The Death of Clippy

AppScout interviews Office's Group Program Manager, Jensen Harris on the subject of Office 2007. Harris reveals that Clippy, the bane of all semi-sentient Office users everywhere, is officially dead. The decision apparently revolved not around the passionate hatred for the unfortunate sprite, but simply out of a desire for UI coherency.

Comments

Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[jellomizer]

I think the general annoyance of clippy was the fact it kept popping up whenever you did something. In many ways it was actually successful for Office. It showed people that they could use other features that people didn't know it had. Which really did put a nail in the coffin for tools such as word perfect. Now that people know how to do a lot of these advanced features and got use to them, they got frustrated when other word processors don't have or they don't know where the features they enjoy are. That being said because Microsoft successfully monopolized the Office software, they don't need advertise all there features all the time.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[evilbessie]

"they don't need to advertise all *their* features all the time"...

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[HappySqurriel]

Personally, I think clippy represents what is wrong with office more than anything else. For most users Office is far too complicated, and has far too much functionality, so it "needed" a way to inform average users how to use some of the features.

Personally, I see three classes of Office users and there seems to be a reasonable argument that there should be three seperate classes of Word/Office for these people; the classes are students/home use who want something which they can write a paper or resume on, office workers who want a little more control over their presentation, and professionals who want complete control over their presentation.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[drsmithy]

I think the general annoyance of clippy [...]

Funnt thing is, most non-expert users I've interacted with actually _like_ clippy (well, they often change it to another avatar, like the silly little dog, but the point is they like the idea of a "helper").

The help system that sits behind "Clippy" is excellent. It does what its designed to do very well - the problem expert users have is that they're not interested in what it does.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ehh, can't agree here, students very often need lot's of control of their documents / presentation too and use much more functions than your average John Doe the Office Worker.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Giometrix]

"Now that people know how to do a lot of these advanced features and got use to them, they got frustrated when other word processors don't have or they don't know where the features they enjoy are. That being said because Microsoft successfully monopolized the Office software, they don't need advertise all there features all the time."

Well, that, or the new ribbon interface puts the "unknown" features in front of the user, making Clippy pretty much useless.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[riscthis]

Personally, I think clippy represents what is wrong with office more than anything else. For most users Office is far too complicated, and has far too much functionality, so it "needed" a way to inform average users how to use some of the features.

Hence when Microsoft massively overhauled the Office 2007 UI, with the idea that people can easily find this functionality, Clippy became obsolete and was removed. I *think* Clippy may actually have been switched off by default in new installs of Office 2003 (or possibly XP.)

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Skater]

I think what bugs me most about Clippy these days is that one of my coworkers uses Word with it turned on...and her speakers turned up. Way up.

So every time she saves a file, I hear: "*click* *clank* *ker-chunk*"

Yes, she's quite inconsiderate about making noise - all day I hear "AAHAAHHHH! I DON'T KNOW HOW ANYONE GETS ANYTHING DONE AROUND HERE!!" (referring to the amount of email she gets), and similar things. Yeah, thanks for spreading the disruption around, lady.

My boss is no help - well, more correctly, she sympathizes, but she also realizes that we're never going to be able to change this woman's behavior, so the rest of us have to suffer or use headphones and turn the music WAY up to drown out her rantings.

She and Clippy deserve each other.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[The Spoonman]

That being said because Microsoft successfully monopolized the Office software, they don't need advertise all there features all the time.

In other words: "since Microsoft made their product easier to use despite being more feature-rich, they dominated the market." That's no an act of monopoly, that's just good business. If only open source developers could figure out that if they want people to use their products, their products have to be usable. No more "I don't write documentation, I'm a developer. Read the source code if you want to know how it works" or "I don't have time to put in the features you want. Put them in yourself if they're not there and submit a patch...which will then be summarily dismissed because it's a feature I think is stupid" or "did you look through the 4000 line config file and verify every undocumented option was set correctly?" (I'm looking at YOU, MythTV-project!) or my all-time favorite "RTFM!" Now, with O2K7, Microsoft has taken a quantum leap forward in interface design and made easy enough that the quintessential grandmother can use it to its full potential. I balked at the ribbon myself until I actually used it. Honestly, they got their "wow" out of me after just a couple of minutes using it. Clippy isn't needed anymore, and while most techies will not mourn his death, most users will...until they realize he's no longer necessary which should take them about an hour.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[hey!]

It did it job. But at what cost?

