CODE 21.11 RC2 – a preview on the next major Collabora Online

CODE 21.11 RC2 – you can learn and test the new features already now

CODE 21.11 is the herald of the next major Collabora Online release. The free developer version – the final release is expected already within a week – includes all features and enhancements that will be available in our enterprise version. This release candidate allows everyone to learn more about new features already now. As always, your feedback on possible issues is much appreciated!

Beautiful and responsive new Sidebar, enhanced performance, improved interoperability, easier to use UI

With the upcoming release, a long list of new features and improvements will be made available. To mention a few:

  • The new “native” sidebar is drawn directly in the browsers by JavaScript, and not constructed on the server. It uses JSON files and is always beautiful and responsive. A major improvement for all users;
  • Performance improvements in many areas;
  • New “Full Screen” and other zoom buttons are available inside the “Layout” tab inside the NotebookBar;
  • New “Report an Issue” button in the “Help” tab links to the issues section on GitHub;
  • Optimized AutoFilter searching for large numbers of unique records;
  • Improved PPTX import of grey-scaled & mirrored shaped images;
  • and many, many more…
CODE 21.11: Fast & responsive “native” Sidebar

About CODE

CODE is the Collabora Online Development Edition. It contains the latest developments and is perfect for home users. It enables them to regain control of their own online documents and to host them themselves in a secure and private environment. For tech-enthusiasts, it is a low-threshold way to get involved and familiar with our online office solution. CODE will be improved continuously and our next supported and maintained Collabora Online product will be built from it. The code is available on GitHub.

 

Get CODE 21.11 RC2

 

More soon…

The final release and Collabora Online 21.11 are expected in the next weeks.
Those come with full information and with the credits we really love to make to all people in the Collabora Online community and also those in the LibreOffice community making these release possible.

Collabora Online performance wins – an insight into our ongoing work

Optimizing the performance of Collabora Online is one of the central focal points within our current development work. Following improvements in the recent Collabora Online 6.4.10 release, the upcoming 21.11 release will exhibit more of the continuous improvements in this area. The improvements may be noticeably experienced through a variety of daily work done by means of the software. But how exactly does the implementation of massive performance improvements work? It can be compared to solid detective work. Follow us through this search for clues!

Performance improvement for multiple users – a detective story 🔎

In advance of the actual coding, working on performance improvements closely resembles detective work. Simulating multiple users working on the same document, is something that turned out to be feasible with the feature in LibreOffice purposed for displaying a document within different windows (Window > New Window). This was a feature that already existed in LibreOffice predecessor OpenOffice. It may be a rarely used feature on the desktop, but it does mirror the way of collaborative editing with Collabora Online. However, one must then find out how this code scales… The investigator in this story is Collabora developer Luboš Luňák. He was on to something big here, which led to significant performance improvements across various levels, ultimately benefiting all users of LibreOffice Technology. The technical details of his search and subsequent conclusions can be seen on Luboš’ blog.

 

 

Performance wins illustrated 📊

While extensive work continues with its progress, a list of current performance improvements is also available on Luboš Luňák’s blog. The following video of the Collabora Online perf-test – a test routine we use to measure performance in Collabora Online – illustrates the performance improvements of the implementations already made. The test simulates the fast, simultaneous typing of six users in a document (the other five are not visible in the video because they are writing elsewhere in the document). The rigorous test setting, which goes far beyond what is required of the software in everyday use, is ideally suited to visualizing performance improvements. In the video, you can see the performance of Collabora Online before the latest optimizations in the upper excerpt, and the significantly better performance in current versions during (middle) and after optimizations have been implemented (bottom).

Optimizing pathological loads – before/during/after

 

Performance talk at COOL Days 2021 🆒

Collabora developer Luboš Luňák discussed the various performance improvements in Collabora Online during the Developer Day at COOL Days 2021, a conference hosted by Collabora and dedicated entirely to Collabora Online. His talk “Rendering wastage and performance wins” covered the profiling process, described existing performance issues and displayed a variety of improvements at different levels. Technically interested people can find his talk on YouTube. The corresponding slides are also available for download.

Watch the video!
Download the slides!

 

 

Please try out Collabora Online 21.11 – RC 1, and let us know of any workloads which you find have issues so that we may expand our internal testing & benchmarking to include them.

About Collabora Online

Collabora Online is the powerful LibreOffice-based online office that supports all major documents, spreadsheets and presentation file formats, which can all be easily integrated in many infrastructures and solutions. Key features are collaborative editing and excellent office file formatting support. Collabora Online is excellent for enterprises that need a powerful office suite in the Cloud, or on-premises, that protects their privacy and allows them to keep full control of their sensitive corporate data. Collabora Online – built on LibreOffice Technology – enables Hosting and Cloud businesses to include document viewing and collaborative editing functionality into their service offerings.

