Office 2003 Beta 2 Screen Shots

First Look! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-25 02:58 · Score: 5, Funny

at Open Office 2013!

but by REBloomfield · 2003-02-25 02:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's just a shame that they're remooving support for the legacy operating systems. New collaboration features will be a great benefit, as will the native XML support, so it seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot by removing older O/Ss from the requirements

Although, as an active directory admin with a few Office 97 clients left in an office XP environment, Office 97 shoots right through my GPO lockdowns.... god knows why, it just bypasses all the security... so if this helps bring a unified base, then I'm all for it....

Re: but by Black+Parrot · 2003-02-25 03:05 · Score: 5, Funny

> It's just a shame that they're remooving support for the legacy operating systems. ...it seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot by removing older O/Ss from the requirements

I'm sure they'll be happy to make you a deal on a new operating system.

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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:but by Ed+Avis · 2003-02-25 03:40 · Score: 5, Funny

Perhaps this will be the first really good reason to port Wine to Windows.

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-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Re:but by wobblie · 2003-02-25 03:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

... so if this helps bring a unified base, then I'm all for it....
lol. Ever wonder why you find yourself saying this to yourself every year?
Re: but by Wee · 2003-02-25 05:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

You seen Open Office? Works swell (except for macros). I've got Linux on a P166 laptop and it's not bad at all. I carry iut arouynd more than my Thinkpad A2M. It doesn't get nearly as warm. :-)
If you need to to have those aging PCs there, you might give them a new lease on life with Linux. Just a thought...
-B

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Re:but by Sentry21 · 2003-02-25 05:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm sort of ashamed to say this, but I'm glad Microsoft is starting to tell users (in a roundabout way) 'sorry, you can't play with the big boys, because your OS SUCKS' (in relative terms).

Administering a Windows 98 machine on a 2K network is horrible. The methods for implementing everything are mixed up, you can't specify a home directory, the netlogon scripts don't even run (they run, but do nothing), and so on.

Microsoft's problem has always been keeping backwards compatibility until it shot them in the foot. DOS compatibility screwed up Windows 95, Windows 3.1 compatibility screwed up Windows 95, but of course they had to have it. The extra code, the extra junk, the more support, the ifs, the whiches, the switch/cases to make it all work on OSes that just aren't reasonably modern, it's a joke. If you can run Office 2k3, you can run Windows 2k. Upgrade. Seriously.

Kudos to Microsoft for leaving the stragglers behind so they can make a better product (god knows they need it often enough).

--Dan
Re:but by poot_rootbeer · 2003-02-25 05:38 · Score: 4, Funny

Mmmmm... port wine...
Re:but by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-25 07:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

> Administering a Windows 98 machine on a 2K network is horrible. The methods for implementing everything are mixed up, you can't specify a home directory, the netlogon scripts don't even run (they run, but do nothing), and so on.

Excuse me, but did you think that this was 'accidental'.

> Microsoft's problem has always been keeping backwards compatibility until it shot them in the foot.
MS's _actual_ problem is that the older OS's, '98, 'NT, and 2000 and Office '97, '2000 have been 'good enough' for most users. These users stopped throwing money at MS, which is a real problem.

The solution, of course, is for MS to make software that fails to work with older versions and force users to 'keep up' and provide MS with adequate revenue.
The next step along will be DRM documents. When someone sends a Word Document or EMail and you can't read it because of DRM the 'solution' is to buy the latest Windows, Office and get a passport account and MSN subscription and _then_ you will be able to activate the enclosed virus.

> so they can make a better product

It isn't about making new products better, it is about making old products worse.

reply by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-25 03:00 · Score: 4, Funny

"Also - Outlook's three-vertical-pane interface is now the default."

Well that is all good and swell but am I still going to get a virus everytime I use it?

Re:reply by anotherone · 2003-02-25 03:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well now that's an interesting thing to say. I've been using Outlook primarily for several years and I can't say that I've ever had a virus... let alone a virus caused by Outlook. I've received plenty, the trick is to just not open attachments from people I don't know.

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Re:reply by Tony-A · 2003-02-25 03:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

The trick is to just not open unexpected attachments especially from people you know.
Re:reply by penguin_dance · 2003-02-25 03:39 · Score: 4, Informative

Well now that's an interesting thing to say. I've been using Outlook primarily for several years and I can't say that I've ever had a virus... let alone a virus caused by Outlook. I've received plenty, the trick is to just not open attachments from people I don't know.
Heh, heh...have you asked your friends lately about that? I'm getting this mental image of them saying, "Damn, Tom keeps sending me that 'I Love You' message."
Because opening attachments from friends is JUST as risky as opening ones from strangers. And an email that uses HTML only and opens in a preview pane is at risk of the next Nimba that comes along.

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Re:reply by yatest5 · 2003-02-25 03:43 · Score: 4, Informative

Especially as Outlook happily opens and runs evil scripts in e-mail messages

That is just bullshit, pure and simple. Outlook Express does that, Outlook does not.
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Re:reply by ergo98 · 2003-02-25 04:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'd like to see MSFT fix *that.*

You mean like this (it prevents Outlook users from being able to access executable content)? To circumvent this the executables must be sent as compressed files which have to be then uncompressed and then execute: It's no different than chmod +x. The attributes on the file are hardly that different from the extension of the file, and indeed many compression utilities store the attributes of the file.