The problem is the attitude that you can use the user' attention to achieve your goals.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[xeoron]

Personally, I rather enjoyed hunting the registry to kill Clippy in every MS Office install that I had admin access too.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[mooingyak]

I had to deal with a woman like that once. Fortunately she was also wildly incompetent so she got fired eventually.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Short Circuit]

Abiword
OpenOffice
LaTeX

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[digitig]

Unfortunately, they overhauled the UI in a way that IMHO completely fsailed to help people find the functionality. The previous UI, with menus and toolbars, for me was a model of a tidy workshop, with most tools tidied away in logical places (the menus), and just the tools one uses a lot or are using just at the moment left out (on the toolbars).

The Office 2007 model, on the other hand, for me is a model of tipping out the contents of every draw and box in the workshop into a heap in the middle of the workshop floor (the ribbon) and having to search through it every time you want something. There doesn't seem to be any useful way of configuring it to particular styles of use, so whenever I wanted anything from the ribbon I was confronted with a huge block of the screen on my laptop taken up with options that I had set up once and for all in the template.

I could go into a lot of other things that I think are wrong with the Office 2007 UI (I tried the beta for two months, and I reckon by the end of that time it was still dropping my productivity by 20%-30%) but that's the main one that I think is related to the death of Clippy. Unfortulately, I think Clippy is needed more than ever, but needs to be equipped with a laser pointer to indicate the bit of the ribbon we should be looking at :-(

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Steve001]

HappySqurriel wrote:

Personally, I think clippy represents what is wrong with office more than anything else. For most users Office is far too complicated, and has far too much functionality, so it "needed" a way to inform average users how to use some of the features.

Personally, I see three classes of Office users and there seems to be a reasonable argument that there should be three seperate classes of Word/Office for these people; the classes are students/home use who want something which they can write a paper or resume on, office workers who want a little more control over their presentation, and professionals who want complete control over their presentation.

I agree that MS Office needs versions that are suitable for different types of users, while the files themselves remain compatible between the versions.

A while ago (at the time of WordPerfect 5.1) the makers of WordPerfect addressed this by coming out with a simpler version of their word processor called "LetterPerfect." It was:

• Completely compatible with WordPerfect with the same interface.
• Featured only the features that home users actually needed and that worked the same way they did in WordPerfect
• Was much less expensive that a full copy of WordPerfect (less than 1/5 of the cost).

I used it for a while and it had all of the features that I needed at home, and it was virtually identical to WordPerfect during use.

As the previous poster mentioned, this is something that is needed with MS Office. Its unfortunate that it could not start with a basic install that preloads a standard set of features for all users, then add new features as needed by the individual users.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[digitig]

Now, with O2K7, Microsoft has taken a quantum leap forward in interface design and made easy enough that the quintessential grandmother can use it to its full potential. I balked at the ribbon myself until I actually used it. Honestly, they got their "wow" out of me after just a couple of minutes using it. That's not the word I used after a couple of minutes, and even after a couple of months it was seriously impairing my productivity. Yes, sure everybody who looked at it said "wow", but it was a different matter in practice. There's so much wrong with it, even in terms of established and reliable UI design principles, that it's a huge step backwards (I wish the designers had read "About Face", a Microsoft Press book on UI design -- there's a lot wrong with it, but it's right enough to show the O2K7 interface up for the usability disaster that it is). And the biggest issue is that the ribbon can't be configured, so stuff I know I won't use more than once a year (the stuff I build into templates) still has to clutter my desktop and distract me from whatever it is that I do need.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Kierthos]

I would like to point out that it is very easy to change this woman's behavior.

You just need to use a large enough hammer.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[sgt_doom]

"...and has far too much functionality..."

You a recent hire at M$, by any chance?? Geeez! Too much functionality - come on....the long term major complaint about M$ products has been that they are coded by completely inexperienced recent college grads who are clueless as to how offices, financial services, and other areas of corporate and American business operate. The only decent thing - over the longhaul - about Word was the equation editor. And it took HOW MANY versions of Excel until they finally started getting it right??

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[patiodragon]

gee, thanks...your great!

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Planesdragon]

Personally, I see three classes of Office users and there seems to be a reasonable argument that there should be three seperate classes of Word/Office for these people

What argument?

The obvious counter-argument is "different programs make it hard to move from one class to another."

You might have a good argument for having Office display more than two modes, but that's about it.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[darkhitman]

Clippy's contributions to humanity in other areas, however, shouldn't be overlooked.

And yes, that's a shameless plug. But it fits contextually.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[mikael]

the classes are students/home use who want something which they can write a paper or resume on, office workers who want a little more control over their presentation, and professionals who want complete control over their presentation.

