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Office 2007 — Better But a Tough Switch
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Office 2007, coming out Jan. 30, is a 'radical revision,' writes the Wall Street Journal's Walter S. Mossberg. 'The entire user interface, the way you do things in these familiar old programs, has been thrown out and replaced with something new. In Word, Excel and PowerPoint, all of the menus are gone — every one. None of the familiar toolbars have survived, either. In their place is a wide, tabbed band of icons at the top of the screen called the Ribbon. And there is no option to go back to the classic interface.' He adds, 'It has taken a good product and made it better and fresher. But there is a big downside to this gutsy redesign: It requires a steep learning curve that many people might rather avoid.'"
I wonder if this will break all the Excel macros I've written too.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
The entire user interface, the way you do things in these familiar old programs, has been thrown out and replaced with something new.
I'm crossing my fingers in the hope that they replaced the entire user interface with a giant version of Clippy.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I always thought *that* was the fourth pillar.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
With more bugs each having more power to disrupt yor office work.
This will pair with Vista and IE 7.
Intelligence has limits. Stupidity doesn't.
For those of you who are getting this pushed to your desktops and hate the ribbon...
CTRL-F1
But when you have a week when you're not under intense deadlines, give it a chance. I've really learned to like it, and think it does add some clarification to UI that was the definition and punchline of "Bloatware"
I used to do document processing with nroff/troff, so named paragraph styles and such just come naturally. What I don't understand is why no one seems to have just used CSS configurations to control display formatting of documents instead of just web pages.
Why not have more standardized tags so a web user's interface preferences can be easily rendered by browsers anywhere they go? i.e. Fill in the CSS attributes with your preferences and save them to your web profile. Anywhere you log in, you point the web profile to your "home" CSS sheet, and from thereon you get your display configs instead of CSS being abused to force tiny unreadable fonts onto big monitors, or inch-high text on older monitors.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It was nice knowing you in the early years. But now, good riddance.
Way to take the things that worked and allowed me to use muscle memory and familiarity to get stuff done and throw them out. This just happened to IE7 and it sucks now. This happened to Money and it sucks to an extreme level now.
The applications don't even match each other any more.
The company is going into the ground like a lawn dart. I'm glad I moved my office manager to OpenOffice last year.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Microsoft throwing away backwards compatibility? Tell me it's not true. I can see how people would be more likely to switch to OpenOffice just because the interface is more familiar. I wonder if MS will eventually backpedal and publish a classic-interface patch.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I've seen radical departure in Microsoft's IE7, couldn't completely figure it out.
I've seen a radical departure in Gaim's interface, still scratching my head.
I've seen an amazing myriad of Windows Media Player interfaces. I've completely given up even trying to use that.
I remember a heated discussion once during a design session on a major application we were writing for a "large telcom". The gist of the discussion was we "had to have" a file menu, and it had to be on the top left of the application even though there was no notion of "File" for this application. The rationale? Because that's the way Microsoft did all of their applications.
I give Microsoft credit for taking a chance on a radical departure from what I've always thought was a stilted and stupid "required" interface (menus)... I hold little hope they get (got) it right considering Microsoft carried the old standard into the 21st century.
I find it curious they offer no way to use the old menu system. I'd be inclined not to want the old way, but for the sake of familiarity, it'd seem the more sane thing to do to offer the old menu interface as an option.
And that dosen't seem to appealing to the corporate customers they're trying to sell this to. I think its an issue of an unnecessary GUI overhaul once again to make an incrimental product seem new.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
I do admit there is a learning curve, but even so, once you get the hang of it, its very fast. I know that in Powerpoint it is very easy to find where the tools you need are, and some are in multiple spots if they need to be. There are a couple different presentation modes, but when you have dual screen set up with extended desktop, your second screen becomes the actual slides, while the first screen displays your notes, along with a bar of upcoming slides. If older versions could do this, I never encountered it.
Word is also better, I like the UI stuff they've done when you highlight and the font menu automatically appears. E-mail editing is tied in well with outlook, which didn't get as much update to the UI as the others, but still looks and works great. Amazingly, even for a beta, I rarely run into stability issues. I crashed it once, but I don't remember what I did, and I really think it wasn't a crash, but something locked it running in the background that just was taking a real long while to run, so I got impatient and set it to the land of Ctrl-alt-del.
-Ed
So you see what had happened was....
The functional design behind the ribbon was to keep every task to 1-2 clicks only.
And they did a good job, the fact that I had to add the 'Save As' button was the only quirk that bothered me.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
For people who mostly control Office via keyboard commands, and rarely use menus and toolbars, all of the basic keyboard commands are the same.
Phew!
The menus, icons, and buttons are helpful, but keyboard commands are where Microsoft really shines. X (or rather, the Window Managers) still has a long way to go in that area. I'd actually think if MS changes the keyboard shortcuts it would be a real issue, but for the icons, people will learn them easily enough and move on.
Have you read my journal today?
Sweet! Radical change to the interface away from the comfortable and familiar to the regular user sounds like a sudden and abrupt shock to me. Open Office has served me well for several years now, replacing MSoffice, and costing about zip. Same style of interface, same functionality - and the open document format.
This is probably a good time for OSS advocates in the corporate enviroment to bring the alternative up. Radical changes mean retraining, and retraining means wasting money. You might also push the "free" as in beer angle, or the faster development cycle producing new versions faster. Open Office dosen't have as many (known) exploits. Any other good selling points I'm missing?
-GiH
People will be using older versions for a while, but i look forward to the coming days when i tell people about openoffice and i can say "you can learn open office or the new ms office- both are different, but only one is free" because right now- i have a hard time getting people to move to open office because they don't want to change at all.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Great, another windows version! It never ceases to amaze how MS can release 4 copies of Office in the period OS X gets one. I hear the next Apple version is coming in another 12 months or so... Ridiculously long waiting periods.
For those like me that are keyboard jockeys, the lack of menus will take some time to get around. However (for better or for worse, considering how people abuse Outlook and PowerPoint functionality), the new strips allow users to see more of the functionality that is available in the various programs, with tab titles that usually make at least as much sense as the old menus did, and often make more sense.
People to whom I've shown the new interface have had a few complaints, but they've been more about how it's different, not how it's bad. The quick access to items that used to be buried in menus (unless you wanted to clutter your toolbar with more buttons) actually made a number of people much happier once they got a chance to play with it. These are not Office experts, either, and the learning curve did not seem to be all that great.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
As long as they havn't changed the keyboard shortcuts I couldn't give a monkeys.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
The new ribbon is not only a really nice interface but it was not implemented over a night. Years and years of research are behind of this little nice innovation: See Jensen harris blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Can you imagine what this would be like for a business with thousands of employees in each building who will need to be retrained to used Word. First there would be the cost of upgrading, them the cost of training, particularly if they need to bring in someone external and then they've lost man hours from all the retraining they've had to give.
Doesn't sound great to me.
Summation 2
Ok, so MegaCorp has 5,000 MS Office users. Whilst learning the new interface they will lose, on average, ten hours productivity. Each employer costs $40ph. Total costs on conversion above and beyond licensing/installation is $2,000,000.
And I don't think my guestimates are thatfar out. The $40ph is based on my (UK) costings - not my wages, what it costs the company I work for to employ me. The ten hours is plucked from the void but I don't think anyone who's worked on desktop support will feel it's that unreasonable.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
He adds, 'It has taken a good product and made it better and fresher. But there is a big downside to this gutsy redesign: It requires a steep learning curve that many people might rather avoid.'
Oh great, they made it so much better. But is it really a better product if noone wants to use it. Personally I don't think Office has had any major improvements since Office97 except for the spelling and grammar checks getting better in Word. Of course I guess all the people who really want Office to go away as the industry standard will be happy. If you have to completely relearn the interface, why stay with an overpriced product like Office as oppased to OpenOffice or other alternatives.
Wasn't having to learn a new interface one of their biggest arguements against open source software? I seem to remember report after report after report showing the "costs" to train employees to use non MS software.
It may be a radical revision but I disagree with the steep learning curve assesment. The options are far less buried, making them much more visible, and the formating options are all available at the highlighted section rather than up in the window frame. It was more of a change in how the available options were organized than any real substantial change in how the program works. IE you are mostly dealing with the same tools, they are just arranged differently. And for once I think the change was for the better.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Is it the same interface you find on MS Office for Mac? If it is, then it's a clear improvement over the old GUI. IMHO, of course.
