Slashdot Mirror
Under the Hood of Office 12
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has posted an FAQ on Office 12, plus a quick preview of Office 12 pre-Beta 1. From the review: Microsoft Office 12.0 pre-Beta 1 drastically revamps the interface layouts of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. More than a year before the final product will hit the shelves, a pre-beta version of Microsoft Office 12.0 is revealing radical interface changes and user paradigm shifts that recall the overly ambitious Microsoft Office 97 update of the past."
Clippy? What have they done to you, Clippy? Clippy? Clippy? CLIPPY! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Interesting tightrope Microsoft is being forced to walk here...if they don't change things enough, they still have OpenOffice and StarOffice nipping at their heels, but if they change too much, they risk alienating their established user base.
The real question is: Just how much can you improve an office suite, before it's 'good enough'? Many Office users (my employers included) feel Office 2003 is just fine, and have no plans whatsoever for Office 12. Other offices I've seen have standardized on Offive XP, or even Office 2000, and steadfastly refuse to upgrade. When these holdouts finally do upgrade, it's only because they are having issues with using documents from other facilities that are in the new format (non-backward-compatible by design...thank you so much, Bill), and when they do, they commonly skip at least one release.
The bottom line is that the strategy of staying out ahead of competitors like OpenOffice and StarOffice is becoming increasing untenable as the office suite becomes more and more complex and capable, and closer and closer to the ideal of 'good enough' for the average user.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Aren't 'heavy revamps' of the front end what users of Microsoft products have been complaining about for god knows how long? Microsoft get it to a stage where everyone is used to it then completely redo it!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Nothing will ever top Office 97 for what it brought the table when it came out. They made it too good - several versions later and most people probably can't tell the difference, except for Outlook, which has changed more than the other apps in the suite. Is it possible that we don't need new versions of Office coming out every couple years anymore?
This has got to be the most innovative thing to come out of Microsoft in years.
As long as the new version of Office allows you to use that cool "Whoooshing" noise between slides in Powerpoint I'll be happy.
Not that I ever use Powerpoint, honest...
The trouble here is that more of technology pundits will not see this requirement as an additional cost burden at all! So when it comes to comparing Office 12 to StarOffice/OpenOffice.org, assumptions will be made that those using M$ products already have the training.
StarOffice/OpenOffice.org programmers could capitalize on this, save companies the trouble or burden of training. This is not to mention licensing costs not forgetting closed and changing formats.
I remember seeing an Office 10 somewhere on a Mac or something - but I've never run into an Office 11. Maybe they just thought that since they are already too late, they'll just skip a release ? :)
...
.doc files.
There's good news but, Clippy is dead !!. But a ghost of the demon remains
What's new in Office 12
* Tabbed browsing
* Missing menus
* Clippy replaced with a Ghost
* Shortcuts change for no reason
* Task oriented design
Translated as :
* Ripoff off Firefox
* Bye bye familiarity
* Transparency showoffs
* Alt keys are teh suck
* All users are idiots
Some people might switch to OO.org just to keep the old macros alive but still read the new
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I've seen the videos, I've seen the screen shots, I've read the hype. I'm not impressed. Word and Word Perfect were always crap and they have gotten worse. Someone need to start OVER and rethink what a word processor needs to do. Basics like multi level numbering are impossible to teach users how to do. These apps are truly dinosaurs and we need a new killer app word processor suitable for writing books, html and pdf documentation including table of contents, indexes, appendices and normal stuff you find in documents.
Personally I don't want clippy to RIP.
I want it to suffer eternal torment in the fires of silicon hell, where daemons will flay it continally until the end of time.
"It looks like you're trying to inflict agonies beyond belief on me, would you like so.... aaargh, no, no, stop with the poker! Anything but the poker, pleeeaase!"
But that's just me.
Internal numbering... major number goes up for each suite release.
From my blog dated a month ago:
"
Microsoft have been using internal numbers for their major Office release for some time:
Office 9 = Microsoft Office 2000
Office 10 = Microsoft Office XP
Office 11 = Microsoft Office 2003
And right now they are in pre-beta with Office 12... yet to be assigned a product name (or yet to be announced depending on whether you believe what you hear).
A curiosity though, I've just been conversing with a product manager in the globalisation team over a feature that the company I work for would dearly like, during this conversation she mentioned that the feature in question would not be in Office 12, but some part of it will be considered for Office 14.
Office 14? So what happened to Office 13?
Could it be that Microsoft are superstitious enough to not want to number a feature version of Office as Office 13?
Or am I reading too much into this, and did they just use Excel to do the numbering?
Maybe someone should point out to them that missing 13 doesn't make it any less Office 13.
"
Because, it will be 2012 before all of the kinks/bugs are worked out of the new features.
Office 12 might contain a ton of features, but the crucial one is this:
An open, documented format - and I mean 100% open, not like the 65% shared source initiative from MS that means zilch to devleopers.
MS has to realise that the data in the document which I put in is much more valuable than the format in which it's stored. If I'm forced to use only MS tools to manipulate data in Office docs, it's not too exciting.