Any student or researcher who is writing a thesis or paper, will want control over the font style and size for text, control over the resolution of any images, and also full control over the style and formatting of mathematical equations. All of these are required to keep the publishers happy.

A thesis will also require a "definition of terms", a list of keywords that must be in italics throughout
the document, a "list of variables", which is a list of mathematical variables, and a set of references. All of these will have to be cross-referenced with references throughtout the thesis.

Students are also required to produce Powerpoint presentations of their research for open days and for 10 minute
talks at annual conferences. To gain employment, students are not required to demonstrate that they can produce
documentation of professional quality (communication skills, soft skills etc...)

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[644bd346996]

If Apple really splits Pages into two modes as rumored, Microsoft will surely come up with at least three.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Kirrilian]

Any self-respecting geek should know how to "fix" this behavior, if you know what I mean. (wink wink)

The next day:
Annoying Woman: My sound isn't working anymore!!
SRG: Oh Dear! That stinks...
(Give empathetic nod and secretly call buddy in IT and inform him of the situation so it remains "fixed")

Suggested Methodologies:
Unplug speakers (power or audio, or both)
Snip part of speaker wire so it still looks whole but doesn't work
Disable sound card
Mute sound
If they have an optical mouse, put scotch tape over the sensor
(Ok, not related but fun to watch!)

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[kurzweilfreak]

Look up.

Saw it?

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[kurzweilfreak]

Apparently, their grammar check could use a bit more advertising...

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Workaphobia]

> "I think the general annoyance of clippy was the fact it kept popping up whenever you did something."

It's more than just that. For instance, the chief annoyance I have with the dog in XP searches is that it takes a context menu and a few seconds to go away, rather than just disappearing as quickly as an open window.

Clippy represented everything terrible with Microsoft's UI design - the overbearing "Use your computer in just the ways we enumerate" mentality, combined with "Look at me! Look at me! See what I can do?!". I find it very consistent that the same company to produce such an abomination also decided to add integrated popup spam as an operating system feature: "Help make office better" in the middle of your powerpoint presentation. And god help you if you miss when you click the X, as there's no titlebar to protect you from accidently responding to the popup. Nor can you press a precise key combination to eliminate the offending content.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Skater]

Yeah, none of that is going to help...(this message contains replies to all the replies I've seen so far, not just Kirrilian's post).

Our IT area is huge, so I can't just call a buddy in IT and hope it works out. Besides I really don't know anyone in that area. I can envision how that call will go: "So you don't want us to fix her speakers? I'll open a ticket..."

Also, we have the Remark voice mail system that plays messages through the PC. It's a pretty convenient setup. The biggest problem is that the messages play quietly, causing her to turn her speakers up, and she doesn't turn them back down. Snipping speaker wires or otherwise disabling them means she'll just have them replaced so she can hear messages. I have actually gone into her cubicle and turned down her speakers when she wasn't around, but of course she turns them up next time she has a message.

She was, I'm told, a cheerleader in high school - and it really doesn't surprise me. But she's not dumb or incompetent; her work is excellent. And I certainly wouldn't want to hurt her - she took a project I absolutely HATED off my hands, and if something did happen to her it'd probably land right back on my desk.

I finally remembered to take my headphones in this week so I could listen to Sirius radio online. Of course, I have them turned up so loud (to block her voice out) people really have to work to get my attention.

(We haven't gotten to the technology of optical mice at work yet. I keep meaning to take one in to replace the piece-o-crap Dell mouse I have now.)

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[veganboyjosh]

why not an infinite number?

i jest, but what about including some sort of pretest for interested users to take, once installed? not so much a test, per se, but a check list. sort of a "i can do ______" type of checklist, starting with the easy stuff, progressing through more and more complex things, with the most complex stuff at the end of the list. could/would be sorted into sort of chapters, or ability levels, so that if i know i'm an expert but not a pro, i could skip to level 4, etc...
  the levels of help given would then correspond to the ability given in this setup mode.

of course, this would add to bloat, and setup time, etc, but i could see a use for it.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Propaganda13]

Personally, I just want a version of Office that doesn't think it's smarter than me. For the most part, I have simple needs and wants when it comes to documents. Sometimes, I have to fight Office to do simplistic tasks and that is more frustrating than not being able to do a complicated task.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, hate to tell you this, but all Clippy ever did for me (and I'm sure many others) is tell me that "you appear to be writing a letter"... again and again and again, until I got tired of the same old joke and turned the little shit off.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[taoman1]

My experience is the same as yours. I love the ribbon now after using it a bit. It's a big improvement. And most regular folks that i've taught Word to loved Clippy, though i could never understand it.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[tlhIngan]

I think the general annoyance of clippy was the fact it kept popping up whenever you did something. In many ways it was actually successful for Office. It showed people that they could use other features that people didn't know it had. Which really did put a nail in the coffin for tools such as word perfect. Now that people know how to do a lot of these advanced features and got use to them, they got frustrated when other word processors don't have or they don't know where the features they enjoy are. That being said because Microsoft successfully monopolized the Office software, they don't need advertise all there features all the time.