The owls are not what they seem
If everyone is going to have to re-learn everything anyway, this could end up as an incentive for people to explore Office replacements.
But £300 seems like a lot for a new UI on top of a bunch of products I already own.
"It has taken a good product and made it better and fresher. But there is a big downside to this gutsy redesign: It requires a steep learning curve that many people might rather avoid."
It's an office application. I don't need a redesign, I don't care if it's "fresher" - people just need to be able to sit down and type a letter, or put together a spreadsheet.
There shouldn't be a learning curve involved with what amounts to commodity software.
#DeleteChrome
All those people who say they won't try free software because "it means learning a new interface" or "we'd have to convert all our files" or "they teach Office XP in school" or "it would require retraining" or "the TCO of switching is too high" - we now know what they actually mean.
"We want microsoft software at any cost"
Otherwise, all those arguments mean that they cannot use the latest version of Word.
Was that supposed to read "No macros will work, fine" or even just "no marcos will work fine"?
I'm not sure how or why it happens... my suspicion is that every new marketing manager gets to dictate his or her own personal UI preferences, as if they were part of the color scheme or branding or something. I would rather believe that than believe any other hypotheses I can come up with (such as that it is a fiendish strategy to force upgrades by making life intolerably miserable for any person or company that is trying to use a mixture of different versions of Office).
Microsoft is really much worse than other software companies at producing followup products that manage to include real improvements without adding a lot of seemingly arbitrary changes that are no better and no worse, just randomly different from the previous version. Consecutive versions of Word have always add a tendency to use about 85% or so of the same functions, but randomly distributed into different menus (or some into menus, some into toolbars) than in the previous version.
(With or without a randomly placed "preference" that puts many but not quite all of them back into pretty much but not exactly the same places as they were in the previous version).
(Just to show I'm an equal-opportunity whiner, I have to say that Apple did the same thing with the Macintosh Finder...)
I wish that manufacturers of well-liked products would routinely ombudsman who understands what it was that customers liked about the product and whose job was to make sure that the next version didn't unnecessarily throw out any babies with the bathwater.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Office 2007 has entire new interface.... clearly the comments from someone who hasnt used it enough and has only seen some press pictures. Even if the author of this story has used it, chances are they only just started the apps.
True, the most popular apps such as powerpoint word, excel have nice front end interfaces... Some of the tools that come with office still have the old style look. Also as soon as you choose some of the more advanced features u see the same old dialogs. The changes only go skin deep. Clearly there is probably some inner tweaks, but give it a bit and you will find all the same sort of stuff.
Dont get me wrong, some of the new stuff is neat, like the image toolbars which allows cool shadowing and stuff. Overall word is nicer to use... clearly nicer then 2003, IMO the 2003 was the worst looking set of apps ever...
Bottom line, changes where made are only skin deep, there are inconsistancies amongst apps, not all apps have nice new changes.
If someone tells u otherwise, either they havent really used office 2007 or are just butt kisser for ms.
Dont get me wrong, it is an improvement, the ribbon thing when used well in word is nice.
A big roadblock to switching to Linux was that users would have to be retrained.
OpenOffice is not a bad suite, it's just as good as MS office for most people.
Switching from Windows to Linux would mean going through a learning curve, and most
of that would involve OpenOffice, the programs that you'd be using instead of MS Office.
Now with a new Windows AND a new Office hitting the streets about the same time anybody
having to make a decision of not upgrading, upgrading and re-training, or switching to
Linux and re-training will see that with the retraining issue a problem no matter what,
maybe switching to Linux isn't such a bad idea now.
Thanks MS!
I see the same complaints every time the UI changes on any program that people use a lot: "They changed the UI and now I have to learn a different one!"
You might have a legitimate grievance if the new UI is worse than the old one, but complaining just because it's different is annoying and stupid. Did you think that you'd never have to learn another UI, ever? Get over it.
Driving a car is very different than driving a team of horses, but that doesn't mean I'm upset that we're not riding in horse-drawn carriages. Sometimes different is GOOD.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
..he means it takes someone smarter than a carrot about 20 minutes to figure out, then yeah, it has a steep learning curve.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
I'm most interested in their Sharepoint Server 2007. This could finally be a great sharing tool for businesses. I work in Pharmaceutical Marketing, and I can't begin to tell you how many slides that we have, and no good way to management... looks like Sharepoint might be the answer.
This is one of the few (actually, I can't remember any other one) instances where Microsoft has really innovated something. I guess they will have it all covered with patents.
If it happens to be an improvement, and if it is not patented, maybe some OSS applications will want to use the idea.
Does anyone know if it is patented?
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Not disagreeing, except if your company opts to do an upgrade like this, they should have already factored in the knowledge of a temporary loss in productivity as their employees learn the new interface.
So yes, you will have to "stop what you're doing and relearn something else". But apparently, your I.T. department and management decided that was a worthwhile task. (If they didn't think so, they'd opt not to upgrade, or would consider a different product, right?)
As I said, I'd never seen it, but I also skipped the 2003 iteration of Word. I prefer 2007 with its eye candy and everything else. It's nice and it works fast for me.
-Ed
So you see what had happened was....
Since most never even try it - no, none of those are the reasons. I'm talking about home users, who have never even heard of OOo when I bring it up.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
OpenOffice looks enough like [an uglier version of] Word that people will expect everything to work the same way...and then get frustrated when it doesn't.
I've been using it for a while now, and while the new features are cute, the new interface is what is truly excellent. It is much more adapted to larger screens with higher resolution and color than when the product-line set out back in the days.
/:
Upgrades bringing big changes usually just introduce more bloat or simply unnessesary trouble for inexperienced users, but M$ should be give credit for actually making this powerful product's features more available with this release. The dialogs are mostly the same, its just how you get to them.
A change of our GUIs are a nessesary evil; they need to evolve as well! I guess progress comes with a price sometimes...
Am I the only one who thought that the easy, consistant and obvious layout was probably the only thing that seperated Microsoft Office from the rest? This seems to be removing the one thing I truely thought was fantastic about Office - it's simplicity. If I wanted anything with a learning curve, I would use LaTeX. Familiarity is the only thing keeping people using Office.
MS will hopefully see what a mistake this is very quickly or people will look elsewhere?
(If they didn't think so, they'd opt not to upgrade, or would consider a different product, right?)
What other product? There are none that are viable for large scale deployment and system wide interoperability.
A few weeks ago, I watched someone install this program by mistake onto a new computer. It's what the university is now pushing, so they kept it.
It would be hard to describe their frustration, so I won't bother. It took them half an hour to find "save as". As usual, the OS itself hid the extension so you could not tell that it was saving everything in .DOCX, the 6000 page "open XML" successor to the previous M$ "open" format, RTF. I can only imagine the anger and sadness that awaits true Word users who have been using all the painful tools that M$ bloated into the program, drawing tools, flight simulator, whatever.
The upgrade train is roaring on and M$ is really pushing hard this time. It's going to piss a lot of people off and offers great opportunity for free software. You can now say that it's easier to make the move to Open Office for a new system than it is to move to Office 2007.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Anyone who is not fully on board with moving to the new version needs to read Enchanted Office. It's all clear to me now.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The new interface does look nice, but the old menu makes it much easier for the help desks to provide support over the phone. It is easier to tell a user to "Click the File menu, then Save" than it is to say "Do you see the icon that looks like a floppy disk? It is on the first toolbar, third from the left. Yes, beside that yellow thing that looks like a file folder. Click that." Now imagine the help desk person on the phone is on another continent and English is not his/her first language. Getting rid of the menus will make the learning curve just that much steeper and make companies slower to adopt this new Office.
This is the perfect opportunity for OpenOffice.org to grab lots of marketshare. Especially if bundled with a UI that maps absolutely exactly the familiar MSOffice menus/items/hotkeys.
MS file formats and GUI skills are 90% of the reason users upgrade to MS without even considering switching to something else/better. Let 'er rip!
--
make install -not war
"Let's use a standard that would limit us to only basic document processing because it works well for basic document processing"
To handle complex documents and complex non-static layous, CSS would need to be "embraced and extended" so much we'd never have anything resembling a standard again.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
...to promote their product?
http://www.enchantedoffice.com/
Maybe it would be different if this was actually entertaining...