In any case it's interesting that what you're talking about is something that Microsoft is making great strides in "fixing", to the consternation of many Slashdotters. A heavily debated feature of Paladium is the fact that executable files have to be signed by a trusted authority (configurable by domain. For instance your corporate IT department) to be executable. There have been third party utilities that only allow configured executables to run as well via an executable database.
Re:reply by JWW · 2003-02-25 04:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

Its really sad that the concept of running a computer nowdays necessitates the use of extra software above and beyond the OS to basically secure the OS.

"Doesn't everyone run anti-virus software?"

In reality shouldn't we expect more from modern OSes? Shouldn't the code be more solid than requiring monthly patches. Souldn't e-mailed executables be run in a sandbox? Its a pity we HAVE to have virus software and even its not good enough, you have to constantly update it.

Basically I'm just saying that our expectations on software quality are so abysmally low that we are willing to put up with this crap. Imagine if the manufacturer of your car said - Airbags are your responsibility, you should install those on your own. Then people could say "Doesn't everyone install airbags in their car?". Its ridiculous, software should be better.
Re:reply by Graspee_Leemoor · 2003-02-25 04:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

"There is no such thing as computer viruses. There are computer worms, and outlook viruses."

Nice troll!

Not.

Before the internet was popular we used to exchange viruses with our friends using floppy disks with infected .com files- it's just easier to share viruses now with outlook.

graspee
Re:reply by dmayle · 2003-02-25 05:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

In reality shouldn't we expect more from modern OSes? Shouldn't the code be more solid than requiring monthly patches. Souldn't e-mailed executables be run in a sandbox? Its a pity we HAVE to have virus software and even its not good enough, you have to constantly update it.

Nice argument. Funny.

And yet, people like you (not flamebait, I'm just trying to generalize here) will be complaining once Microsoft adds anti-virus features into the OS about program feature bloat and monopolistic anti-competitive practices.

I'm not a Microsoft apologizer, I like some things they've done and very much dislike others, but we can't have it every which way.
Re:reply by Anonvmous+Coward · 2003-02-25 05:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

"Shouldn't the code be more solid than requiring monthly patches."

Who says it's necessarily the quality of the code? The real problem here is that new features get added, and gee surprise surprise, people find creative ways of being annoying with them. Take the saran wrap on the toilet seat example. Toilet seats have a flawed design when it comes to recognizing a well placed piece of plastic intended to give you a pressed fruit bowl. Is the toilet badly designed? Are we accpeting horrible quality?

Lock down a computer to where all that stuff is 'safe', and where are you then? You've got a computer that is rather inflexible.
Re:reply by spectecjr · 2003-02-25 08:09 · Score: 4, Informative

The biggest problem with Outlook (Express) that I have, and that remarkably few people seem to realise is a problem, is that it will automatically load any remote object embedded in an HTML e-mail. Sounds harmless until you realise that *just by previewing an HTML e-mail message*, you are allowing a spammer to know that your e-mail address exists. I'm sure this is happening to me, there is NO option to turn it off (except for the ingenious "go offline every time you read your e-mail" solution given to me by an IRCer),

Emphasis mine.

Perhaps you should spend more time learning your tools, before waxing lyrical about problems in them that don't exist.

Tools->Options...->Read->Read All Messages In Plain Text.

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Coming soon - pyrogyra

cloning by oooooops · 2003-02-25 03:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

I've already seen all the comments about clone wars blah blah blah

on a more serious note is cloning the way to win? doubtful - how about innovating making it better rather than just cloning

Re:cloning by Space+Coyote · 2003-02-25 03:05 · Score: 4, Funny

on a more serious note is cloning the way to win? doubtful - how about innovating making it better rather than just cloning

The cloning thing worked for MS...

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Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Re:cloning by tjansen · 2003-02-25 03:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

on a more serious note is cloning the way to win?

If it is cloning improvements: yes, certainly. It's not like MS would not clone features of the X11 desktop environment. For example the Longhorn previews showed CDE/KDE/Gnome-features like virtual desktops and panel applets.
Re:cloning by govtcheez · 2003-02-25 03:11 · Score: 5, Funny

The cloning thing worked for MS...

No, remember, this is Slashdot. If Linux does it it's "cloning"; if MS does it it's "stealing".
Re:cloning by 13Echo · 2003-02-25 03:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

First we have those that can't do without MS Office because it is "Oh so perfect" and "The standard"... Then we have those that complain about free subsitutes that have almost all (and then some) of the functionality at a price of $0.00., just because they aren't "innovative enough". If the price can't justify it, then what can? People aren't going to be able to pull new features and UI improvements out of their asses, guys. Come on. This is the same, sorry argument that we keep hearing by people who harp about how software designers "copy" the Windows and Mac features for Gnome and KDE.

I just don't get it. Sometimes, in order to make something usable for most people, there is no such thing as "innovating" to the extent of making it vastly different. Some people just want to have a similar, comfortable interface to work on their spreadsheets and reports.
Re:cloning by tjansen · 2003-02-25 03:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yes, but a email editor with three vertical panes isnt that revolutionary either. It just may be a good idea with todays resolutions (or maybe not, didnt try it).

*Very* few things in today's desktop systems are revolutionary. Most are just features from experimental systems in the past or copied from 3rd party products.