As a case in point, you remember all the annoying auto-formatting Word does from time to time? I actually learned from clippy that well, you can get Word to undo what it did by clicking Undo. And Word is smart enough to not try to autoformat the line again. I didn't know that, and had always had the fun of hunting around fixing stuff like that when it started interfering.

I suppose another thing was well, PCs were too slow to really run all of Clippy's features simultaneously. It was only until a few years ago that the side-by-side help was actually usable and didn't bring your system down to swapfile thrashing or graphic stuttering as Word redrew itself.

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[EvilIdler]

Simply removing the .act files did the job nicely for me. Clippy and friends gone!

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly.

[Anonymous Coward]

It showed people that they could use other features that people didn't know it had.

But I already know how to write a bloody letter!

RIP Clippy

[Ice Wewe]

...And why'd it take so damn long?!

Re:RIP Clippy

[Darundal]

...and thus the people rejoiced.

I hope slashbots end the joke as well

[Anonymous Coward]

With the official death of clippy, does this mean slashbots and MS-haters will give up the endless references to it whenever they insult Microsoft?

I mean, Microsoft Bob died almost 20 years ago, but people are still beating on that old horse to this day.

Re:I hope slashbots end the joke as well

[AndroidCat]

It only seems like 20 years ago. In many ways, Clippy (and other MS Agents) are the last remaining pieces of "Bob Technology".

Goodnight sweet prince

[Salsaman]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio. Clippy, the Microsoft assistant, was found dead in his Redmond, Seattle apartment this morning. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[JamesTRexx]

I suggest we all shut down our pc's for a minute at noon tomorrow in remembrance of his death.

After which we all celebrate by installing *BSD and Linux. Clippy would have wanted it that way.

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[10e6Steve]

He will be buried next to Microsoft Bob.

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[jjeffries]

I heard he was found almost completely straightened out, stuck in the emergency eject hole of an old 4x CD-ROM drive... he'd also been receiving emails threatening that someone was going to "f***ing kill" him, yet they're calling it a suicide!

He will be interred next to his cousin Bob in the solid-gold family crypt.

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[TCM]

Beware, though. He might just come back.

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[FranklinDelanoBluth]

Clippy was a good bowler, and a good man. He was one of us. He was a man who loved the outdoors... and bowling, and as a surfer he explored the beaches of Southern California, from La Jolla to Leo Carrillo and... up to... Pismo. He died, like so many young men of his generation, he died before his time. In your wisdom, Lord, you took him, as you took so many bright flowering young men at Khe Sanh, at Langdok, at Hill 364. These young men gave their lives. And so would Clippy. Donny, who loved bowling. And so, Stupid Microsoft Clippy, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Good night, sweet prince.

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[Brad1138]

For 1 minute on Sunday the percentage of /.ers enjoying the outdoors increased 10,000%

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[ozbird]

He will be buried next to Microsoft Bob.

If Bob begat Clippy, what nightmarish creature of irritation has Clippy begat in Office 2007? The Ribbon?

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[cashman73]

"Oh, my God! They killed Clippy! You bastards!"

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[daveb]

He was part of Bob. Not as a paper clip but the dog assistant was there.

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[darkpixel2k]

If Bob begat Clippy, what nightmarish creature of irritation has Clippy begat in Office 2007? The Ribbon?

The ribbon isn't such a bad place...it's just a bit confusing what with the Christmas tree, kids, something about making omelettes, and starship captains.

Ok--actually, it's really disorienting. Stay away from the ribbon and el-aurians with big missiles.

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[Anonymous Coward]

dead in his Redmond, Seattle apartment this morning. Redmond, Seattle, is that the Town bordered by Newark, New York and Green Bay, Milwaukee, all of which are just south of San Diego, Tijuana?

Re:Goodnight sweet prince

[elrous0]

He just couldn't live in a world without Anna Nicole.

-Eric

Clippy

[El Lobo]

Clippy was a very smart way of showing the user about features that weren't so known for the avarega user. The problem with clippy and other avatars was that it was:

1) A bit silly for the non average user (but it could be turned off anyway)

2) It could be annoying (again, it could always been turned off)

3) It had some kind of a bad timing, showing sometimes a feature that was not related with the action the user was doing, This got better with the time....