I'm betting M$ will be getting a design patent on this real soon, and won't that be fun...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Because that's not a complicated problem that entire industries are built around or anything.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I would have assumed that usability was low priority compared to other things. I am curious about where the UI changes rank in the order of customer priorities.
Now we will finally get to see if the oft-repeated argument that switching to free systems is too expensive, because users have to re-learn their skills holds any water. If so, we should see a flood migration from Office 2007 to OpenOffice.org et al, as they will be the closest in terms of user interface of all up to date software. My money is on "no, the argument doesn't hold water", though.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I worked with Access alot, and i tried OOOs DB side and it has no import for Access Documents, Maybe you guys know of one, but for the most part i like OOOs DB
WulframII - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Game
I don't know who Microsoft tests these radical changes on, but it is not an everyday user. I have seen many people struggle with Office over the years and I have seen how they learn to do specific tasks click by click. If you change the way to do a task, the users are crippled. I remember there were changes in bullets and numbering around Office 2000, and I saw how it was almost impossible to do what used to be simple. I've had to go in and disable most of the auto-editing features for some users. Changes may be "better" but not if users already know how to do tasks. So now MS wants people to re-learn everything they've ever learned?
Someone at MS ought to go out and watch everyday users struggle with Office for a while. Then they would think different (oops, wrong tag line) about radical changes.
The bottom line: If someone added a WordPerfect compatibility mode to OpenOffice with Reveal Codes, the entire universe would switch in a single, massive quantum leap. There are still lots and lots of people who have never really gotten beyond Reveal Codes. Don't laugh - WordPerfect 5.x was still actively in use well into the 2000s in legal offices. It is probably still in use. Add a keystroke-compatibility mode to Open Office and then add Reveal Codes, and watch the world beat a path to your door ...
So given that I neither want nor use maybe 90% of the functionality of Word, Excel, Outlook etc. what is there that would induce me to ditch my trusty old Office 2000 system and spend my own money on this and then have to re-learn the look and feel?
(this is a rhetorical question, BTW. I want to show that the average user won't have any real reason to switch)
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Compiling Linux is a "steep learning curve". Learning MS Office 2007 requires you to click on the tabs and see where the options are. My girlfriend is a total end user, and she didn't even MENTION having difficulties adapting to the new layout... It's organized logically enough.
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TFA is quite short on screenshots (and the video is essentially just talking head), but you can find quite good ones here and here (the latter is a slideshow). (Note: I haven't read those articles, just went looking for pretty pictures of O2007.) Looks good, be interesting to see how it works for us keyboard-intensive people (although I, for one, will be really glad to stop typing "Alt+O / p / Alt+P / Alt+X / Enter" to make a paragraph keep with next. (Years ago I gave that its own toolbar button, but I use other people's machines too often...)
This crap will be pushed onto desktops by a tiny minority of employees known variously across corporate America as "the IT department", the "Computer Resourse Center", "Information Systems Management" or "those bastards".
Hey, I tease. Mostly.
But that's why crappy software wins out. Market forces aren't really at work when a few appointed people control the rules and tools a bunch of other mostly powerless people have to accept. It's a lot like government.
and the stupid hand-holding and blue, blue, everywhere blue is that the new Vista fonts look like ass.
Turn on ClearType - they're fuzzy. Turn off ClearType - even fuzzier. Turn off "font smoothing" - sweet mother of god, what is this abomination?
You know, "it's all new and you will need training to make the switch and you'll be unproductive for a while and morale will sink (etc etc)". Cue violins etc.
As far as I can tell it's easier to switch to OO + Linux or Mac than it is to go Vista + Office 2007. And it's a lot safer and cheaper too.
But, ah, no. I see. That would be logical..
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
I've been using Office since Office 97 and I have to disagree that the ribbons have a "steep learning curve." I've been using the MSDN version of Office 2007 for the past few months and I honestly picked up on the ribbon UI almost immediately. Everything was exactly where I would've expected it to be. It's quite intuitive.
It's a keyboard shortcut. On another note- I use Open Office as well, but this new interface for MS Office is actually pretty great- it only took me an hour of fiddling to like it much better than the old (and to determine they didn't gut the keyboard shortcuts). Just IMO, natch.
"What? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the constant beeping of my bullshit detector..."
The entire purpose of this is to let MS's lackeys across corporate America to have some new buzzwords and justify their careers as crap peddlers.
"The entire user interface, ... , has been thrown out".
Did they throw out the part where you click in the big white area and hit keys and letters pop up? How about the backspace key? Does that work differently? pgup and pgdn? delete? Since it is Micro$oft, they probably did screw those things up.
I suspect most of the people on here bashing the ribbon interface of Office 2007 haven't actually used it for more than 5 minutes. Coming from previous versions of Office it takes very little adjustment to get used to the new interface. The menu option you're looking for is no longer burried in some obscure sub-menu, almost all the options are only a couple of clicks away.
When doing a reptitive task, the required icon is only one click away presuming you stay on that ribbon. Because all the features are accessible instantly you find yourself frequently using tools which were hard to find in previous versions of Office.
The only problem I had to start with was finding the 'file' menu which is accessed by clicking the office button, not immediately obvious. Overall I've found it great to use and also time saving.
Microsoft only has to sell to the relative handful of IT mamagers across the corporate world. This crap is designed for them to go to their bosses with new buzzwords (Oooo! Ribbons!) and pseudo-technical gobbledygook while the dumbass MBAs shake their heads knowingly as they contemplate snorting their next line of blow.
MS could care fuck all about the average user. The average user isn't paying their bills.
As long as they havn't changed the keyboard shortcuts I couldn't give a monkeys.
I watched someone repeatedly punch the short cut for "save as" with no result. After a few minutes, I noticed the "office button" doing some kind of slow color change strobe. It forced her to push the button with her mouse. Bye bye keystroke shortcut.
Don't hurt any monkeys over this, OK? You can just switch to Open Office, which has shortcuts that work. Who knows, some M$ rep might have the new left handed trick to make things work so you only have to learn one or two more things, ha ha.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Don't you freakin' dare badmouthing the Ribbon without first trying it. This is one of those few things that Microsoft got right and spared no expense on implementation. As far as UI is concerned, I'd put it into the top 10 innovations of the last decade, and I do take the word "innovation" very seriously, particularly when it comes to Microsoft. Office 2007 is going to sell big, and OO will have to copy it. Again.
...for the average user I'd say. Microsoft are one of the few company's in this world that can throw absolutely stacks of hard cash at figuring out how to make everyday tasks such as saving, editing, etc easier for the average user, and I expect that in the end, it will be easier. I remember similar protests when Windows 95 came on the scene - dramatically new interface and all; it create a bit of a storm if memory serves.
What I do wonder though is, have Microsoft sacrificed ease of use for power-users in favour of n00bs? From what I've seen it looks like they have (no menus, and so on), which is not good.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Openoffice will not be not taken seriously until it has
a)A database program that doesnt suck
b)A presentation program with all the bells and whistles(the current one lacks it)
c)well thought out Desktop publishing
d)web page design tools
I use openoffice and I like it but I couldnt stop using publisher and frontpage
Yes, it takes maybe a week of general use to get down how it works, but after you do, it's a vastly improved interface. It's fast, easier to find things (and certainly more logical), and the help button is pretty efficient at finding you what you can't find yourself.
Personally, I'm surprised that so many slashdot users (of all people) seem like they'd have so much of a hard time learning an improved UI- although I'm not surprised by the comments themselves. Now, yes, in a workplace environment it might not be the best choice, since office drones would have to relearn some things. But the basics are still there, and let's remember people, if it's too much trouble, then don't upgrade the software.
As someone who's been using it for awhile now (beta) however, I can say it's the biggest improvement to Office I've seen in any of the versions, and for once, well worth the upgrade.
I use excel without touching the mouse--all keystrokes that go through the menus (alt-em, alt-es alt-v, etc). This would be a disaster for me. Familiar keystrokes is also the reason I use excel. If I can get the same menus/keybindings in open office, I would switch as soon as I would have to go to 2007.
People are going to hate the ribbon. People are going to complain about lost productivity and they liked the old one more and blah blah blah. You can't please all users and you can't innovate when all you do is make little tiny changes all the time. Good for Microsoft for putting their neck out on this one. It will probably upset the big corporate users but they won't adopt for a few years anyway.
