LibreOffice 5.1 Released with Boatload of Changes
The Document Foundation today announced the release of LibreOffice 5.1. The team has been working since the last release to "completely reorganize" the interface for "improved ease of use." New functions have been added as well as simplified cloud operations. "LibreOffice 5.1 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites."
The 17 pages of release notes reads like a major milestone release. In addition to the new features and redesign, LibreOffice received improvements "under the hood" as well. Further code clean-up and lots and lots of bug fixes were incorporated, but some of the visible highlights include:
* Reorganization of the menus, including the addition of a Styles menu
* Reorganization of the Area and Line content panels in the Properties Sidebar
* New Chart sidebar for editing of charts
* "AutoCorrect Options" added to the spell checking context menu
* Spelling Dialog now has toolbar for pasting and inserting special characters
* Addition of a Open/Save to/from Remote servers in Start Screen and File menu
* New contour and spacing controls
* Added statistics regressions calculate dialog to Calc
* Added two new toolbox icons to toggle the Mode Tab bar in Impress/Draw
* Master slide view now has a different background color in Impress
* New button on presenter console to restart the timer of the slideshow without restarting the slideshow
* Four new OpenGL transitions have been added, transitions now grouped for easier selection
A lot of thought went into the redesign of the menu. Detailed guidelines were followed that included items like all commands should be within the main menu and no more than 10 menu categories on the toolbar. There shouldn't be more than 20 items in any single level of menu and there shouldn't be more than three level in a menu. Items should be sorted according to importance and menu toggles should always enable the option rather than disable. There was a method to the madness.
The Document Foundation has provided videos to introduce users to the new features and redesign at the LibreOffice Website. This releases is the latest and greatest for " technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users." Enterprise and supported customers are recommended to stay with mature 5.0. Users may wish to support LibreOffice with a donation, but be sure to download your Fresh copy from www.libreoffice.org.