I have just tried out the online version of Microsoft Office under MorphOS (OWB spoofing as Chrome).

The online version of MS Office is reduced in features (as seen in the screen shots below); it's kind of rudimentary actually. I think Microsoft's idea with it, is that should function as a way to edit already existing documents created in the "full" version of MS Office (and saved on Sky Drive), rather than functioning as a free, online office *replacement*.

It's completely possible to create/edit real MS Office documents on MorphOS this way, if you can live with the limitations of having to be online and the feature stripping. It can also feel a bit sluggish compared to having the real MS Office on a Windows box, some things more than other (like key repeating, and the fact that it auto-saves your work on a regular basis, which takes a second or two), and the application is prone to crash in some circumstances (like when opening the font selector and closing it again without selecting a font). When the application crash, it restarts, and recreates your document from the latest save point (or auto-save point).

Word works quite OK for what it's meant to do. It's nothing I'd write a book on though! PowerPoint is kind of OK as well. Excel is IMHO the app which suffers the most from the feature stripping.

I made some pictures! Click to show:


MS Word

Just typing some headline, text, and trying the various fonts

Going to insert some clip art. Searching for a butterfly, and find a nice blue one!

It was kind of big, so reducing it to 50%

Spellchecker doesn't like the word "MorphOS"! Huh?!

But changing the dictionary language to Swedish...

...renders a whole lot more errors!


MS PowerPoint

Selecting a theme for my new presentation

Entering a title and subtitle in the presentation's title slide

Entering some text into the new slide

New slide with two columns. Entering notes in the note field at the bottom of the screen, trying out how formated text works there. Inserting a blue butterfly from the clip art, and selecting a tilted picture effect for it

Entering a slide title and some points in the left column

Hitting the "show slide show" button. Imagine if this would have opened up in full screen mode instead of inside the browser!


MS Excel

Entering some data, changing the width of some columns

Going to insert a diagram

Diagram inserted, but going to need some editing before I'm satisfied with it

Diagram edited (new title, etc) and repositioned in the spreadsheet

Just trying out some more formating options. So I guess it's true! MorphOS is very cool, statistics never lie!

There is another Microsoft office application available there as well, "MS OneNote". I have no idea what that is. Have never used in in the "real" Office, and I haven't looked at it here either...

So, There!



[ Edited by takemehomegrandma on 2011/3/29 12:09 ]

Heh. I tried it once, too. It felt indeed really feature-stripped. By the way, if you have some crashes, try OWB 1.12, since you apparently run a previous version. Some Javascript bugs might have been fixed since.

> There is another Microsoft office application available there as well, "MS OneNote".
> I have no idea what that is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_OneNote

Once again. Thank You very much Fab for OWB !
We should pray for Fab. If he will stop doing OWB we will in a A@#.

Maybe we will star it make a donation for FF for MorphOS ;)

Then You see guys... OO for MOS is not so importent :P

Its only My (Again) opinion.

P.S. Tom have a right. Lets support somethin what exist PageStream and push company to make it better for future...
I dont need PS but i think to buy it...

[ Edited by MaveRickPL on 2011/3/29 12:18 ]

@Fab

But I'm quite sure it is v1.12 I'm using, I've been using it since the same day it was released...

Edit:
5572142558_0f4a925438_b.jpg

[ Edited by takemehomegrandma on 2011/3/29 22:04 ]

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Indeed, Fabien is one of the most valuable assets in the rare community of MorphOS developers. The most, in the application space, in my opinion.

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You mean Firefox? I don't think it would make any sense. IS it "better" than Origyn?

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Fully agree. Even if it got ported (please audience, stop laughing), when it finally came out, everybody would be using precisely cloud based office applications like Office Live. Go figure, Microsoft, the makers of the most successfull office suite ever, have chosen to copy Google's idea.

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That would make sense. Even if some day one can do DTP online, supporting original Amiga/MorphOS software is a good thing. Just like with Fab's Origyn, by the way. I suspect it's the BEST version for ANY computer.

> Even if it got ported (please audience, stop laughing), when it finally came out,
> everybody would be using precisely cloud based office applications like Office Live.

I don't see why I'd ever switch to cloud based word processing as long as I've the choice not to do so. And I know I'm not the only one to think so. There are cases when working on confidential documents where you're simply disallowed per contract to use other computers for storage than the one(s) specified in the contract. Uploading the document to the "cloud" would be breach of contract in such cases. So no, I don't think "everybody would be using precisely cloud based office applications".