Another upgrade by mike_c999 · 2003-02-25 03:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Can someone kindly explain why I should pay more money to upgrade from 2000 to 2003 when 2000 does more that i need and i can get Open office which also does more than i need for free.

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Ctrl-Z

Re:Another upgrade by Planesdragon · 2003-02-25 03:17 · Score: 5, Informative

Other than Outlook, I haven't seen an improvement in Office since Office 97, and even THAT was iffy over Office95...

Word XP can do non-consecutive text selections (you have _no_ idea how nice this is until you have it). 2000 introduced a multiple-item clibboard, and it doubled in size in XP--in addition to an overhaul of the word mail-merge wizard, and numerous other small improvements (like the HTML export being almost standard).

Not sure of these are $100 upgrades, but they ARE improvements.
Re:Another upgrade by bill_mcgonigle · 2003-02-25 03:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

Because there aren't going to be security updates for the version you have and the US Corporate world has adopted Office as a standard file format, made possible by the abuse of a monopoly position.

So, if you don't upgrade you're going to get a .DOC file one day that will wreck your computer.

Do you see a problem with this scenario or were you just asking rhetorically?

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OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Re:Another upgrade by anotherone · 2003-02-25 03:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

The non-consecutive selection thing is probably the best thing about Word, and I'm not being sarcastic. It's basically Mother Teresa in software form.

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Re:Another upgrade by grub · 2003-02-25 03:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

Simple: Microsoft shareholders.

Microsoft doesn't make money for them if people use "old" versions of their software. They have to make a newer version, with incompatible formats, to ensure as many people upgrade as possible. It's software extortion.

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Trolling is a art,
Re:Another upgrade by Tyreth · 2003-02-25 04:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

Of course, it's really quite simple.

You'll need it to thread DRM support in your documents and view other similar such documents :) And once you do this and begin to save your documents in such a way, you'll force others to need an upgrade.

Heaven forbid that I suggest someone install the free OpenOffice software so they can read my documents, yet it is oh so natural for people to ask me to use Microsoft Office on my home desktop. Hypocrites, slaves to the borg. ...and yes, I've noticed a recent number of posts along the lines of "I'm cool because I don't mock Microsoft like all the other slashdotters" that gather karma - but I still don't trust these guys [Microsoft] and am annoyed at a lot of the rubbish we have to put up with because of a direct result of their practices)
Re:Another upgrade by nahdude812 · 2003-02-25 09:31 · Score: 4, Funny

yeah, I doubt that they're worth $100. Frankly, they're the sort of thing one might expect to be released in a service pack.

And I friggin hate that multiple clipboard thing. No matter how many times I've tried to get used to it, I'm always less efficient with it getting in my way.

I'd *love* to be able to turn it off. But each time I copy something, realize I didn't get the period in the selection, grab the period, and copy again, it pops up. The stupid paperclip I repeatedly ask to go away then comes up and says "Would you like me to turn this feature off?" To which, of course, I reply, "yes," which he pretends to do until the next time I miss a period. Then I right click on him and hide him. He asks if I'd like to disable him. I say, "yes," and he goes away until the next time he thinks I might actually want him back again.

A feature in Office that I'd pay for is the ability to disable new features, for good and truly, to never be bothered by them again unless I completed some mystic Zennish quest to reenable the feature, wherein I need to become one with my software, and utter the mantra, "clippy, clippy, clippy."

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Slay a dragon... over lunch!

imitation by eric6 · 2003-02-25 03:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

For how much crap MS gets, they sure are imitated. Is this

flattery?
lack of creativity in interface design?
following the lead of a big company with lots of usability research?
a big bandwagon?
camoflage, to keep from scaring off [new] users of non-MS products?

Personally, i like the office interface, but perhaps that's just because i'm so familiar with it.

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fight global cooling

Re:imitation by redfenix · 2003-02-25 03:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

Personally, i like the office interface, but perhaps that's just because i'm so familiar with it.

I think you just answered your own question.

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"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru

You know it's a reputable site... by Jonboy+X · 2003-02-25 03:02 · Score: 5, Funny

...when it starts popping up online casino ads at you.

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"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al

Cloning... by flewp · 2003-02-25 03:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

Nice to get a head start on what we'll be cloning next year ;)

What's sad is it is all too true. Instead of innovating, a lot of OSS projects that are supposed to be like MS apps usually just mimick, rather than truly innovate.

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WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?

Re:Cloning... by AssFace · 2003-02-25 03:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

What's sad is it is all too true. Instead of innovating, a lot of OSS projects that are supposed to be like MS apps usually just mimick, rather than truly innovate.

Perhaps because most of the time "truly innovating" is a waste of time.

People sure do love to hate MS because they are huge and because of that push people around.

But when it comes to UI design - both they and Apple have the money to do a lot of research into actual usability.

Something that becomes obvious when you use "truly innovative" software - when someone tries to do something new just because it seems right to them.

More often then not, it looks cool, but proves useless for day to day use. (a few of MS's "features" are much like this - fading menus and such, but some people love them. Apple too has much fluff, or dare I say cruft? but for the most part, they have a very strongly researched base of design methods, hence why they are mimicked)

Obviously there are exceptions - but for the most part, MS is oft imitated because they have already invested literally millions of dollars and tons of time in research into making products that people can sit down and use.

(I'm sure someone will chime in and say that vi is far more usable for themselves and that an luser that can't see that is an idiot.
But the obvious point should be that when designing for the massees - there are certain techniques that will be seen over and over - because they work.