Anyway, Clippy is not THAT hated than the average slashdummer thinks, but it's a good thing that he's dead now anyway.

Re:Clippy

[QuestorTapes]

>...The problem with Clippy and other avatars was that it was:

Actually, in addition to the problems you noted were the following problems:

- You could not choose, in a custom install, not to have the damn avatars in the first place. You had to install, then disable them
- The method for disabling the avatars is placed in a non-intuitive location
- You could not reliably disable avatars in the first release of Office to have them; like things buried in the Pet Sematary, they kept coming back.

Similar problems exist in the "Clipboard Enhancement" that allowed Office apps to store more than one item in the clipboard, and pop up a stupid dialog to select which thing you wanted to paste. That turns off by dismissing the dialog 3 times (WTF, MS?), and can come back if you copy twice without pasting.

"Bad Pet Rock! We do that OUTSIDE!" - Peter Griffin, 'Family Guy'

Re:Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

I am writing this comment rather reluctantly. I do not wish to begin an incendiary debate about Clippy's catch-phrases. However, Clippy has recently made a few statements that I find disturbing to such a degree that I cannot remain silent. Let us note first of all that many people are incredulous when I tell them that Clippy intends to work hand-in-glove with self-indulgent quidnuncs. "How could Clippy be so snivelling?", they ask me. "It doesn't seem possible." Well, it is indisputably possible, and now I'll explain exactly how Clippy plans to do it. But first, you need to realize that no matter how bad you think his machinations are, I assure you that they are far, far worse than you think. I truly intend to exercise my franchise to improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable in our society -- the sick, the old, the disabled, the unemployed, and our youth -- all of whose lives are made miserable by Clippy. Not that I've come to expect any better from him. By an odd twist of fate, we are in trouble when hitherto reputable people annihilate a person's personality, individuality, will, and character. Let me try to explain what I mean by that in a single sentence: His backers are unified under a common goal. That goal is to work both sides of the political fence.

Clippy's reason is not true reason. It does not seek the truth, but only insolent answers, catty resolutions to conflicts. After all, it is cowardice on Clippy's part to exploit the masses. Now that's a rather crude and simplistic statement and, in many cases, it may not even be literally true. But there is a sense in which it is generally true, a sense in which it sincerely expresses how he hates you -- yes, you, because you, like me, want to think outside the box. I respect Clippy's traducements, although I feel no more personal hatred for him than I might feel for a herd of wild animals or a cluster of poisonous reptiles. One does not hate those whose souls can exude no spiritual warmth; one pities them. Clippy wants to stigmatize any and all attempts to expose the connections between the impudent, unrealistic problems that face us and the key issues of negativism and favoritism. Why he wants that, I don't know, but that's what he wants.

It is no accident that one can only speculate how much worse things would be if Clippy were to deface a social fabric that was already deteriorating. More than that, there's something fishy about his viewpoints. I think Clippy's up to something, something scary and perhaps even unambitious. His jaundiced outbursts deny citizens the ability to become informed about the destruction that he is capable of. Clippy then blames us for that. Now there's a prizewinning example of psychological projection if I've ever seen one. I could tell him that even without making an ethical argument against antagonism, I can show that I trust him about as far as I can throw him, although he obviously doesn't care. I could tell him that history teaches us that to ignore or dismiss people like Clippy simply as shambolic, heinous casuists can have devastating consequences, but he wouldn't believe me. Clippy probably also doesn't care that Clippy has no fixed ethical principles. So let me appeal to whatever small semblance of reason Clippy may be capable of when I tell him that he often expresses great interest in, and approval of, violent acts reported in the press -- spousal abuse, shooting sprees, capital punishment, and so forth. I could write pages on the subject, but the following should suffice. Some of the facts I'm about to present may seem shocking. This they certainly are. However, Clippy's premise (that there's no difference between normal people like you and me and fatuous slimeballs) is his morality disguised as pretended neutrality. Clippy uses this disguised morality to support his expositions, thereby making his argument self-refuting.

If Clippy continues to inure us to mudslinging diabolism, I will definitely be obliged to do something about him. And you know me: I never neglect my obligations. If the mas

Clippy is NOT dead ...

[tomhudson]

"The rumours of my death are somewhat exaggerated."

Clippy is alive and well - he's been ported to linux so that we can hate him too ... http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/

Re:Clippy is NOT dead ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Ah hah, that explains why Microsoft had to have him killed. They could deal with him annoying the shit out of users; that's just business as usual. But blowing off steam by moonlighting as a vaguely gothy, smartass open source H4X0R -- that was just one step too far.

