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+---- Thread: LibreOffice usable with Arch Linux on the Pinephone? (/showthread.php?tid=19342)
LibreOffice usable with Arch Linux on the Pinephone? - Peter Gamma - 07-11-2024
Users complained that LibreOffice is not usable on the Pinphone screen.
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=16614&page=4
But in the following video it looks quiet usable starting from 5:15 in the video.
https://youtu.be/BWk2Z2HjT7U
It is Arch Linux ARM with LXDE on PinePhone Pro. Is LibreOffice pre-installed and somehow adapted here? What are your thoughts about this?
in the comments of the YouTube video it says:
"This is Arch Linux ARM with LXDE running on the PinePhone Pro, IT IS NOT a mobile environment. However with some tweaks, it is possible to make it usable on a mobile device.
To accomplish this, I took the mtev input driver from ArchAndroid then compile it for aarch64 and installing a desktop environment of my choice. This setup (starting from barebone image) only took a few hours.
You can get the modified mtev driver below:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...
Arch images for PinePhone (Pro): https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded...
RE: LibreOffice usable with Arch Linux on the Pinephone? - Kevin Kofler - 07-13-2024
This has a zoom factor of 1 (instead of the factor 2 that is normal on mobile) with a tiny font size (a size that would be standard on a desktop, i.e., something like 10 pt at 96 dpi, and, as mentioned before, without applying a zoom factor). Good luck using the menus or even the toolbar icon buttons with your fingers without misclicking. Compare the size of the UI elements in LibreOffice with the ones on the virtual keyboard (which are the size they are for a reason – I still manage to mistype often enough even at that size). Also, the toolbars are usable only in landscape mode (where they barely fit, and even there the formatting toolbar has an overflow button). Try using this the way you would normally use a touch application, in portrait mode at a zoom factor 2, it will be completely unusable, since everything will be truncated. And also, in landscape mode (the only usable one) and with the virtual keyboard open (which is going to be the case basically always when using a word processor without a physical keyboard), you can see exactly one line of text in the document view.
So, is this usable in this setup? Sorta, though it will be a pain to use (touch misclicks, no way to see the context of what you are typing). Is this usable the way you would normally use a mobile application? No way.
LibreOffice is a great desktop application, but the UI will need to be completely redesigned to be usable on mobile devices.
RE: LibreOffice usable with Arch Linux on the Pinephone? - Peter Gamma - 07-28-2024
If you want to write a book this is certainly not the solution. I use now Softmaker Office on an Android phone. It offers the whole functionality of the desktop software, but on the Android phone I use only a limited range of function. But it is still great to have the same file format on the Android phone and on the PC.
I miss certain functions of LibreOffice in Softmaker. And LibreOffice is a contemporary software which is highly costumizable. So if someone needs LibreOffice on a mobile phone, is there a better solution than this here with with Arch Linux ARM on the Pinephone?
Since we not have also the Ri mini 4 a keyboard which works with the Pinephone:
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=19352
We have a solution with is worth mentioning.