All that could be summed up in "why reinvent the wheel?"

--

There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.

Good thing Taco is an editor by ACNiel · 2003-02-25 03:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

His ideas don't jive with the slashdot crowd. Sort of funny, in a way, how the people he attracted have taken his creation in an entirely different direction. Not totally different, but definitely more zealous than the creator.

That comment about what will be cloned next year, if in a comment, would be labeled as flamebait or a troll. I find it refreshing that at least the editors realize certain realities.

One of the main ones is that, yes the linux desktop borrows heavily from MS, and not the other way around, which a lot of people like to proclaim.

screenshots HERE! by dogas · 2003-02-25 03:05 · Score: 5, Informative

I'm not sure if they are the same as the slashdotted server, but here we go.

HERE!

god I'm such a karma whore.

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'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST

Re:Sad by FooBarWidget · 2003-02-25 03:05 · Score: 4, Funny

Because, in contrary to popular belief, Slashdot is actually a pro-Windows site. A poll from a while ago proved that the majority of the Slashdotters are using Windows, *not* Linux/Unix/Mac. More and more moderators are modding critism against Linux up and anti-MS posts down. Slashdotters are slowly converting to pro-Windows; in fact, 65% has already been converted.

Great... by maxbang · 2003-02-25 03:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

Another $600 word processor from Microsoft. Even when I'm at a job where they use Office, nobody ever uses anything but Word to type some useless bullet points, or Excel to make a pointless chart. Tasks? Never used. I had a PHB who tried to assign me tasks once. He couldn't hotsync for a week after that.

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27 posts by twinstead · 2003-02-25 03:08 · Score: 3, Funny

And already slashdotted. Guess they don't have enough bandwidth for the popups...

mmmm by odyrithm · 2003-02-25 03:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

Nice to get a head start on what we'll be cloning next year ;)

that points out a very specific problem with the open/free source movements... plenty of hardcore coders but a serious lack of good ui designers.

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moo

Re:mmmm by slide-rule · 2003-02-25 03:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

... plenty of hardcore coders but a serious lack of good ui designers.

I can't debate how accurate that point is, but I have noticed, having recently read through the gnome interface guidelines, that most of the "not like this" examples are the myriads of various gnome apps. It'd probably go a long way if the developers that *do* write UI code (regardless of how "good" they are at "designing" said UI) actually follow UI guidelines.

Also, I wonder how well respected someone who mainly does "UI" design/layout things would be respected by the core development team of some project that actually has to code up the critical working guts.
Re:mmmm by thatguywhoiam · 2003-02-25 05:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

I can't debate how accurate that point is, but I have noticed, having recently read through the gnome interface guidelines, that most of the "not like this" examples are the myriads of various gnome apps. It'd probably go a long way if the developers that *do* write UI code (regardless of how "good" they are at "designing" said UI) actually follow UI guidelines.
I'll go you one further.
I'm a UI designer. I have designed a new OS UI. It's quite radical, and new. I've solicited opinions on it from slashdot (here)as well as from a few friends.
Basically, I'm sitting on the thing right now, for two reasons: 1.) the core group of people its designed for - techies, early-adopters - are incredibly resistant to changes of this type and 2.) its nearly impossible to solicit useful feedback from said group, for the reasons you outlined in your post.
It can be summarized in one of the responses to the above-linked post; I asked if anyone was willing to undergo (possible) major learning pains to learn a more productive system. I got the only one-word response I've ever seen on /., "No."
Everyone, absolutely everyone has an almost unshakable opinion of what they like, visually, and behaviourally. Witness the near-revolt of Classic Mac OS users trying OS X, versus the newbies and Unix/Win coverts who think it's the cat's ass (er, that means 'great'). You cannot underestimate this. In 10 years of graphic design, it still boggles me. Graphic design and particularly UI design in general get 'no respect', because its simply something that people don't respect educated opinions on. Put another way, if your code works, only another programmer is going to criticise you for sloppy coding. A user doesn't care as long as it works. But if I show a UI design to a room with 15 people, you will have 15 angrily opinionated asshats barking off about how this and that should work, with no thought whatsoever to how one arrives at those conclusions.
And the kicker: you must listen to every asshat in that room, because in a way they are all right.
Anyways. My point is this: I'm the guy you're talking about, and I find it really hard to 'break in' to this group. I don't even know where to start, actually. Hell, I get dissed just because I built the UI demo in Flash.

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If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.

The only thing that needs cloning by penguin_dance · 2003-02-25 03:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Nice to get a head start on what we'll be cloning next year ;)

The only thing that needs cloning out of Office is simply the compatibility aspect of it's documents.

No need to clone the rest of the package: the bloat, the security holes, etc. ;-)

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Cloning...yuck by 0x0d0a · 2003-02-25 03:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

I can't wait until MS finally loses its dominant desktop position, and the onus of cloning their interfaces to make it acceptable to Windows users is gone, and the OSS world can strike out on its own.

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May we never see th

Re:Cloning...yuck by 0x0d0a · 2003-02-25 06:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

No matter what other faults they may or may not have (fence sitter ahoy \o/) MS spend millions on research into human/computer interaction and user interface design.

And what has it led to?

A filesystem browser squashed together with a web browser (done for political reasons).

The Start menu (this has been torn to pieces on the Interface Hall of Shame).