..he means it takes someone smarter than a carrot about 20 minutes to figure out, then yeah, it has a steep learning curve.
Uh I smell Linux Zealot in the air... that is the typical Linux zealot answer when someone says X-distro Linux interface is more difficult than Windows... You must understand that for the non-saavy computer user (the majority of them anyways) there is no "menu bar" and "tool bar" but there are specific icons in specific place in the screen that they need to press in order to do things. For example, to save a file they must click on the "File" button and then click on the "save" button that appears and then type the name of their document and click on the "accept" button. That is the task, that is how it is done. If you modify at least a bit the steps of the task they will not know how to save their documents. There is no "File menu which contains all the options relevant to the computer file management" reasoning as there is on you or me. That is why they look on the
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/index. jsp
Listen, some people see free software in a negative light: when something goes wrong, who are they going to complain to, a mailing list? OpenOffice may become the standard office tool someday, but not everyone (and I would think the majority: I use linux 24/7, but if I was responsible for a base of OTHER people, I'm not sure I would want to abandon a company funded $3000 existing Office suite for OpenOffice, a tool which I have NOT had years of experience in). Perhaps switchting to StarOffice would have people in less of a panic, especially if they needed help.
Strangers will adopt to OO when more people are using it. This will probably happen quicker in places like France, where the Government is pushing Open Source migration first (it leads to a perception of reliability - that matters to people more than cost, and that takes time). Fortunately, Star Office already has a decent industry reputation. I've used it on campus - it's decent.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
well, maybe not hypocritical - but here's something I find amusing:
j html?articleID=163104202&tid=5979%2C5989
For years, IE was the only browser that didn't have tabs. Why didn't it have tabs? Well, according to this article:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.
Microsft claims the reason is that:
"Some people have asked why we didn't put tabs in IE sooner," Hachamovitch wrote. "Initially, we had some concerns around complexity and consistencywill it confuse users more than it benefits them? Is it confusing if IE has tabs, but other core parts of the Windows experience, like Windows Media Player or the shell, don't have?"
oh ok. that makes sense. They didn't want to change IE because that would confuse people.
But then how do you explain this change in office??
Well obviously, the IE explaination was just a lame excuse. IE didn't have tabs because they didn't care to add them. Quite obviously, they have no problem making major changes that will confuse people. And personally, I don't care. I'm willing to try something new in the hope that it will be better. I just don't like the BS
Here's the standard problem with Office upgrades:So, just like with the previous new versions, all of you with the "obsolete" version (say, Office 2003) won't be able to open the memo that the PHB just composed and sent out on his Shiny New Computer that came with Office 2007 pre-loaded. So, everybody has to "upgrade" to Office 2007, and buy new computers to run it.
So you will still be able to open and read the 10^9 documents created with older versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, so long as you don't need to have all of the formatting, fonts, macros or colors to stay the same. After all, if you couldn't open them at all, you'd dump Word in favor of WordPerfect.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
I wonder how popular it would be if someone writes macro or addin that implements the old menu system! Microsoft Word does have help for WordPerfect, and Excel has a Lotus 1-2-3 help which explains or does the 1-2-3 slash menu commands.
/RFDT2 (Range, Format, Date, Time, option 2). Not as quick as Contrl+Shift+@ but I prefer learning logical stuff. 1-2-3 also had context sensitive help.
/?" displayed an error!
WordPerfect/DOS keystrokes made no sense, and you had to memorize them 'cause previous to version 5.1 for DOS it had no menu! Create a new document? F7, Y, N. (F7 is quit! the last "N" means "No" to Exit WP) F6=Bold, F8=Underline, Shift+F7=Print, F10=Save. Mr. Spock would have committed suicide rather to memorize these illogical commands.
I still think that Lotus 1-2-3 menu slash sequences are easier to work than many keyboard combinations in Excel. For example, formatting time in 1-2-3:
Geez... Those where the times when most software were not friendly. You had to use keyboard templates, no consistent keystrokes between applications (Microsoft DOS based editors used Copy=Control+Insert, most other text editors used Wordstar's Control+K+C, etc). Before DOS 5, it had no help at all, "Dir
Ah yes, the fairy princess with a magic ribbon made by wizards saves the company it two or three days. They even take their Sunday off to learn the magic. Amazing. The free software people have had the same dream for eight years but have many further advantages than a spiffy UI. How does the M$ thing really do down? From the fine article:
Mossberg's experience is going to be closer to reality for those organizations foolish enough to roll this poop out. The whole point of using M$ junk is that they had already forced their staff to learn the painful click combinations required to do the job. Better alternatives, like Word Perfect, had already been swept under the rug to satisfy the muscle memory of "decision makers" sold on it.
Those of you wanting more efficient interfaces should be using free software. The click reduction has been going on there for a decade or so and you won't have to spend $150 to try it out.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
And for this we have to pay hundreds of dollars every two years? Bah. I'd rather get it free
...are we scared yet?
Back when I was doing' support for M$, we really hated OFF2000...
Buggy as sin....
We got a chance to try the RC's in Canada for OFFXP and fell in love again...
It was as solid as OFF97 was with new features and all....
OFF2003 is great as well, but a little more power hungry..
Most of my clients still prefer OFF2002 and will stick with it....
That was then and this is now, and Now is pissed off at this new Office...
Tested all of the Betas and sent back my replies....
Going from WP4.2 to 5.1 was an exercise in re education...but was worth it.
Going from OFF97/2000/2002/2003 is going to be like playing with legos again...and not finding the right piece I need....this will not help productivity in the least, and I'm not interested in taking another certification exam this year.
Pass....
End of Line.
A few years ago, it seems like all I heard from corporations and trade press was the reason why Open Office wouldn't likely be used was because of the "learning curve" to switch away from MS Office. Like Open Office was so radically different from Office!
There were studies and cost estimates and people complaining that it was easier to continue paying the MS tax than to retrain their people in the difference between Office and Open Office. So now Office comes out totally different, and the big retraining effort is just a "cost of doing business". No big deal.
So if MS imposes the cost on corporations, it's no big deal, but if there is a better alternative, even at a slight retraining cost, it's a show stopper.
I don't get it.
GUIs come and GUIs go. But w/ Office 2007 going to a Microsoft-proprietary version of XML for its file formats, trouble will break out everywhere. There'll be a zillion 2007 docs (from idiot companies that insist on upgrading) sent to a zillion users who can't open the documents. Even if you don't subscribe to the conspiracy theory, i.e. that Msoft did this to screw OO.o, it's just horrifying that Msoft is rolling out a full set of proprietary document formats. Just imagine trying to explain to everyone in your company about "Save As Office 2003 format," and when to click yes or no when Office2007 tells you it's converting older documents to the new format.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Now is a good time to figure out how to do things programmatically without using Office's VBA scripting (which you can half-assed do it if you reference libraries with .NET or use OLE).
.NET, old school OLE ones are sure to come soon).
Any spreadsheet macros that make use of sending click messages will break.
I have been using Office 2007 for a couple months now, and I must say---they are right about the learning curve.
It look be forever just to figure out what happened to the "undo" button on the tool bar.
Also, replacing the upper-left standard window menu and icon with this "Office Globe" is rather annoying. Word and Excel almost feel like they are their own presentation managers.
Most Windows fat client developers (sorry, smart client) look at Office towards innovative UI techniques. The Ribbon is sure to be copied in a lot of other apps that have a rich UI (I've already seen components being offered for
Anyone who started on Office2000 or 2003 is sure to be frustrated for a few months after this release. More so if you are a heavy spreadsheet user.
"Why you shouldn't shave your goatee while drunk"
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
I'm glad to see that they are at least supporting some LaTeX in the new office. Overbars were impossible before...
From a Software Engineers orientation; Microsoft made the Tool Bar capable of having multiple rows, and now there will be Icons for each function. From my perspective, the challenge will be creating unique Icons for each object function. A possible constructive solution might be to contact the Disney animators; I think these people would jump at the chance of creating something new and exciting? The one thing that Microsoft has maintained as a well designed user interface was that one could do the same thing with a keyboard, OR with a mouse; When applications do this, my wrists appreciate that.
Plus an equivalent of Visio and Project is required.
That's debatable. I don't think we've really reached a point where Microsoft Word is the only "viable" product for word processing tasks in a large corporate environment, have we?