I hadn't considered Andreas' point about NDAs before, but its very valid.
I also can't really see the advantages of using a cloud based word processor. Honestly, I can carry a pen drive on the off chance that I am going to work on a document at more than one computer.
And I just don't consider the internet to be secure enough for my personal information.
Are all cloud based software products run via a secure servers?

[ Edited by Jim on 2011/3/30 21:38 ]

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You are right, security reasons might rule some people out. Then, just add the word "almost" that quoted statement from me.

Right now, on PCs when I need a simple text editor I'll pull up Wordpad. There are similar tools under MorphOS.
When I look a the majority of the small operations I do on text, I don't even bother to use a full blown word processor.
And again, word processors are resource light and have been around a long time.

I am NOT using the internet to perform a task I did before I even had internet access because it offers no benefit/improvement. In fact, its slower, has less features, and relies on a lot of unnecessary technology.
Where are all the posters that were so offended by the idea of using a X11 solution?
Guys, this is the same dumb idea, using a server for a word processor.
Unless documents sharing or central storage are vital then this doesn't have much utility.
If I want a document sent to someone else, I attach it to an e-mail.

PS - Sorry about the use of the word "dumb", jmarcos. It wasn't meant to be personal, but this is a dumb idea that they've kept trying to sell me on periodically ever since PCs appeared.

[ Edited by Jim on 2011/3/31 14:27 ]

> Where are all the posters that were so offended by the idea of using a X11
> solution? Guys, this is the same dumb idea, using a server for a word processor.

Reasoning by someone who likes cloud based word processing better than using a local X11 server for it:

"these X11 solutions are no solution at all. It feels really too clumsy to be any usable at all. In this case, even googledocs feels more integrated (and maybe even somewhat faster for some things :))."
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7785&forum=9&post_id=82655#82655

>It feels really too clumsy

That, IMHO, goes for both solutions.

>In this case, even googledocs feels more integrated (and maybe even somewhat faster for some things)

Personally, our opinion are reversed on this. I think AbiWord looks like a better option for this (faster, more fully featured, LOCAL).

This is where I wish I had the time to devote to porting this. With Fab's recommended X11 server, running on faster Mac hardware, AbiWord definitely looks like a better alternative.

And until the average MorphOS user can decide for themselves, this argument is nothing but opinions.

(Just catching up on libre office postings etc after a couple of months away, and happened to chance upon this gem).

Can't believe I missed this: I was fully expecting MS Office online to require all kinds of MS components to work, but seems to work well so far, no crashes etc (and not that high memory usage so far)

I've been limiting myself to Google docs all this time, didn't even think to try MS.

you should be banned for using the Comic Sans MS font in an excel document : )

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Lol. Blame MS - default setting.
I do prefer sans-serif fonts in general for specs/reports/quotes though - fancy fonts just get in the way of the damn content.

I've found mporting into Goodle docs mangles most of my historic invoices, quotes etc which use tables a fair bit - hopefully MS web apps will at least be compatible with their own products.

Seems no less snappy so far than Google docs, and kinda-surprisingly-for-MS (although given the target of almost-any-device-compatibility, less so) it doesn't seem to rely on any client-side MS/Adobe crap being installed, nor Java (so far).

I'll be interested to see what speedup Mark's JS JIT project will bring to these sites.

Complete .doc/x compatibility is a big deal for me, since Google docs really isn't quite there yet imo, and reformatting documents after importing them gets old real fast.

>>> Just trying out some more formating options. So I guess it's true! MorphOS is very cool, statistics never lie! :-)

>> you should be banned for using the Comic Sans MS font in an excel document : )

> Lol. Blame MS - default setting. :-)

Comic Sans MS the MS Excel default font? I don't think so.

> kinda-surprisingly-for-MS [...] it doesn't seem to rely on any client-side [...] Adobe crap
> being installed, nor Java (so far).

I for one don't find it surprising that Microsoft software doesn't require Adobe or Oracle software.

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Crossposting - thought it was a reply to a screenshot I posted in another thread. Didn't have a mental image of Comic Sans MS in my mind when replying (how stupid do I feel right now, eh?)

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I suspect MS Office mobile apps might just be built on Java. I've certainly tried to access at least one online office that seemed to require flash (although not MS Office, evidently).
To be a little more accurate, I'm surprised that it doesn't require some unspecified plugins/addons/extensions/whatever to work which just aren't available to us.

[ Edited by boot_wb 09.02.2014 - 00:57 ]

> I suspect MS Office mobile apps might just be built on Java.

Microsoft Office Mobile is also available for Android and iOS, so I doubt it is built on Java.