWA.

https://www.makeuseof.com/use-libreoffice-in-web-browser/

Bring it on, Mr. Lowa Lowa….

Though personally I am not sure why I should download a 300 MB install in my browser cache (?). Plus, NC (or Yunohost) allow me to do the same. As Collabora.

[...]

So what really is the utility of web based Libreoffice? Is it a case of too little, too late ?

Or perhaps: "too much, too late".

This is a gem:

Behrens announced that the browser version will run entirely locally. This means users won't have to rely on servers at all. Your browser will do all the heavy lifting. It could also allow LOWA to work faster than server-based web apps.

In general, I'm very skeptical about the "do everything in a browser, assuming a good internet connection" trend, but I find the quoted statement very amusing: so it's supposed to be an advantage that you can download the whole bloody package every time that you want to use it?

For those occasions when I want to edit a document online, I find that Collabora for Nextcloud works pretty well.

Decicus · March 2022

@angstrom said:
In general, I'm very skeptical about the "do everything in a browser, assuming a good internet connection" trend, but I find the quoted statement very amusing: so it's supposed to be an advantage that you can download the whole bloody package every time that you want to use it?

I imagine that at some point you're not re-downloading the same 300 MB each time you load the page (right now it seems you do) and maybe only when an update is available.

Suppose it might also be targeted towards being portable. It allows you to basically have a ZIP file with an HTML page and a few JS/WASM files, then just open the page on any computer and it just... runs regardless of OS (assuming there's a web browser installed that can run JavaScript).

Either way, I think it's a cool idea. Obviously a web-based "docs" editor isn't a new concept, but I don't know of anything that is as "portable" as this?

angstrom · March 2022

@Decicus said:

@angstrom said:
In general, I'm very skeptical about the "do everything in a browser, assuming a good internet connection" trend, but I find the quoted statement very amusing: so it's supposed to be an advantage that you can download the whole bloody package every time that you want to use it?

I imagine that at some point you're not re-downloading the same 300 MB each time you load the page (right now it seems you do) and maybe only when an update is available.

Suppose it might also be targeted towards being portable. It allows you to basically have a ZIP file with an HTML page and a few JS/WASM files, then just open the page on any computer and it just... runs regardless of OS (assuming there's a web browser installed that can run JavaScript).

Either way, I think it's a cool idea. Obviously a web-based "docs" editor isn't a new concept, but I don't know of anything that is as "portable" as this?

In principle, I can kind of see why a portable LibreOffice -- a portable LibreOffice that runs in a browser -- might be attractive to some people in some circumstances.

Nevertheless, given the sheer size and complexity of LibreOffice, I don't see why it would be attractive to run it in a browser, at least not in the foreseeable future.

By the way, there's a portable version of LibreOffice for Windows ( https://www.libreoffice.org/download/portable-versions/ ) that one could put on a USB stick.

Decicus · March 2022

@angstrom said:

@Decicus said:

@angstrom said:
In general, I'm very skeptical about the "do everything in a browser, assuming a good internet connection" trend, but I find the quoted statement very amusing: so it's supposed to be an advantage that you can download the whole bloody package every time that you want to use it?

I imagine that at some point you're not re-downloading the same 300 MB each time you load the page (right now it seems you do) and maybe only when an update is available.

Suppose it might also be targeted towards being portable. It allows you to basically have a ZIP file with an HTML page and a few JS/WASM files, then just open the page on any computer and it just... runs regardless of OS (assuming there's a web browser installed that can run JavaScript).

Either way, I think it's a cool idea. Obviously a web-based "docs" editor isn't a new concept, but I don't know of anything that is as "portable" as this?

In principle, I can kind of see why a portable LibreOffice -- a portable LibreOffice that runs in a browser -- might be attractive to some people in some circumstances.

Nevertheless, given the sheer size and complexity of LibreOffice, I don't see why it would be attractive to run it in a browser, at least not in the foreseeable future.

Oh yeah, I agree. I don't really see the point of this at the moment, besides "look what we can do!"

@angstrom said:
By the way, there's a portable version of LibreOffice for Windows ( https://www.libreoffice.org/download/portable-versions/ ) that one could put on a USB stick.

It's a fair point (and I was aware of it previously), but it has two issues I can think of: It's not cross-platform and some computers are restricted from running arbitrary software.

Granted it's likely very niche who would need to run LibreOffice from a USB on multiple OSes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

angstrom · March 2022

@vyas said:
soffice.bin (from the Staroffice era) brings back fond memories link to my blogpost

If you don't mind, a few comments on your blog post:

Many of you may be aware that Libreoffice and Openoffice have roots in Star Office, the office suite that was developed by Sun Microsystems.

Strictly speaking, the open source version of StarOffice produced by Sun was called "OpenOffice.org". People often called it "OpenOffice", but its official name was "OpenOffice.org".

but LibreOffice remains the most well known and actively developed fork of Star Office today.

LibreOffice was a fork of OpenOffice.org, not of StarOffice directly (which was closed source).

Star office project may be long dead, but they do have an active forum still. I was pleasantly surprised to find them discussing issues and making announcements even in 2021 and 2022.

That's the forum for Apache OpenOffice. The URL https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/ also leads to that page.

vyas · March 2022

@angstrom congratulatoins on your observations :-)

Strictly speaking, the open source version of StarOffice produced by Sun was called "OpenOffice.org". People often called it "OpenOffice", but its official name was "OpenOffice.org".

-clarification added. And yes. --> wikimedia commons link showing timeline

LibreOffice was a fork of OpenOffice.org, not of StarOffice directly (which was closed source).

I keep it simple for the average reader: Fork of a fork IMO is still a fork. Gets complicated to explain something like "Ubuntu is derived from Debian and Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but we still have Linux Mint and LMDE. And they all use apt."

but your point is taken.

That's the forum for Apache OpenOffice

Originally the path I followed was staroffice.org --> Forums. Did not notice the change in domain. My bad
on closer observation - this site (and .com domain) is used by a Staroffice distributor. Heck they even sell SO 8! Not sure about the legality. Updated link directly to the Apache Openoffice forum.

angstrom · March 2022

@vyas said: on closer observation - this site (and .com domain) is used by a Staroffice distributor. Heck they even sell SO 8! Not sure about the legality.

It all looks very questionable to me, but at least they offer StarOffice 6 and 7 for free (even though they very probably don't have the right to do so).

I would have thought that Oracle acquired StarOffice with the purchase of Sun.

Anyway, it looks like an abandoned web site to me.

angstrom · March 2022

@vyas said: I keep it simple for the average reader: Fork of a fork IMO is still a fork. Gets complicated to explain something like "Ubuntu is derived from Debian and Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but we still have Linux Mint and LMDE. And they all use apt."

It's not so complicated.

There's educational value in trying to convey some of the complexities of history.

You're right that a fork of a fork is still a fork, but a fork of a fork of X isn't necessarily a fork of X.

To use your example, Linux Mint is a fork because it's a fork of a fork (= Ubuntu), but Linux Mint isn't a fork of Debian even though it's a fork of a fork (= Ubuntu) of Debian.

(I'll show myself out. )

vyas · March 2022

Looks like there is someone already doing it - Rollapp

(I had mentioned them in my notes for blog post, but could not find them yesterday) - today I did

https://www.rollapp.com/apps/office

on a separate note @Not_Oles this could be something to try out : https://www.rollapp.com/apps/graphics (web based, so Chrome friendly)

Browser based Libreoffice

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