IBM still sells SmartSuite with WordPro. WordPerfect is still available. There are even shareware and freeware solutions out there like OpenOffice.
It constantly amazes me how where I work, everyone goes into "panic mode" as soon as they receive an email attachment that can't be opened by MS Office with a double-click. Typically, they end up being WordPerfect documents or something, where actually, Word *can* open it, but just isn't associated as the default app to open files with that extension on them. It's this same fear that leads people to upgrade their Office suites, because otherwise, they might receive a document created with MS Office that they can't easily open up.
I'd argue that with either an older version of Word, or a competing product, you could be completely productive and functional in almost any business setting. You'd simply need to ask some people to resend files in alternate formats for you, and/or learn to use some conversion utilities here and there.
Is it me, or does it look just an incy wincy bit like Google docs & spreadsheets?
For whose sake, henceforth, may his vowes be such As what he loves may never like too much.
Slashdotters 2006: Office sucks, I'd never use it
Slashdotters 2007: Office 2007 changed the UI so I'm not going to use it anymore.
You didn't really think that this was an accident now, did you?
I find it curious they offer no way to use the old menu system.
It's not that mysterious really... just another tactic to increase lock-in:
1) Add new, idiosyncratic interface to commoditised application
2) Use monopoly to compel market to 'upgrade' to new version
3) Wait for users to accept the new interface as the default
4) Use IP laws to prevent FOSS competitors from cloning interface
5) Switching to FOSS suddenly becomes much more difficult
It's all about increasing switching costs.
Office 2000 meets both of those requirements. I would think any company considering the switch to Office 2007 already has a site license for Office 2000 (or 2K3), so the added cost is zero. Training shouldn't be an issue either.
If you mostly create plain documents, MS Word is the wrong software.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
The only new feature that get me thinking about upgrading is the ability of excel to handle a bigger spreadsheet size (32k x 1M). I work mostly with big database. I know that many other programs are better but sometimes when you want to just take a quick work, excel is still the way to go. I don't understand why MS just include this feature while spreadsheet in Linux been able to do it long time ago (and we have been using 32-bit machine for a very long time (about to have more use of 64-bit) Rant over!! I will wait and see if it worth it.
I want to know why the WordArt is all pretty, shiny and new in Excel, but not in Word - where you'd want more word art??
I downloaded a beta and my university has had the final version available for download for a couple weeks. I like that you can set the ribbon to autohide. I also like that instead of putting stupid addins in another toolbar which reduces the room to work in they exile it to "addins."
The placement of the commands seem fairly arbitrary to me, however. It was like they filled out 75% of the ribbons and said, "ok, let's just throw the rest of this stuff on there." They seemed to make the little windows button at the top the default for all the functions that they couldn't fit in anywhere else.
They say that they completely redesigned it, but as soon as you get into any of the options that aren't in the ribbon the box it pops up looks exactly like the older versions of Office which really shows that they just put a skin on the old application.
The instant preview of the fonts and formatting is really nice and the little formatting menu that pops up when you highlight a section is nice, although I wish it would pop up instantly instead of fading in. I forget it is there and move the mouse half way up to the ribbon before I remember that the formatting thing will fade in and by that time it is too late to use it.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
"It has taken a good product and made it better and fresher..."
Why yes... The old Word use to allow the letters to slide down the page... **Cough, cough**
Come on people! This new "innovative" user interface has little to do with improving anything. Microsoft has already set conditions for developers who want to use THEIR new interface. This change has everything to do with quickly switching their monopoly user base to something that will look significantly different than their competition in an effort to use new patent laws and FUD of litigation to kill competition.
Same ol' Microsoft. Soon we'll get to see if the new Democrat Congress members are as big corporate whores as the old Republican Congress was.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Soooooo Micro$oft wants me to upgrade because of this? They want me to lay down X hundreds of dollars for tabs and icons, and no "classic" option?
How many of us use more than 10% of Words features in the first place?
I don't have this new Office or Vista.
How do the ribbens differ from the usual menues?
They never seem to show any pictures on how they work.
Are there any sets of pictures that allow me to see them in action?
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
There are a lot of people who have extreme difficulty with change. This is especially true of people who live outside of California and a handful of other tech-oriented communities, because people who love change tend to gravitate towards people like them who live in those places.
I moved to Pittsburgh from Caifornia for work reasons and although the work reasons have worked out well, observing a culture so resistant to change and new ideas has been a huge shock. So much so that I've been trying to figure out a good way to get out while saving my business interests since practically the day I got here.
I share this with you because I think almost everyone on Slashdot deeply underestimates the negative impact of change on real people. I think these people deserve more sympathy than they are getting here.
That being said, I never really liked menu interfaces, preferring something more like the ribbon/toolbar concept. However, I can see one interesting downside.
One of the advantages of the old menu interface was that the menu options have keyboard shortcuts next to them, making them relatively easy to learn.
Is there an equivaent to this on the ribbon? It seems almost entirely mouse dependent based on the pictures.
(As a Mac user I couldn't simply get the demo and try it out).
D
Frontpage has been dropped as of Office 2007. It has been replaced by two apps - SharePoint Designer and Expression Web - but I have yet to see them, and I'm just a little worried.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy.
Hate it if you must, but the low hum you can hear in the background is the sound of photocopiers starting up all around the globe.
Considering that Office is one of their 'bread & butter' offerings, you think they're gonna hand it out for free??? And what of the offices that use a Linux backend for their servers?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"Older versions of Office, on both Windows and Macintosh computers, won't be able to read these new file types without special conversion software"
Ughh. Is this correct? It's hard for me to imagine companies and govt. institutions rushing to do a mass migration to the new version. I hope it will be easy to set the file format default for saving documents.
Also, regarding the new interface. From what the article showed, it isn't that alien. All of the "ribbon" buttons are the same as buttons on the tool bars, just moved around a bit. But I will tell you that without a "classic" view option, I won't be installing this for my parents.
Now nobody will ever switch to Office 2007, even though it's a better product, because they'll have to get used to something new and a new way of working - isn't this one of the most used justifications for not switching to Linux? ;)
Tech:Yea, click on the "Windows" icon in the upper left hand corner of the application
User:Where?
Tech:In the upper left corner, you know where the apple menu normally is...
User:Oh! OK! I see it now....
Really, Really!! It could happen,
There are only two steps in the gathering of ultimate knowledge. Open your eyes and, RTFM!
the biggest deal-breaker for me, and why i switched back to office 2003, is the removal of the blue background, white text option. i could try to work around some of the other issues but not this one. why on earth would they do that?! everytime i use MS Word on a computer that's not my own and the owner has the white background w/ black text, i sort of snicker and show him/her about the blue background feature, which is much better on the eyes. the only time i've ever had problems is when i get documents that have colored text (eg. black or blue) where the text becomes hard to read on the blue background.
another feature that's missing is the Chart Wizard for excel. Outlook '07 is nice, probably because the main interface is largely unchanged. But the unread message count and new mail envelope icons were always incorrect.
Office 2007's was too much to take in all at once. granted, if i used it a bit more i probably would get used to it. it's supposed to be intuitive w/ WYSIWYG editing and context driven menus/options, a lot Apple's apps (which i don't always particularly like either), but it doesn't always work out that way.
Office XP can also do this.
Except we're talking about a productivity suite here. Mostly that means a word processor and a spreadsheet. Those are mature technologies which in practice haven't changed that much in about 15 years, but just for the sake of argument we'll say 10. The basic functions, those that are used daily, have been around that long.
... Each employee will save on average 20 hours of work. So it's a net gain.Speculation. Any reason why the changes in this version will not decrease productivity instead of decrease them ? It's kind of hard to know until it's been tested on larger populations, more than just the pundits, reviewers and marketeers. Even if it's about the same to use, it's more likely that the obstacles to productivity lie elsewhere in the system.
The new software also introduces new levels of complexity with Information Restriction Management technologies. Love it or hate it, it means more parts, and more parts means more complexity and complexity means chances for users to muck things up. It also introduces single point of failure twice: once in needing an external server for the Restrictions Management, once more in the network connectivity needed to reach that Restrictions Management server
... That's why new software comes out.Depends on the source. In most of the cases, the new software come out so that a new, slightly incompatible file format can be spread and hopefully (from the vendor's view) gain enough market share to drive around of upgrade purchases. However, that hasn't been happening lately.