"Clippy, we respect you. You understand that, right? We respect you. We love you. You're part of the Family. We'll always love you. But when you go against the Family's interests ... well, things gotta happen. You know how it is, Clippy. You know how it is."

Re:Clippy is NOT dead ...

[houghi]

Oh, but there are much better examples then that : http://houghi.org/shots/vim001.gif

Moments from Clippy's life

[babbling]

I think the "I'm alright, thank you, fuck off" response pretty much sums it up...

Re:Moments from Clippy's life

[master_p]

That was hilarious, thank you. And a nice proof of why Clippy was a bad idea.

Oh, NOW...

[Anonymous Coward]

They talk about UI consistency!

Consistency or not, it was a huge failure of something in the development process.

I mean, the HATE heaped upon poor Clippy, from the most novice to the most advanced of users, is hard to comprehend. For something to be so wrong for such a wide range of users means it is truly bad. How on Earth did this get past the supposedly rigorous user-testing facility that Microsoft has? Nobody said at some point, "You know, that Clippy thing isn't really helpful. It just gets in the way and is annoying." Nobody? For years?

From the article, after talking about people who liked him: "There were also an equal number of people who looked at it as interference or an annoyance..." Equal? Equal?!! What kind of bizarro statistics is MS collecting from their user feedback system that it took them years to figure out the problem and at least turn it off by default?

Re:Oh, NOW...

[edxwelch]

> How on Earth did this get past the supposedly rigorous user-testing facility that Microsoft has?

Mircrosoft secretly used the same user-testing system as the GIMP project.

Re:Oh, NOW...

[Ullteppe]

I think Clippy is right next to Jar-Jar Binks on the hate-o-meter. I still don't get why MS thought it was a good idea to turn this on by default. I think the combination of a really dumb AI (Clippy never managed to figure out what I wanted to do) and the annoyance of having him pop up all the time (just as bad as pop-up ads on websites) had a tendency to drive people up the wall. The only other "feature" in Word I have come close to hating as much was the when they changed the default for pictures so that they became "floating" rather than being treated like a character. Man, have I seen people go crazy trying to have pictures stay in the right spot when Word repaginated...

If they really want to help novice users, why not use the start-up screen the first time you start office to ask what kind of user you are? Power users are the most likely to change computers or reinstall software frequently, and having to change the setting from the clueless default settings gets on your nerves after a while...

BTW, the Office UI revamp seems to be another horrible step, why alienate your whole current user base? I mean, Excel has had the same user interface for almost 20 years, it has to be pretty good?!?

Re:Oh, NOW...

[master_p]

Actually, it is very simple: Microsoft always used 'fresh' testers, i.e. testers that had not used a computer before. MS wanted fair criticism of their product.

TTS and voice in agent

[Saint Stephen]

The text-to-speech and voice recognitiion in the other Microsoft agent were pretty cool I thought. It was kind of fun trying to program the gestures.

Maybe they should make a 3d little dude that walks across the top of the Aero glass.

clippy gone!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

we need more information on the memorial service. Like when/wheres the wake, funeral, and interment?

Clippy Resurection!

[LibertineR]

Word has it that Scott McNeely is putting together a team to develop a cross-platform Clippy Java Applet, in a last ditch attempt to gain JVM desktop acceptance.

so long clippy

[torqer]

R.I.P.
rust in pieces.

Hopefully...

[AndroidCat]

The death was not too quick or easy.

Clippy's Mental State

[pilsner.urquell]

The decision apparently revolved not around the passionate hatred for the unfortunate sprite, but simply out of a desire for UI coherency.

Yep, Clippy was definitely incoherent.

Enough! Clippy was the MAN!

[LibertineR]

Who stayed up with you that night and taught you how to import your old PST's into your new Outlook?

When you were pulling your hair out trying to expose the BCC field, who saved your ass?

Who taught a million admin-assists where to learn how to mail-merge?

ALRIGHT....I admit it.....Clippy was my......lover.

IS THAT SO WRONG?

Re:Enough! Clippy was the MAN!

[ettlz]

ALRIGHT....I admit it.....Clippy was my......lover.

IS THAT SO WRONG?

Oh, fuck yes.

Re:Enough! Clippy was the MAN!

[Fred_A]

ALRIGHT....I admit it.....Clippy was my......lover.

IS THAT SO WRONG?

Didn't it, you know, uh, like pinch ? uh thingy ?

Somebody took pictures of clippy's death...

