A way to run newer office apps.

[mzs.112000]

I found a way to run newer office apps(LibreOffice) on PowerPC.
It is called rollApp, it let's you run desktop apps in your browser, like LibreOffice, Inkscape, GIMP, CAD software among other things.
I don't know if anyone has already found it, but I think that it could keep even the oldest PowerPC's working because they can then run modern applications. It needs a web browser that supports HTML5, but still, HTML5 is faster than trying to run full CAD programs natively on the CPU.

Here is the link: https://www.rollapp.com

 

[Altemose]

A very interesting initiative but I am not sure that any PowerPC Mac is going to have the horsepower and optimized code to run HTML5 at an acceptable rate. Have you tried this before?

 

[Hack5190]

Interesting idea, it reminds me of a commercial (vs private) Virtual Desktop infrastructure (VDI). I'm out of town with no access to my PPC G5 to test - but don't see any reason this won't work on a G5 w/Ten Fox Four. In a VDI environment all the processing is performed on the host with only screen refreshes done locally.

Curious what the advantage is to this company vs Google's online (free) apps.

 

[mzs.112000]

Interesting idea, it reminds me of a commercial (vs private) Virtual Desktop infrastructure (VDI). I'm out of town with no access to my PPC G5 to test - but don't see any reason this won't work on a G5 w/Ten Fox Four. In a VDI environment all the processing is performed on the host with only screen refreshes done locally.

Curious what the advantage is to this company vs Google's online (free) apps.

These apps are the same apps(like GIMP) that we already use, but are based in a web browser, all the PowerPC has to do is handle clicks, keyboard and display the app UI. Also unlike the Google apps, these can connect to any of your cloud storage providers, including dropbox.

A very interesting initiative but I am not sure that any PowerPC Mac is going to have the horsepower and optimized code to run HTML5 at an acceptable rate. Have you tried this before?

Yes I use this on my android phone for libreoffice(the Google apps don't have some features that I use). And I use this on a Chromebook as they don't have native LibreOffice(again the Google docs don't have some features I need). All the PowerPC has to do is handle Input/Output, the external server handles the heavy lifting, so even a G3 should be able to use this, assuming it has a reasonable internet connection.

 

[flyrod]

It still runs local though, right? So it can't possibly be faster than running open office straight, can it?

M$ actually has been better about supporting ppc than apple. Not that long ago I installed updates to handle the new (for what reason?!) formats of documents like .docx etc.

 

[bunnspecial]

Thanks for bringing this up.

Unfortunately, for many of us(looking at myself), LibreOffice doesn't cut it and we need the real thing. Office 2008 runs quite well on G5s and most G4s(and is even useable on a G3, despite it not meeting the official requirements). Although Office Mac lacks some feature parity with its Windows counterpart, Office 2011 does little that Office 2008 can't do. I have both '08 and '11 installed on my main Macbook Pro, and actually often use '08 in preference because I find it a bit intuitive.

Similarly, Gimp really isn't an alternative to Adobe CS. Often times, when I try to do something in Gimp, I get the feeling that its creators looked at Photoshop and tried to make everything as backwards as possible. Compare something like inserting text in the two programs to see what I mean.

The "big three" of CS4(Photoshop, Indesign, and Illustrator) work great on a G5 or higher end G4, and even CS2 is quite useable on a G3. Although newer versions of these programs have added features, CS2 and especially CS4 remain very capable programs.

 

[Hack5190]

It still runs local though, right?

No it doesn't run locally - it runs on the host system. All that is running local is a web browser w/html5 showing screen changes and forwarding mouse and keyboard commands. Search google for VDI and you'll understand.

 

[bobesch]

Ha,
there are cheap second-hand offers for Office '04 (G3) and '08 (G4/G5).
LibreOffice is acceptable on G4/G5 (if there's enough RAM)
'Skim' is a brilliant PDF Editor.
They all run locally.
So running stuff online in a browser via internet isn't anything I'm desperately looking for.
webDAV is a reasonable way to share office documents/edit them locally.
but @home: VNC/ScreenSharing/RDP connecting to a powerful machine does really make sense.

 

[Markus23]

In case it's helpful, there is someone making builds of the latest LibreOffice 5 for PPC (seems to runs very stable on Leopard so far even if it says alpha in the build name): http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/manulix/other/libreoffice/

 

[0248294]

I'd really suggest everyone to take a look at their app offerings. They actually have a surprising amount of available apps, and the free plan allows you to use any of them, 3 at a time at most. I really think I'm going to try this out on my iMac G4. I still have my doubts on HTML5 performance, but it's interesting regardless.