Better off just sticking with OpenOffice.org, though I hear rumours of KOffice for legacy systems, also, sometime.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
When someone pointed out the print button to me, my first reaction was "Why do they have a picture of a kleenex box on the printing icon?". I'm computer-literate, but I still use the menu rather than pushing that print button. And it's just as well, since some programs print immediately, while others bring up the printer dialog that I usually want.
Uhh, BMW did that. They called it iDrive. As iDrive me Crazy...
l y/bad.html
I have yet to read a review of a BMW with iDrive where the operator liked the resulting change to the user interface.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/goodbadug
Test your net with Netalyzr
Not at all. What I think it that if you are a business considering using Office 2007 you have already bought and paid for an older version of Office. In my case we have Office 2000 licenses for every desktop and laptopn computer. If I continue to use that software I will not need to shell out any more money to Microsoft for Office 2007. Linux backend - all my Office 2000 stuff works fine with Linux file and SQL servers, but Outlook + anything but Exchange is a lost cause in my world.
The entire user interface, the way you do things in these familiar old programs, has been thrown out and replaced with something new.
Wasn't one of MSFT's big reasons for not switching to OpenOffice was retraining costs? That users would have be trained all over on simple tasks? But when it's Office requiring all the retraining, well that's different. I guess it's a matter of who is getting the training dollars.
Is it just me or does their ribbon look like tabbed browsing in Firefox?
The only innovation I've seen from MSFT lately is squeezing revenue from their customers.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The post above mine http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=215016 &cid=17460790 by King_TJ is basically saying the same thing as I am.
Why do Web design tools, desktop publishing tools, and the like have to be part of an office suite? Just because Microsoft put them there?
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
It's a legitimate question. You were doing pretty good up until the "slightest research" statement.
What is the compelling reason to spend all that money just to make your life more difficult? Why do you want a default format that nobody else uses? What is the killer feature that justifies all the time, expense, and trouble? "Fresher interface" ?? WTF that that mean, and who cares?
If you already have office 2K+, I see no reason to switch to openoffice (unless you want to move to windows). But why on earth would you even consider "upgrading" ?? I can't imagine a less worthwhile "upgrade."
I wish they would make up their minds. I guess I will end up with a "black cursor" for all those commands I will have to select. They better have some handiwipes along with it or I am really pissed.
I'm always hearing about the new office UI, but I'm more interested in new functionality. The only things I've heard about (and I've just searched Microsoft's Office site where you can get a free 60 day trial of office) are the live preview, context sensitive spell-checking and that Excel can handle 1 million rows. To me these features aren't compelling enough for an upgrade, though they may be for others, and frankly I'm cynical enough to therefore believe the whole point of the upgrade is for the new UI and keep Microsoft's coffers flush with cash. Or am I missing something?
Everyone is always moaning about the training costs involved in moving people from Windows to Linux. Both Office 2007 and OpenOffice will require training, but which way will be cheaper?
"If you mostly compose plain Word documents, simple presentations and plain spreadsheets, the new design may not be worth the effort to master it, and you might want to stick with an older version of Office."
:-) The features are fine, there's no activation, it runs really, really fast on 5-year-old hardware...
I've used the beta of Office 2007. The ribbon is neither bad nor good to me, and live previews are very nice, but my needs are few, and I will indeed be sticking with an older version of Office--specifically, I'll soon be celebrating* one whole decade with Office 97.
* OK, not really celebrating, but you know what I mean.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
> "Office 2007, coming out Jan. 30, is a 'radical revision,' writes
> the Wall Street Journal's Walter S. Mossberg. 'The entire user
> interface, the way you do things in these familiar old programs,
> has been thrown out and replaced with something new. In Word,
> Excel and PowerPoint, all of the menus are gone -- every one. None
> of the familiar toolbars have survived, either. In their place is
> a wide, tabbed band of icons at the top of the screen called the
> Ribbon. And there is no option to go back to the classic interface.'
> He adds, 'It has taken a good product and made it better and fresher."
"Also, it's slow as shit."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
95% of our users only use Word and Excel, so your list doesn't apply at all to us...but Openoffice isn't taken seriously at my company because "everybody uses Microsoft".
Change is bad, apparently.
c)well thought out Desktop publishing
d)web page design tools
I use openoffice and I like it but I couldnt stop using publisher and frontpage
WTF? publisher = well thought out Desktop Publishing? frontpage = web page design tools (well, a good one anyway)
Dude, just WTF are you smoking? I write technical manuals and have designed web pages for a living. I wouldn't use either of these products!!
Microsoft alienated
A December 2006 report shows all Microsoft developer products taking a beating. Non-Microsoft development tools such as Java have won. Five years after the introduction of ASP.NET, the older ASP technology remains more popular on the WWW.
Why is Microsoft repeatedly shooting itself in the gut? Is there method to this madness? Is this apparently self-inflicted damage an illusion and is Microsoft aiming for a higher goal that I cannot see?
Here's one of my pet peeves in full operation. A learning curve has two axes: the x axis is time, and the y axis is amount learned. A steep learning curve is one where the amount of learning goes up quickly in a short amount of time; that is, it represents ease of learning. Conversely, a shallow learning curve means the rate of increase is less over the same amount of time--learning is more difficult. The OP/FA gets this exactly backward.
I guess the correct usage of this phrase has a shallow learning curve. {Prof. Jonathan}
Who?!?!
Who Doesn't wear the ribbon?!?!
I think this is a bold move by Microsoft. After having tought everyone how expensive training is for people migrating to OpenOffice is they make radical changes requiring huge training costs. Hopefully many corps will take the time to try other alternatives as they are tossing big dollars down the training path anyway, MS Office 2007 does not contain anything that will help corps becoming more effective unless you measure by number of pointless powerpoints presented per week.
HTTP/1.1 400
Actually, I think it's wonderful that Microsoft thinks so highly of Slashdot as a source of opinion leaders that they'd plant you here to address concerns and answer questions. You are wonderfully knowledgable about Vista and Office 2007, providing all sorts of useful information about how the Office 2007 fonts are designed, exactly how your old macros will be carried over, even minutia such as exactly how many pixels the MS-Ribbon(TM) will occupy.
I especially love how you end every post with some variation on "you are spreading FUD, drink the Kool Aid before you criticize it". It's really a novel approach.
You even provide a link to get the Kool Aid! How helpful you are!
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
The "Ribbon" looks remarkably similar to the "Palettes" method Adobe has been using for the past decade or so. Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator... and Macromedia (now Adobe) used a similar structure: large blocks of item methods, grouped by context. Just about the only difference is that the palettes are arranged horizontally instead of vertically (by default) - though, you could always arrange them horizontally if you wished.
Enjoy Microsoft's new "look and steal."
is not that this is something new. hey I'm all for making things easier. My problem is that Microsoft Office now looks and acts completely different than any other app on the platform. Windows UI guidelines are thrown out the window so you now have 2 different UI's to deal with. If Microsoft really cared about usability, we would have new UI guidelines so all apps would be consistent.
Firefox Power http://firefoxpower.blogspot.com/
and in its place is a steering wheel and foot pedals and a streamlined context-sensitive dash-board control with only a few buttons, but only the buttons that you happen to need at the time
A "context-sensitive dashboard"? What a horrible idea! Another poster very insightfully responded with a comparison to iDrive on BMWs and a few other high-end cars. General consensus is that it is total garbage--annoying at best and dangerous at worst. Why is that? Well, in a car the driver is the primary user of the dashboard and the driver is generally looking at the road ahead. The dashboard should NOT be "context-sensitive" or otherwise dynamic in nature. IT SHOULD BE STATIC. The important functions of a dashboard should ALL be visible, in the same place, ALL THE TIME (even better there should be a tactile element as well--buttons, knobs and such should be raised).
Drivers need to be able to use such an interface using quick glances and/or by feel. iDrive's ever-changing, and largely non-tactile user interface is much too distracting to the driver...it was so poorly conceived that Microsoft had to simplify the interface navigation and make the little knob have better tactile feedback in the next revision because as it was in its introduction it was almost totally unusable unless the driver was able to pull over, and users wanted many iDrive functions to be safely accessible while driving. Add to that the software bugs that caused such things as radio to go on and off at whim, trunks to open spontaneously and so on and iDrive has been a disaster.