Recently, I searched for ways to update a VSS store from a remote location using a web interface. I learnt that the small 3rd party app needed to achieve this was ridiculously expensive, and crucially MS didn't have this component for it's own software. I'm now looking to change from VSS rather than getting a plug-in. More enterprise users would move away from Office if it sticks to proprietary patented stuff in the new version.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Definitely, check out these screenshots, I mean I haven't tried it but this ribbon thingy doesn't strike me as intuitive as the menu paradigm we're used to.
Microsoft's Screenshot
Zdnet series of screenshots
Plus it takes loads of screen real-estate.
"When a ball dreams, it dreams it's a frisbee"
Old versions of Office have entire books devoted to their bugs. When we moved from Office 98 to Office 2004, we noticed that most of the bugs were still in the program even though it was 3 versions later.
Is Office 12 just a UI rearrangement of the same defective code?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Link to Channel9 coverage http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=1147 20
5 191-a526-44bc-80e5-3f5399aeb162/new_julie_larson_g reen_office12_ui_2005.wmv
Link directly to video http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/5/b/65b0
My Tech Posts on Twitter
can you tell me where I can buy copies of Office 98 and 2004? I seem to have missed those ones.
Maybe someone should point out to them that missing 13 doesn't make it any less Office 13.
Obligatory Mitch Hedburg:
"My hotel doesn't have a 13th floor because of superstition. But people on the 14th floor, you know what floor you're really on.!"
"If 13 is an unlucky number, then 12 and 14 are guilty by association."
Office really is way past good enough for most users. My office uses Office 2000 and really doesn't see a big need to jump to Office XP or 2003. Office 12? Big harry deal. I wonder if Microsoft will have to start droping the price.
What I really wonder is why no big PC companies like Dell, IBM, or Gateway are including OpenOffice with their PCs?
Seems like a brain dead way to give your customers a free office suit. I guess the answer is they are all hoping to sell you MS Office.
Maybe Gateway/Emachine should think about it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The chief reason why Office is no longer attractive to enterprises is bcos of it's closed formats. It's not possible to manipulate an Office document without using the application, and that's pricey, bloated and proprietary - besides being locked down to the platform.
Companies around me have stuck with Office 97 for docs and use the Mozilla range for mail and internet. IE and OE are too buggy and bloated - and more easily replaced than Office. In a year's time, Open Office 2 should stabilise and remove the need for the OS itself.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
What will it cost?
Microsoft hasn't yet specified.
Translation: prepared to be raked over the coals for failing to upgrade from Office 97 for all these years. You don't think those dinosaur ads pay for themselves do you?
Office 4.3 = Word 6, excel 5.0 Access 3? = Powerpoint 4? Office 7.0 = Word 7.0 = Excel 7.0 = Access 7.0 = Powerpoint 7.0 == leveling to the version number of the highest, flagship product
While the more visual and tabbed layout may reduce mouse clicks, it eats up more screen real estate than Office 2003 does. Visually, Office 12.0 will look dramatically different, though just marginally more attractive than its predecessor. Icons and charts appear less flat, but our jaws didn't drop at first sight.
I'm one of those guys with dual 19 inch moniters running at greater then 1280 by 720 resolution and I still don't have enough desktop area. It's a shame they are adding more onscreen buttons/tabs/menus to the interface, making the word processor more mouse dependant. They are also screwing with the shortcuts, messing up the Alt+ shortcuts. It is their software though, not mine, so they can do whatever they want, and I'll keep on with Open Office.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
Isn't Microsoft's argument against switching to alternative office suites the alleged re-training costs to get workers up to speed on the new interface.
Well, if Office 12 has "radical interface changes" it appears to me that if it's going to require re-training, businesses might as well switch to an alternative now and save a fortune.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/s ep05/09-13OfficeUI.mspx
Click the thumbnails on the right.
I personally will not install any Beta microsoft product so I cannot verify.
:[
:]
Does anybody know if they finally have undo past savepoints.
Because of my experience with MSO (been using since Excel 4.0) is that it is best to save the document ALL the time else the app will crash and you will loose hours of work. BUT when you save, you loose the undo history
MSO up to now has never had this feature (bad programmers BAD).
BTW - OOo has this feature in 2.0
God I love open source
JsD
There are some here
This video starts out strangly like a porn vid....
For years, I have heard that the differences between MS Office and Open Office were so significant that the cost of retraining was not worth transitioning.
Where are those people today? The same ones that argued that it was not cost effective to retrain, will be arguing this is an incremental change or significant but worth the effort. I can hardly wait for Laura DiDio's "How Office 12 will make your company 12 times more productive" press release disguised as a "research paper."
As several prior posters have said, if you are going to take the upgrade hit, why not take it to open office? It will certainly be less expensive in both licensing and training. And it will support OpenDocument formats, something MS has said they will not do.
At least until the MS PR machine starts rolling.
Open Office Home page
Not to mention that you can't open two files of the same name, at least in the Mac version. They should be ashamed.
Office 12's innovations paves the way for Office 13's "return to the Office design that users have to love."