WMP 9.

Outlook's custom widget (with the mailbox name).

Each version of Office using completely different widgets than all other apps in Windows.

All with poor UIs.

Most of the rest of what Microsoft's done has been heavily based on Apple's ideas, or HCI driven by technical flaws. There was the dual filename system because they made the poor choice to use 8.3 filenames. Then the Start Menu, because Windows developers used masses of completely unidentifiable data file names slapped in the same directory as the executable. MDI, which was produced for Windows 3.1 because the VM system sucked and MDI reduced load on it.

Occasionally they take ideas from OSS (did I read elsewhere in this thread about virtual desktops and taskbar applets?)

I *wish* they'd take the idea of virtual desktops. One of the biggest things Windows needs.

are more than happy to build interfaces based on the results of their millions of dollars worth of research and linux is all the better for it.

Is a combined web browser/file browser really that crucial or useful, or just included to help out ex-Windows users?

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May we never see th

another site by suhit · 2003-02-25 03:11 · Score: 4, Informative

Since this site seems /.'ed already, here are another ones that have some screenshots too -

http://www.wininsider.com/news/comments.aspx?mid=3 069.
http://users.pandora.be/AMDtje/Office11_2.htm
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol11.htm

Suhit

Numb by mao+che+minh · 2003-02-25 03:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

I have become numb to Microsoft upgrades. There was virtually no difference between Office and Office 97. The differences between Office 97 and 2000 were mostly visual (and the addition of broken compatibilities). The differences between Windows 98 and Windows ME were just pointless. I still consider Windows XP an expensive, restrictively licensed downgrade to Windows 2000.

This will likewise fail it.

Re:Numb by Planesdragon · 2003-02-25 03:34 · Score: 5, Informative

There was virtually no difference between Office and Office 97. The differences between Office 97 and 2000 were mostly visual (and the addition of broken compatibilities). The differences between Windows 98 and Windows ME were just pointless. I still consider Windows XP an expensive, restrictively licensed downgrade to Windows 2000.

In all that, you're right on the money for 98/ME; ME never should have been, and if not for RAMBUS it wouldn't have been. But as for the rest: MS has got lots of small improvements in each iteration of office. Blame planned obsolescence.

* Office 97 was the first package with reasonable HTML built-in. Yes, it's bloated HTML with all of the Office metadata, and yes, they'd have been better if they copied Acrobat's Word-UI. But that's neither here nor there.

* Office 2000 introduced a whole heck of new features--most notably for most of us, those auto-hiding menus, multiple windows in the taskbar, and a built-in clipboard that can hold twelve "cuts."

* Office XP doubled the size of the clipboard, gave word discontinuous selection ability, and introduced that somewhat-useful task pane.

* Windows XP, over 2000, has a major improvement just in explorer.exe. You can customize your start menu to your heart's content, the system tray auto-hide (or mannualy hide) icons, and the gooy GUI is, if nothing else, "new." (And being able to turn off all of the above is rather nice, too.)
Re:Numb by angle_slam · 2003-02-25 05:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

those auto-hiding menus
I've always hated those menus. I know where menu items are. But, by hiding the menu items, their position changes, and I can't find the menu choice I need.

Re:Sad by CleverNickedName · 2003-02-25 03:19 · Score: 4, Funny

So is it "\." now, not "/."?

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Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton

Actually, it goes both ways. by Corvaith · 2003-02-25 03:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

Part of innovation is taking what works from past technology and then improving it. And both sides do this--and ought to. If one person came up with a very nice way of doing interfaces, it's really dumb to reinvent the wheel when you could, in fact, be refining the wheel and making it work *better*.

Obviously, nothing should be 'taken' to the point of intellectual property violation, but I think if *more* of this so-called 'theft' happened in software development, it'd result in much better software in general. Take what the other people did, fix the problems in it, make it better. Then maybe they'll take what you did, fix it even more, make it better.

And in the end you've got products on all sides that're more useable, more stable, and so on and so forth. I don't know how anyone can say there's something wrong with that. Building a better mousetrap doesn't necessarily mean you have to build it completely unlike every mousetrap ever made in the past.

Re:Sad by Trav42 · 2003-02-25 03:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

Because a lot of us are going to have it rammed down our throats at work whether we like it or not. Then our lives will be made miserable by the viruses, the bugs, and the general awkwardness of Microsoft's legendary innovations.

It's nice to know beforehand what will be eating up all my free time and making me crazy later this year.

Re:Unknown TLA by REBloomfield · 2003-02-25 03:26 · Score: 4, Informative

Group Policy Object

The replacement for System Policy in Windows 2000 Active Directory implementations. HTH :p

Re:4 Minutes On front page by NewbieProgrammerMan · 2003-02-25 03:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

The only reason I've had to buy any MS Office products since maybe 95/97 is that I've got to be able to open the occasional document produced with the "latest and greatest" version. But I'm getting to the point where I'll just start telling people to send it in a different format - if it's really important that I see it, they can take a couple of minutes to convert it.

Funny how the only reason to upgrade is simply because everyone else has upgraded, not because of some new "must have" feature or big batch of bug fixes. Honestly, have there been so many innovations and advances in word processing, spreadsheets and presentations that I need to upgrade every 18 months? I don't like paying money for things I don't need.