I haven't yet tried out these "ribbon" things, though I've on a couple of occasions seen live demonstrations of the user interface. While almost anything could be better than the horrid menu system Office has traditionally had such a drastic change is pretty risky--they didn't even leave the wheel and pedals (to carry on the analogy)--it is more like they replaced the wheel with a joystick and the pedals with thumb-and-trigger buttons. Everything is in different places and WORKS differently--it doesn't matter if some study deems that technical advantages exceed disadvantages or that it is easier to learn--the fact is there are a billion people out there who know the old way of driving.
It is true that a desktop isn't a car and that the analogy isn't TOTALLY valid, however there are some universal principals of designing for usability that MS repeatedly insists on violating. The biggest of these is making things too "automatically dynamic". They've been doing this since sometime not long after NT4 came out: First they hide rarely-used start menu items...AUTOMATICALLY...WITHOUT user's input on how or when to do it. THEN they release XP and hide the old menu items under an added layer...and put FREQUENTLY used items out front...again without much control given to the user. I guess at least they threw us a *little* bone and let us "pin" icons and clear them out totally at will, but they re-appear (or don't) on what seems like a total whim.
Now they have this new MS Office with its "ribbons" and context-sensitivity and reorganisation and my first impression is that they KEEP ON HIDING AND MOVING STUFF for us. Much of the new interface is clever and makes navigation much less cumbersome. However, then they go and mess with your head again with these "dynamic" elements (galleries) and obscurity (putting what are basically file management functions in "another start menu" indicated only by a goofy little "office system" logo). I would've preferred a somewhat different approach--one that allowed a bit more user configure-ability. In any case I'll have a more informed opinion once I actually have to use it rather than sitting and watching a demo of it.
Perhaps someone can confirm to me whether or not my concerns is valid--has MS learned anything or are they still pushing the user around by doing too may user-interface alterations automatically?
"In my own tests, I was cursing the program for weeks because I couldn't find familiar functions and commands, even though Microsoft provides lots of help and guidance.
It's as if Toyota decided to switch the position of choices on the automobile shift lever, or Motorola decided to rearrange the buttons on the cellphone key pad. Even if the companies could conclusively show that the changes made life easier, many people would be annoyed at best, and furious at worst."
The above quote says it all.
Microsoft has done a GOOD thing - this will demonstrate that people simply do NOT want to learn a new way of doing things on their computer once they have painfully learned the previous way. This is the SOLE reason Linux hasn't taken over the desktop - inertia (with some help from lack of hardware drivers courtesy of the harfdware manufacturers.)
If you're going to have to relearn all of Office, you might as well switch to OpenOffice and learn that - and save the money on the new Microsoft Office. One hopes corporations will make the no brainer decision to do so.
Next up - Microsoft changes all its documentation into Esperanto.
Why? Just to prove it has a monopoly and Bill Gates can make you do what he says.
Suckers.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
My column is called "Personal Technology." I don't cover, or care
about, corporate IT and its needs.
Walt
On Jan 4 2007, at 1:36 PM, Bernie wrote:
Not just power users will resist 2007. I'd say most corporate IT
will be very slow in adopting it because of the new interface. Front-
line desktop support cannot afford a radical shift in training either
themselves or the hoardes of almost tech illiterate they in turn
support.
Another big whack (not including performance and evil XML) is Office
Automation. This too has changed; to the point that any enterprise
that integrates internal IS applications with Office will be facing
significant cost of re-write.
And if I remember what I read, the plug in architecture is
different. Which will annoy anyone who uses offices applications as
a platform to build applications. I used to write XLLs/XLAs; that I
pretty much stopped on the last plug in change.
Bernie
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
In the near future, companies will hire people who have only used the new interface to work with people only familar with the current. Forcing either group to acclimate to the other interface will cause a (arguably) short drop in productivity.
The ribbon is apparently the future for Office, but any files generated in Office 2007 cannot be read by older versions without conversion software (won't that be fun). So to avoid these hassles, companies will either have to stick with Office 2003 and forever "down train" their new ribbon familar employees, or be forced to upgrade to Office 2007 (with all the expenses) and retrain their current employees.
The upgrade would less onerous had M$ decoupled the interface and file format changes and/or made the new ribbon interface optional. But, then again, why would anyone have the need to upgrade to Office 2007?
Now, this is FUD, or is it? :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
That because it does not act EXACTLY the same as Office XP (and previous versions) people will not use it. Stating that there is a learning curve and productivity will be reduced until people get back up to speed. Maybe this is the opportunity that the other office suites were looking for:
"*Insert Name Here* suite, it works more like MS Office than MS Office."
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
It has taken a good product and made it better and fresher.
Two claims in one sentence, and they're both wrong!
Word is not a "good product":
* The document format is more primitive than HTML, with no structural nesting mechanism other than tables. It's harder to create a Word document that's layout independant than it is to write portable CSS... so nobody bothers.
* The saved files are composed of serialised COM data objects, so it's inherently incompatible even with itself and uses translation tools just to read its own old saved files after an upgrade.
* The macro design is inherently insecure. Who would have imagined you'd be able to embed a virus in a word processor document? 20 years ago that was bad science fiction.
* Speaking of embedding, at one point I was reduced to embedding an Excel spreadsheet in a Visio diagram so I could embed it in a Word document without having the cells in the spreadsheet merged with the surrounding table in the Word document. Which brings us back to the first problem.
And making it better by making it harder to use? I am unable to conceive of the confusion in the mind that would lead one to reach that conclusion.
I don't know about anyone else, but I've read assertions roughly like this about every MS product since Windows 3. The results have been one mediocre or worse user interface after another including the deservedly much reviled Clippy.
Maybe it's different this time. I hope so, actually. But you have to understand that at this point in time, assertions about well designed MS UIs are not going to have a lot of credibility with anyone whose memory extends back very far.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
I genuinely think that in all the time I've been visiting /. you're the first open, non coward advocate of MS I have ever seen. Really I'm no fan either way (zealotry? meh.) So this is good to see. Still posting anonymously like the yellow bellied shit I am though, but keep up the good work. They always talked of one who would bring balance to the force. How's the mitochondrian level? Ah, fuck anonymity. My LINUX toadying means I can afford it.
Considering the fact that Ms Office the most widely used office suite in the world... yes.
as a database. The databases you can plug in behind OOo are REAL databases (IIRC, even Oracle can be bound). The interface is still a little clunky but it is still very new.
So, I suspect point A is wrong: it may possibly be "and an interface to something I can treat like a database that doesn't suck", but as it is written, Office is now and has always been a sucky product.
"For most of your message, I only have one comment. Those that are so resistant to change will eventually be filtered out of the gene pool, having been replaced by those who can look at alternatives to what they are doing, do some research, and make a choice as to which is better."
Gnome's spatial interface, XML, Lisp, Web 2.0, Semantic web, outsourcing, flat tax.
"That is what Evolution does. I know the creationists don't like to hear that, but, they too will soon be gone."
Abstenance. Oops, how'd that get in their?
Ever notice detractors like to bury posts they don't agree with as flamebait or off-topic, regardless of content?
Perhaps they just aren't intelligent or literate enough to understand the relevance. Ah well, they can keep reading, and eventually they'll "get it".
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I've noticed an increase in productivity due to the fact that it takes my managers a lot longer to come up with a new useless document.
Thanks Microsoft!
Office doesn't have a 'save as' shortcut
She was trying to use an ancient F key shortcut. Whatever it used to be, it was no more and broke her little heart.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Kind of agree there. (Though open source folks tend to just use any of the n+5 ORM web frameworks out there to whip out web frontends to databases - slightly more work than with Access, but usually less troublesome in the end...)
How about a counterdemand: A boss/lecturer/etc that just tries to get a Point across rather than trying to impress the listeners? =)
I'm honestly ignorant of what kind of bells and whistles people need in presentations. Most of the effective presentations I've seen have had nothing but text and graphics, both of which OpenOffice.org do pretty well...
We have Scribus, which also reads OpenDocument (or at least I was under that impression lately, I haven't really needed DTP apps lately). It's fast turning into a really neat DTP program.
<voice type="html-nazi"> You have tons of text editors with HTML syntax highlighting, what more do you need? </voice> =) (Okay, I know, there's no practical solution here for people who want to do something while not knowing how to do it, but I'm just me with my generic hatred of WYSIWYG web tools...)