 

 

Collabora Office 6.4.13 for Android & iOS – Gives You the Widest Range of Features and Best Performance

The latest Collabora Office release, which is based on the LibreOffice technology core, brings many new features to your Android-based phones and tablets, as well as to Chromebooks and iOS. It offers better speed and comes with a range of user interface improvements. Among the new features are the editing of fontworks, CSV import and the ability to open PDF documents on mobile devices. Many of the improvements had already arrived on iOS with the recent 6.4.12 update, but this latest release of Collabora Office on Mobile further empowers you to maintain control of your documents, no matter where you are!

Talking about the latest release, Nicolas Christener, CEO at Adfinis, commented, “Collabora Office on Mobile is a real alternative to proprietary office editors on Android, iOS and Chrome. Our work with Collabora has delivered some specific customer benefits, such as the much improved tablet sidebar and user experience, and we’re pleased to support this ongoing product enhancement.”

“Collabora Office on Mobile is ideal for enterprise users wanting to edit their documents on the go using their phones or tablets. It’s great to work with Adfinis, and other partners, who understand the importance of digital sovereignty and have helped to make this a reality,” said, Michael Meeks, General Manager of Collabora Productivity.

 

Import CSV files to your phone

Collabora Office 6.4.13 for mobile adds the ability to open CSV files in a spreadsheet. When opening a CSV file in Collabora, the dialog with the import settings, such as the character set, language, starting row, and separator, are shown. The dialog will also display a preview of the imported values before you tap ‘OK’ to import a file in Calc.

 

VBA compatible macros on mobile

Macros extend the functionality by automating tasks in Collabora Office. Run them now on your mobile application.

 

Move sheets and freeze rows or columns

Two very convenient features for working with spreadsheets arrived on Android. Use the tabs to access a dialog allowing you to move or copy the selected sheet. Also, the possibility to freeze panes or rows is now available on your mobile devices via the Sheet dialog.

 

Fontwork text art on mobile devices

Fontwork objects are fun to work with and a good way to add visual highlights to your documents. You can now add and edit them on your mobile device. The new feature is available in the Insert dialog.

 

Connector tool and glue points

The connector tool is a very handy feature to visualise relations in presentation, drawing with for example organisational charts. The new glue points can be attached to the junctures of any objects. The glue points will appear automatically when a connector is selected.

 

Style preview on tablets & Chromebooks

All the above features are available on phones, tablets, and Chromebooks alike. However, there is more to be discovered using the bigger screens. Tablets and Chromebooks do feature the new Style Preview widget found on the NotebookBar, making it easier to recognise and select Styles in all your text documents, such as open document format (ODT) and Microsoft OOXML DOCX.

 

Improved context menus for tabs in spreadsheets

The context menus of the tabs in spreadsheets have been revised. They now react flexibly and display the appropriate options in each case. For example, if only a single or several tabs are available in the spreadsheet.

 

Largest set of features and best performance

There are also important aspects to our mobile apps which you can’t see with your naked eye, but which noticeably improve your workflow with documents. Over the last few months, we have focused heavily on maximising the performance of our flagship product, Collabora Online, streamlining code and optimising processes in a number of places. Many of these improvements have been incorporated into Collabora Office 6.4.13 for Android and Chrome OS, and the earlier released 6.4.12 version for iOS. The current release is our mobile office suite with the largest set of features, and is at the same time the best performing.

 

Download Collabora Office 6.4.13

Collabora Office for iOS, Android and Chrome OS is available through the Play Store and App Store. We also provide the latest snapshot .apk for Android for download! The iOS version had recently been updated to version 6.4.12 and will see additional fixes soon. A vibrant and welcoming community has evolved around Collabora Online & Collbaora Office. If you would like to get in touch or get involved, visit us in the forum or on GitHub.

 

LibreOffice Technology

 

LibreOffice Technology
Collabora Office for Mobile devices is built on LibreOffice Technology

 

About Collabora Productivity

Collabora Productivity is the driving force behind putting LibreOffice in the Cloud, providing Collabora Online and a range of products and consulting to enterprise and government. Powered by the largest team of certified LibreOffice engineers in the world, it is a leading contributor to the LibreOffice codebase and community. Collabora Office for Desktop and Collabora Online provide a business-hardened office suite with long-term, multi-platform support. Collabora Productivity is a division of Collabora, the global software consultancy dedicated to providing the benefits of Open Source to the commercial world, specialising in mobile, automotive and consumer electronics industries. For more information, visit www.collaboraoffice.com or follow Collabora Office on Twitter .