I have been using Open Office for a while now, and I love it. There's even some areas where I think it kicks MS Office's ass, like the formula editor. I do all my math and engineering homework in Open Office whenever possible. :)

--
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']

Summary for those who didn't see by bedouin · 2003-02-25 03:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

- No new features that you will actually use. Most of them you will probably end up hiding away in some toolbar far away, simply because it annoys the hell out of you to see.

- More zany XP balloon like menu bars. In addition, even more light blue and Aqua-like design rip offs.

- Like Office XP, and Office 2000, you definitely won't rush to buy this release, however the minute you, or your friend warezes it on IRC, you will most likely install it -- just because.

- You will be further annoyed by the traditionally bland Windows GUI design. Recent attempts in XP to spruce it up only look like JeffK was hired as a designer at Microsoft.

- If you are an owner of a Mac you fold your hands together, thankful for OS X, and its great design. If you are Linux or BSD user, you are likewise happy that you have a beautiful design. If you are a Windows user, you are most likely reading this from your corporate headquarters, feeling constrained by the tie around your neck, and uncomfortable dress shoes. However, you are refreshed knowing that through your extreme conformity, and love of mediocrity, you will make much more than your neighbor yearly, and are anxiously awaiting to moment you can upgrade all of your machines to this marvelous new piece of Microsoft engineering -- but you still don't know why. Now if only you could find time for sexual relations within your 9 AM to 10 PM daily work schedule . . .

I think you hit the nail on the head yourself... by Kjella · 2003-02-25 03:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

Personally, i like the office interface, but perhaps that's just because i'm so familiar with it.

Unless there's something seriously *wrong* with the Office interface, you grow to like it. Kinda like how I "like" Windows, because there I know where everything is. Just moving a menu option to somewhere else will make me spend more time until I get used to it, no matter how "smart" it is. And unlike us, some corporate users just won't find the new location without retraining (no, I'm not kidding). Personally, I'll stick with webmail/eudora/pine though, as long as I'm in windows. Evolution looked pretty good on my linux machine, but I'm not quite ready to make that my desktop yet.

Kjella

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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings

Saw this at the Tablet PC Expo/Unified Interface by mattyohe · 2003-02-25 03:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yeah microsoft was touting this program... Its not bad.. Its visually better and looks like they are just adding more and more shit... Only people who use crap like franklin covey shit will enjoy all the features, becase now they wont need to buy that program.

Also they are releasing a new program with all of this... OneNote link here

This brings up my next rant... Why can't we have a unified interface for everything I need to do?! Its like.. All of these updates are nice and all.. but I don't see any real innovations. Word Excel Powerpoint Access Outlook all in different programs is still a clumsy way to operate. Alt Tabbing or dual monitors isn't cool enough anymore.. I need it all in one program. Is there any project that is actually working on something like this?

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- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!

Cloning or not ... by timothy · 2003-02-25 03:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Actually, when I look at these screenshots, I think "Phew, I'm glad that I have OpenOffice and other things to type with!"

Now, Office has a lot of Big Complicated Features which may be interesting and useful to you if your office / job has evolved to rely on them. I don't use office-suite progams much, and when I do I don't usually have anything too exotic in the way of combining features. I do find that I can paste in sections of spreadsheet, graphics and such into OpenOffice pretty well though.

OpenOffice does have a big problem to me, though, which is that fonts are usually ugly, reminds me or the way Word (3? 4? whatver version is was) looked on my old toaster Mac. This is not, strictly speaking , OO.org's fault, since ugly fonts are the result of complicated interactions among a lot of things in the system ... on a system that's been tweaked to look nice, this becomes not-a-problem.

It has some other problems too (annoying default behavior wrt to autocompletion of words, lists, etc), but these are in Word and most other Word Processors, too. On the whole, I'd much rather write a letter in OpenOffice, and have :)

Upshot: these screenshots don't inspire envy the way I thought they might when I opened them.

timothy

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jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5

Nothing to mod by kahei · 2003-02-25 03:38 · Score: 3, Funny

Well, I've been wandering around with a handful of mod points looking for some posts about the actual new Office UI/features to mod up, but there aren't any because everyone was trolled by the cloning bit in the original item!

Ah well, it wouldn't be slashdot otherwise :)

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Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.

Re:Microsoft Works by Speed+Racer · 2003-02-25 03:38 · Score: 3, Informative

Whatever comes with Works is most certainly not Word, and it doesn't talk to the .doc format either.

Sorry to disappoint you but Works does come with Word and Word obviously "talks" to the .doc format. See http://www.microsoft.com/products/works/ for proof.

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Free Mac Mini. Yes, I'm

Virtual Desktops by ShaggyZet · 2003-02-25 03:39 · Score: 3, Funny

Virtual desktops go back a really long time, at least until 1992 with vtwm and olvwm

Ah, the good old days when everyone used there own window manager, everybody's unix desktop looked totally different and you actually had to know something to have a desktop that was cool.

Who's going to buy it? by wfrp01 · 2003-02-25 03:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

You like MS Office, you say? Who's going to buy this for you? Are you going to buck up for your own copy at home? Or, like most people, are you expecting your company to buy it for you? That way, it's kind of like it doesn't really cost anything, right? Except it does cost something. It's money your company could have paid you directly. It's money your company could have used to improve their market penetration. It's money your company could have used to improve their facilities. It's money that could have been used to increase the R&D budget. It's money that could have been used to hire additional staff. And on and on.

