Our Biggest UI/UX Refresh Yet
TL;DR
We’re shipping some serious UI/UX improvements designed to feel intuitive, reduce menu-diving, and help you move faster. Think contextual toolbars, smart tabs that appear exactly when you need them, responsive layouts that adapt to any window size, presenter controls, and clearer iconography across the board.
Why we did this
This refresh is about one thing: removing friction so more users can get more done.
We’ve listened to a lot of feedback – through our partners, customers, community channels, forums, even conference floor chats, and now we’ve acted on what you asked for.
Our approach is simple – make Collabora Online easy to use from the first click. We want users to have immediate access to the powerful editing tools they want, without turning the user interface into an airplane cockpit. That means context-aware controls that appear when they’re relevant, and progressive disclosure so advanced options are there when you need them, not when you don’t. This is only the first part of our UI/UX refresh, and the screenshots and features below show you how this it’s taking shape.
Round 1: Highlights
Stop menu diving: on‑selection formatting popup
When you select text, a compact, contextual popup appears right next to your cursor with the actions you most often need — bold, italic, underline, font family/size, colour, and more. No trek to the tab menu or right‑click required. It’s faster, it’s closer, and it fades away when you’re done or move somewhere else.
Available in: Writer and Impress (we’ve intentionally left this out of Calc for now — spreadsheets get noisy fast!)
Extensible: Are you an integrator? We’d love for you to add your own actions to the bar — e.g. an integration assistant button. Get in contact with us for help with this!
Tabs that appear when the task requires
We’ve introduced contextual tabs that only appear as you interact with content. This provides relevant functionality for the user at the right moment, and clear the space on the toolbar when you don’t. Examples include:
- Calc – Sparklines tab: edit and format in‑cell trendlines on the spot, with this context-aware automatic tab. No menu diving, less right clicking!
- Writer – Table tab: view all the table specific functions, like inserting new rows/columns, splitting cells, protecting cells, number formatting, and much more, only when a table is active.
- Picture tab (all apps): when you select an image, adjust brightness, contrast, image mode, effects, transparency and more in one place.
- Shape tab (all apps): style fills, outlines, and effects for shapes and diagrams.
Extra power in your tabs
In addition to the contextual tabs that appear when interacting with particular elements, we’ve also introduced new permanent tabs with functions more frequently needed.
Impress
- Transition tab: set slide transitions and timings from the new instant-access top menu. These settings were previously accessibly from the side bar, but have now been unified into a menu bar simplifying user workflows.
- Slide Show: all the presentation options together in one place. Start from your current slide or the beginning, full-screen or in a tab with ‘Present in Window’, and hide/show slides with a quick Hide Slide toggle.
- Design: A single, easy to find, place to change the look-and-feel of your slides. From changing slide template to colour theme: the new Design tab makes it faster to customize your presentations.
Writer
- Layout tab: Change margins, page size, orientation, columns, watermarks, numbering settings in this smartly laid out tab.
Calc
- Formulae tab: easily find the formulas you want, and discover new tools quickly with a clearly laid out Function Library in the new Formulae tab. Additionally, the Named Ranges tools find a new home in this tab.
Ready to see it in action?
We’re already working on round 2 of changes, but we hope this gives you a taster of some of the hard work that’s already in Collabora Online!
If you haven’t yet, upgrade to enjoy our beautiful new UI! Or if you’re new here, and you’re looking for a familiar, friendly and powerful platform your users will love, try Collabora Online today. We’re fully open source, integrate-able, extensible, and would love to help you and your users free your documents!