This anecdote illstrates how the Office 2007 UI is better. Much of the feedback the Office got were for features that already existed. The discoverabilty of this kind of stuff is far better in Office 2007.
/. is irrelevant.
Did the situation occur in a mental hospital, or were the users you're talking about just mildly retarded? There's a fucking floppy disk icon at the top of application, it will open the Save As dialog if it's the first time you're saving it,
Details here, not that someone so rude as you deserves them.
It happened at my university.
She tried the silly floppy. It worked the first time but did not do what she wanted.
I had asked her for coppies so I could try them out with Open Office. It was a simple enough request - make a "hello world" Word Doc and save it to this USB fob.
As a long time word user she tried various keystrokes with no further result than a strobing Office Icon. As a long term M$ user, she's been trained to ignore all sorts of blinking and flashing and would never have noticed it on her own. It's amazing that the application understood what she wanted but did not give her any further indication that the most subtle color changing of something no previous M$ application has ever had. I suppose that's M$'s idea of tact and class. Nice. This is the kind of behavior that makes people curse.
I don't have the crap in front of me, so I can't test out the nonsensical alt-f keystroke. As there's no File menu with an underlined F waiting for you, I'm not sure why anyone would try that - except out of desperation. Somewhere before that, I'd expect the user to smash the keyboard or find a Linux ISO.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
works pretty well on the Mac for me. It's a little behind the main openoffice release, but the integration is good, especially including fonts.
Working in Japanese, I prefer neooffice on the Mac to openoffice on Linux. I'd probably have fewer format issues on OO if I took the time to make sure I had good Japanese fonts on the Linux box, but I haven't taken the time to do that because the neooffice branch works well enough for me.
joudanzuki
Office 2003 has succeeded quite well without a database program that doesn't suck.
Quis metamoderunt ipses metamoderatores?
Sure. Ribbons and bows.
Man that ribbon just looks like they moved the cursed tab dialog concept up to the menu bar.
I hate tabbed dialogs. They're usually what the UI designer uses when he'd rather punt.
is what it looks like to me.
Which means that I'm going to expect the _entire_ new interface to be basically of a bunch of collections of "these cool features that group X likes" and "those cool features that group Y likes".
Tabbed menus in MSWindows are almost invariably the result of UI designers deciding to punt rather than actually attempt to decide what the purpose of a dialog is. In the case of MSWindows, we've often been glad they decided to punt rather than force their bizarre view of the universe on us. But it's not real design.
My guess is that this is essentially Microsoft saying, "We gave you all these wonderful features and then we took a survey of the most popular ones and put those at the top of our new interface." Which is why some places say they are more productive. They can now push the buttons they've been trained to push much faster.
If they are changing the interface this far for general "click here" office types, how can they still assert that retraining to use something like Open Office is a significant TCO inhibitor for switching?
Not so long ago I used to teach engineering students how to break things. We'd take the results from the testing machine and plot up stress-strain curves with a speadsheet and the students could find different properties of the materials from this data.
Initially we used MS works - the computer part of the prac session took about an hour even though that meant showing the students how to use simple features of a spreadsheet they were completley unfamiliar with. We all decided MS Excel would be the way to go - after all these students were taught it in school. This pushed this part of the session out to two hours anmd sometimes more - they all thought they knew how to use it but didn't. There were a lot of pretty buttons to click on adding a lot more steps to the process of generating very simple line graphs - default behaviors are set to unexpected things which adds in extra steps.
The UI could do with improvement and a lot of people that say they are used to the existing one spend a lot of time navigating a maze of frequently changing menu options already.
Two out of four are bad with MS - their database and publisher really do look like they are just bullet points added so they could say they have them. My Atari ST had a better desktop publishing program - let alone all of the current alternatives (which doesn't include Openoffice either since it has a word processor instead).
I've been using Office 2007 for several months now (yes, I work for MS). I never would have realized that there was a steep learning curve had I not read this article. Up till now, I just used it without really thinking about it much. Now I realize that I must have been doing things incorrectly, since I haven't made any drastic changes from the way I used Office 2003 and Office XP.
Seriously, I'm a very experienced computer user (I've been doing tech support for my family for something like 16 years now), so I may be overlooking things that would confuse a less experienced user. I'm a developer, so I spend more time in Vim than I do in Word, so I don't use the complex features much (most days I just use Outlook). And I'm probably a bit biased, since if people buy more Office 2007, my stock in MS goes up. But I can honestly say that at least for me, the switch was natural and I gave it little thought. Adapting to the new interface has not been a problem.
There are some nifty new features, including RSS browsing in Outlook, and some things are a bit more refined (they fixed a number of little annoyances). I definitely prefer the new version. That said, there isn't anything I couldn't do without (though I suppose that could be said about any upgrade, since I somehow did without it before...).
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
I didn't see a live ribbon anywhere, except in some videos and descriptions on the web. A first rough description might be tabbed toolbar.
But then it struck me where I saw that before: the button window of blender. And it's been around since '95.
Use nvu. It is much better than Frontage. Does'nt add crappy tags to the web page
like FrontPage.
After a max years exposure to Mac I recently had to resurrect an old WinBox to trial an Ox financial app. In my opinion of the 'dozer has not changed as a result. You want to achieve a something? Avoid Winbox. However. As part of that resurrection exercise, I loaded Lotus 97 for the first time. Speaking from my towering position of almost total WinBox ignorance, it seemed to me that your correspondent's report of the new 'office' interface, that it sounded remarkably like the Lotus interface, which, co-incidentally, I removed from my hard drive this morning. Jen
I'll badmouth it. I HAVEN'T used it, but I am a text-oriented person.. those little icons don't mean dick to me. A floppy doesn't mean "save" to me, my machines do not even have floppy drives! If I'm trolling through menus to do something weird, I like hitting alt and arrowing through, not having to grab a mouse and wait around for something or other to pop up and tell me what they mean.
That said, for a set of tiny icons, the strip looks reasonable I suppose.
My question is, will the files outputted be compatible with older versions of MS Office? And for how long? Microsoft's been in the habit of changing file formats just to justify selling newer versions of the same old tired software.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
.... is "same old".
Fmailiarity incresase productivity, unless MS has come up with something truly visionary (yeah, sure) they will only disturb the patterns of work of millions of people for no good reason whatsoever.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... an user saying something is different is a different way to say something is bad (at least in the short term).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Successful ones train their employees.
For succesful, responsible companies, these changes represnet an annoyance (cost of training should be factored in a yearly basis any way, but instead of learning a useful skill, people will have to learn a new tool do exactly the same stuff).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As do for all the parts of the MS Office suite, Outlook included (most people *think* they know how to use Outlook, most don't).
We are a worldwide successful financial institution and take training seriously, most companies would be well adviced to do likewise to become more productive....
I mean, they are not re-inventing the wheel, formating a document, working with spreadhseets, are well understood problems that have very little space for improvement if at all.
Unless MS has really innovated this time (unlikely) I don't see how such momentous increases in productivity will be generated.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The rule number 1 of user interface design is to keep things familiar.
We all can understand if a user has to re-learn a user interface if he has to use a new program to achieve the same task. This is necessary since different teams of designers arrive to different conclussions about what is better to achieve a certain task. Ultimately it is almost impossible to rule what is the best or worst user interface, since very often this boils down to which one a person is familiar with.
Was is completely incomprehensible is the same company fiddling all the time with a given user interface in a product of theirs. By changing an interface radically they are throwing away all the experience gained by users and imposing on them "new ways" of doing things that the user normally did not request. Change in a user interface should be slow and only if it is completely proven beyond doubt that is necessary (we all can come up with pet peeves regarding this). Imposing fully different user interfaces is a sign of egocentrism of a company that thinks knows better that their clients. The question clients have to ask themselves (please do) is: do they really know better than us what we need?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It stands to reason to expect people to figure them out by themselves.
That would be the assumption of a lousy technician or designer.
Which one are you?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... that dismisses the experience gathered by my users for many years.
... NOT.
I don't need to use it, no matter how "revolutionary" and "innovative" it is I know it will cause more problems than it will solve since it is breaking the familiarity so crucial to make a given user interface useful.
This is retraining hell on the waiting room, it will be fun
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
To put the onus on the user to keep applications integrated (when all what is required it to use the same frigging formats).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Congratulations on having become a dinosaur.
FYI, all the shortcuts you knew still exist. Used to insert image with alt, i, p, f? That still works.