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Microsoft Office 12 Beta 1 Is Out
lastberserker writes "The first official beta of the next MS Office is out. PC Magazine already has review with screenshots. Check these blogs for more details on new UI, new file format, and the killer app; plus much more in your friendly neighborhood Wikipedia." From the PC Mag review: "Instead of the cluttered, hard-to-navigate interface that sprouted up haphazardly over the past 20 years, Office 12 introduces a new interface based on tabs that organize sets of functions under headings such as 'Write,' 'Page Layout,' and 'Review,' plus a combination toolbar-and-menu called the ribbon, which displays a different set of icons and menu items depending on the tab selected, and displays different sets of icons depending on whether you're working with text, graphics, tables, or other kinds of data."
FTFA: "Word and Excel still perform automated changes that you may not want or expect, and you still have to learn their sometimes-obscure inner logic before you can master them." It still thinks it can create my document better than I can. No thanks. doc
Aren't ALL their releases beta until Service Pack 2?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Let this be a lesson to the openOffice people. Many people, including myself, have said time and again that openOffice should not be copying Microsoft Office, but instead try to be original and just be a great office suite. By copying MS Office, you are just letting Microsoft define the rules of the game, and you'll always be playing catch-up.
Now office 12 is out, and they've completely redesigned the interface. openOffice have three options:
1) Keep their current interface, and risk looking very outdated in a few years.
2) Put masses of effort and wasted time into copying the new interface, and let MS keep defining the rules of the game.
3) Start to be original and concentrate on making a great and original product.
All the above applies to file formats as well. So much of the effort but into being compatible with MS's horrible formats could have been better spent elsewhere.
Firefox did not become a great browser by copying IE, it did so by being a well designed product and adding original, easy-to-use features.
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New File Format - This as you know is the area that is most near and dear to my heart. We are finally fully opening up our file formats in Office. Word, PowerPoint, and Excel will all three use new XML formats as their default formats. These formats will be fully documented and anyone can leverage them to build solutions, or even to build a competitive application. If you're interested in this topic, just keep reading my blog (and look through all my previous entries.
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This infuriates me. They act as if they were the ones who came up with the idea of a new open format for office applications, and then talk about how near and dear to their heart it is. This sounds more like a hallmark commercial than a msdn blog
FTFA: "Word and Excel still perform automated changes that you may not want or expect, and you still have to learn their sometimes-obscure inner logic before you can master them."
The developers tried to take it out but every time they tried the intellisense in Visual Studio "corrected" the "mistaken" alterations.
Word is that Office 13 (codename "Daisy") will finally have the rogue intelligence pulled.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
4) Keep their current interface, and attract all the previous Office users who cannot stand the new interface with all this "ribbon" baloney.
The ribbon is a huge mistake that flies in the face of almost every UI design principle. The fact that all the menus change depending on both the tab you are currently on *and* the document you are writing, means that all gains you get from your motor memory is lost, you will have to *constantly* be reading the menu and taking double takes to make sure you are doing what you think you are doing.
I think one of three things will happen:
Despite the history of option 3, I think the fact that this UI is such a piece of crap that we may have a real chance at 1 or 2 this time.
First - I love Microsoft Office. I have been a Microsoft Office lover since Excel was released on Mac. I also love Open Source, but still prefer my Microsoft Office 2004 for MacOS X.
Secondly - Office 12 is suicide. Ordinary users hate GUI changes. It doesn't matter if the new GUI is good or not. There are probably tens of thousands of users here on Slashdot that agree on the problem of persuading people to make even a small jump from Windows 2000 to XP - or even worse the impossible switch to Linux or Mac.
Microsoft fumbling with Vista and Office 12 is to become the worst business miscalculation ever made, and our grandchildren will read about it in Economics 101.
In an effort to make http://www.openoffice.org/ 2.0 more MS Office compatible, the beloved office assistant "Clippy" has been included in the open source software. It's thought that Clippy's comforting and helpful questions will ease users into the harsh and different world of Open Office.
Instead of Clippy asking:
"It looks like you're writing a letter, would you like help?"
He'll be asking:
"It looks like you're writing a letter, would you like to release it under the LGPL or BSD license?"
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.