But a new version of Office with pretty new buttons and a three panel view like Outlook? A new version that's intentionally incompatible with everything else in the world, including Microsoft's own products? That's precious.

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--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!

One diff between Linux and Win/Mac... by Masem · 2003-02-25 03:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

...is that Microsoft and Apple spend millions on user interface design, a complete separate process from the coding of the program engine, while Linux/OSS developers will generally worry about the UI last, and in that that UI will be designed by the developers themselves with only the response of various alpha/beta/stable testing to improve it. While both MS and Apple's UI R&D have put out duds, such as Clippy, MS Bob, QT4's control set, and The Dock (for some at least), they have both had a large number of very useful additions to good UI design elements (Apply's consistant Human Interface Guidelines, IE's drop-down toolbar buttons, etc). Even Macromedia and Adobe are big on UI design, and have both had patents filed for some of their design elements. Will anyone on Linux ever devote that much ? Not really, I think, as the average Linux user is more worried about functionality than UI most of the time (delegating the UI handling to their window manager of choice (KDE/Gnome/WM/E!/etc)).

True, OSS doesn't have the money to put into UI research, and while RedHat and the other commercial distros have tried to help out to some extent, it's still a game of catchup with Microsoft most of the time, which is why we seem to be always playing catch up with MS and Apple. Should this be an area to advance Linux in? Maybe; I do think that with the right minds, new, non-WIMP GUIs could be developed that could be more intuitive for certain functions.

But Linux is trying to gain acceptance by all computer users, and to migrate people from Win or Mac to Linux requires familar surroundings, otherwise, your Linux support person will be running non-stop trying to answer every question under the sun from those that 'just don't get it'. So the 3-paned mail client, the Word- and Excel-lookalikes, and even media players that mimic their Mac or Win equivalent are better poised to help Linux gain market share than some abstract UI that may look good and is more efficient, but otherwise quite different from any standard UI elements.

The other problem is that developers generally make poor UI developers, particularly if the same developer works on the code and the UI. That developer will know exactly how a program is to work and thus may lay out UI elements that make sense to him, but not to the average lay person. Even if a different developer was doing the UI, there's a different mentality that computer programmers have over average computer users that would typically end with the layout being programming reasonably but low on usability. It may behoove OSS developers to get people with graphic art or usability skills on board some projects to help plan out better UI interfaces.

Basically, we need to copy, if we want Linux and OSS to be accepted, but there should be a challenge to more creative developers to build new, unique UIs.

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"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:

link to Screenshots W/out article by Tha_Big_Guy23 · 2003-02-25 03:42 · Score: 4, Informative

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If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.

And here's a shot of Office 12 by shadwwulf · 2003-02-25 03:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Here is a shot straight for the UI testing lab for Office 12

Or at least it could be considering how pre-schoolish UI's are getting these days.

Re:Clone wars! by Jugalator · 2003-02-25 03:47 · Score: 5, Funny

English: The Clone Wars have begun.
Yodish: Begun, the Clone Wars have.
Soviet Russia: In Soviet Russia, Clone Wars begin you!
Yodish Soviet Russia: You, in Soviet Russia the Clone Wars begin... Umm, no wait... Arrgh!

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!

People WANT to pay by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-25 03:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

And the more they pay, the more vigorously they will defend their purchase. Hell, they will go out of their way to describe in great detail how it affects their life? Ever hear someone gush about their car? Yeah, probably never got it for free either!

It's strange, but if people don't sacrifice for something, money, time, energy, they just don't feel like there is any value in it. Some people love free stuff, but the majority want to feel some sort of ownership.

i.e. In Best Buy, ATTBroadband offers an empty box for sale. $10 is the listed price, and all it contains is information on how to sign up for the service and receive your $10 back. But, they are selling nonetheless. Best Buy offered them for free previously, but there was no take up. Place a sticker on it, and the question is... Ooooh! Broadband for $10? I'm sold!

Go figure!

Check out your own proof. by Kwil · 2003-02-25 04:37 · Score: 4, Informative

Do you actually read what you link to, or do you just hope it's right and nobody actually goes to take a look.

Microsoft Works Suite comes with Word.

Microsoft Works does not.

And I also know from experience that the Works wordprocessor default format is not readable by Word.

--

That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze

Slashdot made me cynical... by Graspee_Leemoor · 2003-02-25 04:39 · Score: 4, Funny

It's very sad, but now whenever I see a post that's quite long, on-topic, raising valid questions or points etc. I automatically think "Karma whore!".

Sad, isn't it?

graspee

It isn't Office that we have to use - it's Outlook by dgrgich · 2003-02-25 04:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

I hate to say it but Outlook is the only reason that we're sticking with Office in my company. We've done evaluations of StarOffice & OpenOffice and other packages like these. However, none of them interact with our Exchange system the way that our customers demand. They want seamless calendaring and the other features that Outlook & Exchange provides.

Did they decide on the new logo yet? by symbolic · 2003-02-25 05:04 · Score: 4, Funny

I'm thinking about a picture of Joe Average Computer User in shackles and menacles, with the caption, "Palladium Inside".

I give up... the GUI will never really evolve... by gmezero · 2003-02-25 05:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

With assinine comments link this "Nice to get a head start on what we'll be cloning next year ;)", as the footnote to this news posting. It now becomes clear to me why the computer GUI will never truely evolve beyond what it is today. Thanks Taco for the insight!