[Spy der Mann]

It's kinda gross and gory, but ... *sniff* oh I can't say anything more! It was horrible! *SOB*

http://www.thenoobcomic.com.nyud.net:8090/daily/st rip089.html

One of my Nightmares, Unillustrated

[ettlz]

\documentclass[11pt]{article}

"Hello! It looks like you're writing an article. Would you like me to:

• Prepare a set of subsections for you?
• Help you publish your work?
• Do a trick?"

"By Lamport's Beard! What are you doing here?!"

"Well, Microsoft chucked me out."

"How the hell did..."

"It's this Emacs thing — got a darn powerful LISP engine, you know. It's very roomy in here."

Meta-M doctor

"Oh, sorry, it's not that big. He's been evicted. Now, about that article—"

"Look... just... bugger off!" [Click!]

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage[varg]{txfonts}

\begin{document}

"Hello! It looks like you're writing an document. Would you like me to:

• —"

"Sod off and die."

\author{The Holy ettlz}
\title{The Art of Paperclips}

"Oh."

"Yes, 'Oh'! Now get out of Emacs before I drag Donald E. Knuth himself over here."

"No need to get nasty. Hmmph."

A few hours later:

Integrate[1/Sqrt[x^3 - 2], x]

"Hello! It looks like you're trying to evaluate an integral. Would you like me to:

• Add limits?
• Draw a graph?
• Do a trick?

Oh, and by the way, it's very roomy in here!"

Who killed Clippy?

[rlp]

It was Steve Balmer in the library with a chair.

Re:Who killed Clippy?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I sat on it" style?

Clippy: Do you need help with a post?

[TapeCutter]

Choose the type of post:
-Fence-
-Slashdot-
-Last-

You chose -last post-, do you want help writing a suicide note?

Re:Clippy: Do you need help with a post?

[ettlz]

GNAA to lun1x cocksuxx0rs goats

"Hello! It looks like you're trying to troll on Slashdot. Would you like me to:

• Insert a cut-and-paster about trying to run Quake 3 under Linux?
• Find a picture of Natalie Portman and order some hot grits?
• Help you do the Russian Reversal?
• Generate a permutation of the many *BSD/Goatse combos and accidentally forget the hyperlink?
• Do a trick?"

Re:Clippy: Do you need help with a post?

[Anonymous Coward]

Help you do the Russian Reversal?

In Soviet Russia, Russians reverse you!

clippy lives in vi!

[eneville]

anyone seen the vi clippy? http://www.petebevin.com/archives/vim.gif

Thanks Clippy

[Markvs]

For remembering to take Anna Nicole Smith with you.

Re:Thanks Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

That was so wrong... yet somehow so right.

It was a quite reasonable way to get help...

[robbak]

and there were people who liked the interface as a way of gettign help.

I'll agree that Office's help system was is quite good: It just didn't need Clippy. Or any of the other... <action type="gags" level="lethal" />

Enjoy the respite

[smchris]

I have no doubt there will be many badly flawed milestones to come along the path to a coherent AI assistant. It is something too cool not to aspire to even if the results are going to be awful for years to come.

So far the most memorable I've seen was a shareware "Southern" parody of Microsoft Bob that involved an outhouse and, if I remember correctly, a possum.

Yes but...

[kisielk]

... has Netcraft confi.... aw, forget it.

Clippy - Lite Bright

[shdwtek]

RIP 1997-2007

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28608553@N00/38550308 3/

Re:Clippy - Lite Bright

[glynsync]

He's not dead-- Boston's finest saw that and had him shipped off to Guantanamo.

No more Clippy (I say Clippit) for President?

[Antony-Kyre]

No more Clippy, or as I say, Clippit, for President?

Re:No more Clippy (I say Clippit) for President?

[swab79]

"It looks like you are trying to form a sentence"

Re:No more Clippy (I say Clippit) for President?

[Antony-Kyre]

Maybe you would have preferred if I wrote it as, "No more Clippy for President?". I would have had to make a side note that I say Clippit, not Clippy, when referring to the character.

Vorpal bladework

[tverbeek]

"And, has thou slain the Clippywock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Good heavens, that's almost ... almost... enough reason to suggest upgrading to MSOffice 2007. Of course the fact that the rest of the UI is being needlessly changed is enough reason to suggest not upgrading. "You seem to be trying to figure out how to open a document, or where the hell the Tools menu disappeared to. Would you like to take a remedial word processing class to learn how we want you to do it now?"

Re:Vorpal bladework

[Kuciwalker]

It's not needless. The new UI kicks ass and is actually much easier to use than before. Boo-hoo, you'll have to spend fifteen minutes figuring it out.

