Last Updated on November 24, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
The Pinephone is one of the first Linux phones which can run LibreOffice on it which is great. But users in the Pin64 forum complained that it is not usable in the current state. Why is this so?
A major issue is the small Pinephone screens and the tons of features which are offered in the graphical user interface of LibreOffice which just not fit onto the Pinephone screen.
TRS 80 from the Pine64 community suggested to use Emacs on the Pinephone. But Emac was released in 1976:
And for whom is this a solution? I have used Textmaker and Planmaker on Android phones a lot. They are both touchable but I use those with a keyboard. These apps basically have the same functions of their desktop counter parts which is great.
This is the same with LibreOffice which is now available on the Pinephone. We can use the original LibreOffice files without conversion on the Pinephone. Even if the whole user interface is thrown out of LibreOffice on the Pinephone as a first step and LibreOffice it is controlled completely by keyboard, is it not still better than using Emacs which does not have a user interface either and is from 1976?
And as a first step it can also be a great opportunity for the Pinephone keyboard to unfold it’s full potential and to use every possible keyboard key for a LibreOffice function. The Pinephone keyboard is very robust and hard wired connected to the Pinephone. Is this not a great keyboard for professional writers?
Or at least as a first step would be to through out everything that is disturbing on LibreOffice on the Pinephone to make it more usable. And to publish the settings file so that other can paricipate in the development to make out of it a community project. The result would be a sort of a reduced LibreOffice version for the Pinephone which keeps it’s full function, but only the user interface is reduced to fit on the Pinephone screen.
In the current state LibreOffice on the Pinephone is eventually great for LibreOffice developers:
https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/libreoffice-is-now-availlable-on-the-linux-pinephone/98574/2
May our efforts with LibreOffice on the Pinephone bear fruits at the LibreOffice developers.