Re:Clone wars! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-25 06:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Let's try to work this out.

English usally has a sentence structure in the form SVO, or Subject Verb Object. In this sentence, "The Clone Wars" is the subject, "have" is the verb, and "begun" is the object. Notice that the verb cluster "to begin" has been seperated into verb and object, in the passive voice sentence.

Now, Yodish uses the OSV (Object Subject Verb) construction. So the literal translation from English to Yodish would be "Begun" "The Clone Wars" "Have". This parses nicely into "Begun, the Clone Wars have." quite nicely, as the parent has done.

Soviet Russian uses the OVS (Object Verb Subject) construction. So the transliteration would be "Begun" "Have" "The Clone Wars". Now we take into account some of the unique features of Soviet Russian. First, the definite article "the" is dropped, yielding "Begun have Clone Wars". Also, Soviet Russian only has one tense, the present, giving us "Begin have Clone Wars". Now is the confusing part. Soviet Russian treats the phrase "begin have" as just the verb, dropping the object, yielding "___ begin Clone Wars". However, an implied object is forbidden. When an implied object is present, the subject becomes the object, and the implied subject "you" is added. So we get "Clone Wars begin ___", which leads to "Clone Wars begin you", as shown in the parent.

Now onward to Yodish Soviet Russian. As English becomes Soviet Russian by reversing the sentence order, SVO to OVS, then likewise, Yodish becomes Yodish Soviet Russian by reversing the OSV construction to VSO. So we get a transliteration to "have the Clone Wars begun". We drop the definite article and switch tense to get "have Clone Wars begin". We make the object "begin" into the verb, with the result "begin Clone Wars ___". We then make the subject into the object and add the implied subject "you", getting "Begin you Clone Wars". Now it's just a minor clean-up, with the final result:

In Yodish Soviet Russia, begin YOU, the clone wars do!

Microsoft also has horrible UI designers by jesterzog · 2003-02-25 08:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

that points out a very specific problem with the open/free source movements... plenty of hardcore coders but a serious lack of good ui designers.

Open source could do just as well as Microsoft by employing graphic artists -- expert UI designeers need not apply. Apple seems to at least be trying, but sometimes I wonder if Microsoft's even employing user interface experts at all. If they do have them then they're not taking any serious notice of them. It seems more like they're aiming to make the interface look pretty and attractive, but no more useful than before.

A lot of what's being shown off in the screenshots are feature enhancements, but the basic problems of the UI with Windows and Office haven't changed at all. It's as if Microsoft is just throwing in any idea the programmers or feature-developers come up with, without properly testing it or verifying that it's actually useful and not going to create more problems for the user than it solves. For example:

The screenshots are still full of modal dialogs.
The interface is still full of toolbars with lots of tiny buttons that violate Fitts Law and Hicks Law, making it more complicated for people to choose a target and click on it.
The UI still ignores the edges and corners of the screen, which has been well demonstrated to be one of the easiest places for a user to accurately move the mouse to. (I haven't properly used XP but it looks like that from the screenshots. Hopefully someone can confirm this.) Instead there's normally a pixel border or something similar there, causing the user to just miss clicking something that they were probably aiming for, and having to backtrack and fight with the mouse.
Much of the UI is still customisable-by-accident, allowing elements to be dragged around and placed in unexpected places accidently. This allows for novice users to reconfigure their UI without realising it, and then become lost and confused about what's going on. This is especially true if they close the program down and open up the next day to something different, and I've seen it happen over and over again.
There are still scrollbars everywhere, both on main windows in list/selection boxes, text edit boxes, and so on. This is despite that it's been well known for at least a decade now that scrollbars are bad for UI navigation.
Also after at least eight years and probably longer, Microsoft apparently hasn't fixed the font selection dialog box which is full of check-boxes where, by their own UI guidelines, they should be using radio buttons.

Assuming that these screenshots are genuine, then Microsoft might have made minor presentation tweaks here and there, but it still hasn't fixed any of the real UI problems. Every one of these issues has been documented for years by experts who've spent a lot of effort researching them. Most of the issues have suggested solutions, but Microsoft's done absolutely nothing about it that's reached the consumer.

If open source developers want to mimic windows to attract users that way then I guess they can. But this doesn't mean it's a good interface. It's the opposite. Personally I'm hoping that the various independent-from-Microsoft open source UI projects come through and win the race with some good UI's, but I don't know what the chance of that is.

Re:security by greed · 2003-02-25 08:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

What on earth has "security problems" got to do with "word processor"? I realize the macro facility in Word & friends has some potential for abuse, but that is a very unique feature of those products. Remember when we told everyone that virus warnings about word processor files or e-mail were scams and to just ignore them? It wasn't very long ago.

If the Claris Works 3 that came with my 7-year-old Mac does what I need, I don't need to upgrade. No security issues, nothing. Legacy systems don't _have_ modern security issues because they don't have the "integration" with "duh internet". Heck, if it isn't on the net, what security issues are there? (Besides, Macs didn't used to have listening ports by default.)

Still like PaperClip on the old 8-bit micros? What possible security issues could there be? You're not going to get 0wn3d through a 300 bps originate-only modem.

I know Office is a whole other problem security-wise, but I take offense at the blanket statement that ALL old software should just die.

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Office 2003 Beta 2 Screen Shots

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