Two years from now, whoever is in charge in Office will stand up at some flashy Microsoft presentation and explain how they "ignored users" and "goofed" by changing too much in Office 12. He'll talk about "lessons learned" and how "grateful Microsoft is to the user community for their active support of Microsoft Office."
And then he'll push a couple buttons, curtains will raise, and some huge screen will blast "Office 13" and show videos about how all these new innovations have been replaced by the stuff that users wanted -- namely, a return to the regular menu.
I don't know -- after ten, fifteen years of Microsoft, I'm extremely, extremely weary of all this technological hullabaloo. It's a lot of noise about nothing except money -- big money -- and users -- myself included -- fall for it time and time again.
And yes, I've gradually moved over to Linux solutions. They're fine -- sometimes more complesxs than I'd like -- but I've come to understand that Microsoft -- and perhaps Google, too, but I don't know yet -- really don't understand technology. They understand technology, yeah, but they don't understand the fundamental fact that more and more people have an antagonistic response to technology. We like technology, sure, but goddammit make technology that makes things easier -- not complex in a different way.
I wish someone at these companies would begin to acknowledge the odd technological antagonism that more technology breeds. Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should* -- create a new version of Word, implement X or Y, etc. etc.
I dunno. Whatever. It doesn't matter.
Balmer: Bill, please tell me Clippy didn't applayed for a job at Google!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
I still install Office 97 on every Windows computer I own. There are no license key or registration "phone home" issues to deal with and it's a pretty lean word processor compared to the others out there today. Honestly, I can't tell you what features have been added to Office in the last 8 years that would be of any use to me.
I use LyX to do my word processing. I like not having to fuss (too much) with layout.
But it's still a bit too technical for the average user. If somebody took the concept and turned it into a polished, commercial, end-user product, it might be a good alternative even for non-techies.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
I work at a shop that does a lot of transcription. We have been able to keep our VBA macros (which are quite extensive) working between all versions of Word from 97 on without too much difficulty.
Has anybody heard if the object model has changed significantly (i.e. Application / Document / Range / etc.)? If Microsoft revamps the back-end macros in Word the way they are revamping the front-end, it would certainly be an impetus for companies to look at other office solutions
The key breakthrough that dropdown menus provided when they were introduced was simply that all the available functions (or function categories, at least) are visible, or at lease findable, you don't need to remember any text command (like a command line) or wierd control key combinations. It greatly simplifies things, but a GUI dropdown menu is no more effective in that way than the original Lotus 1-2-3 text interface - a '/' would bring up a top screen menu, which you could select in a similar fashion with keyboard only, no mouse. In fact, it had some advantages until Microsoft added the ALT-key method for accessing GUI menus.
The fundamental problem is that when menus get too complex, the options are no longer easily visible. You now have to remember where to activate a particular function - and you're back to memorizing things instead of having them in front of you, so you're back to the idea of commands. Only the command is a series of menu clicks, instead of keystrokes or words.
The problem isn't the use of menus, but the over use of them. The entire reason for the existance of GUIs is to allow direct manipulation of objects. The opportunity for ease of use from this is still only touched upon in many ways - especially by those who don't see any farther than stuffing menus full of functionality (similarly, if you've ever looked at the configuration options of a complex open-source project like NetBeans or KDE or Gnome, you'll see huge trees of incomprehensible options, often in a uniform structure that gives you no clue as to where to find the one you're looking for - you have to read, explore, read, explore until you stumble across the one you want). That functionality should go into direct manipulation of visible objects, not menus.
For example, in a word processor, mini icons representing paragraphs could be displayed in a margin. To change properties like interparagraph spacing, indent, style or following style, you'd click on the icon to open a control panel - instead of cursor somewhere into the text, then up to the menu bar and click on Format / Paragraph / Indents and Spacing. Another icon or option lets you select the paragraph style, or edit the style (some of this is already done, with a ruler control up top, with drag-and-drop tabs - good idea). The manipulation now takes place at the paragraph you're interested in itself, not far away in some abstraft menu tree.
Direct manipulation is the most overlooked, but by far the most powerful ease-of-use tool. The Macintosh and applications that run on it, go furthest by a wide margin in using direct manipulation, which is why users consider it so vastly easier to use, yet without loss of power. This is the real magic of GUIs and key to ease of use - it's not in "simplifying options", but providing those options in an absolutely direct and intuitive fashion.
Perhaps I should clarify - my copy of Office 97 is from an old purple-and-black MSDN developers CD I picked out the trash at work. The print on the CD says "for 60 days of evaluation" but the code neither asks for a license code nor expires after 60 days, so that CD (and some of its backup copies) remains valuable to me.
Nothing will ever top edit.com from the old MS-DOS days! Billy G and the crew should give it up. Long live edit.com!
You misspelled ed
"Microsoft changes some buttons, messes with menus forcing you to relearn previously simple procedures and charges you big bucks for the privilege."
You should try modelsim sometime.
With the new plugin architecture, you could create a tab who's only purpose is to show a flash movie of clippy burning in hell, being sodomized be devils, ect... Isn't office 12 great?