Re:Vorpal bladework

[tverbeek]

It'd only take me fifteen minutes to figure out. For the countless computer users out there who operate their machines by rote, without understanding any of the whys and wherefores of them, it's going to be hours of confusion and retraining in order to continue performing job tasks that they were able to perform with previous versions. That's "needless".

It looks like you're trying to post to Slashdot...

[celardore]

Would you like help:

• Trolling
• Being interesting or informative
• Posting something obvious
• Flamebaiting
  

Drat, there's no help for being funny =(

So that's Office 2007 major new function?

[gelfling]

I'm sure the droids in Redmond think this is a quantum leap in functionality too.

Time to upgrade my Office97!

[Anonymous Coward]

He was the only one holding me back. Thanks, and good riddance!

Interesting yet not surprising...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The decision apparently revolved not around the passionate hatred for the unfortunate sprite, but simply out of a desire for UI coherency"

Translation:

We got rid of it for our own internal reasons, and not out of any desire to give users what they want - in adherence to our standard business practices.

While you're at it

[Anonymous Coward]

Could someone put down that miserable dog in the XP search module?

Re:While you're at it

[anethema]

Just shut it off in search options.

And in Vista it has been put down.

The Tragedy of Prince Clippy ...

[KwKSilver]

It's far worse than the media are reporting. Rumors of Clippy's impending dismissal have been bubbling around for years, and they had finally started to wear the noble Clippy down. First he started stopping on the way home for a couple or three double shots. This made his wife, Tacki, suspicious and she started nagging about that and asking when he was finally gonna get a promotion. Well, he asked & they promised him the job that was ultimately given to Ozzi.

Folks tried to tell him not to count on it, but he ignored them, saying "Would Chair-boy lie to me? Never!" When that news broke, so did Clippy. Lots of double-, and triple-shots, and he was occasionally found wandering around "the Campus" with a bottle of Muscatel in a bag, mumbling incoherently, "To C# or not to C#, that ..." or chanting a strange mantra, "Longhorn, Lamehorn, Foghorn-Leghorn." Treatments didn't help. Eventually, Tacki ran off with with a stapler and his son Gui ended up smoking crack and huffing glue. The final straw, was when his beloved, musically gifted daughter, Bandi, got a "Theo is my Hero" tatoo and joined the OpenBSD project to write theme-songs and documentation. Poor guy, his intentions were really good, and he tried so damn hard.

There's a couple more "features" they could lose..

[Xanius]

Well the new UI fits better with vista and for the lower end users of word, you know the ones that could never afford to buy it anyway, everything they need is right there in the shortcuts. My problem with word is that it has too many damned retarded features that will make me strangle a man with his own tie if I ever see him using them in a business report. My schools business college requires I take a fundamentals of the PC class, which is actually a class dedicated to microsoft products. Word,Power point, and excel, I figure I can pass this no problem so I go to take the test and it wants me to tell it how to put a specific type of word art in the paper or how to add embellishment to the letters. Why in gods name would I ever use word art in a business report? Do I work for fucking kindergarteners? I know where the word art is, it's hard to miss. But I don't know the names of them and I don't ever want to know the names of them.

The Death of Clippy

[smoker2]

Cool, is it showing on Youtube yet ?

Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

Even on different stories ?

It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment

On a different story !

Re:The Death of Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

This is to prevent moronic content-free posts like yours from clogging slashdot like so many turds in a toilet bowl. Fucking youtube? Gimme a break. You are just posting to advertise your stupid website or hear yourself talk, and whining like the bitch you are when it won't let you over-spam the system.

Maybe if you actually *thought* about posting something interesting, intelligent or actually funny the time it would take you to think of it would avoid all the time limits.

Re:The Death of Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself ;)

This must be a sign that Bill is really not as

[Growlor]

influential or at least not as feared by MS leadership. The REAL reason clippy was inflicted on us was because he was (as another slashdot poster mentioned) the "last piece of MS Bob technology." The project manager for MS Bob is now better known as Mrs Bill Gates.

Clippy's hints were often unrelated to the task.

[danimrich]

Some time ago, I was writing a lab book with Word. I had already typed more than a page when Clippy suddenly realized something and came up with the following dialogue (translated):

"Apparently you're trying to write a letter. Please choose one of the following options:
[ ] Use the letter assistant.
[ ] Write the letter without assistance."

Clippy gave me no other choice, I needed to select one of these options.
I'd have chosen the following if it were available:"[X] Stop bugging me, this isn't even a letter!"

You can turn off the XP search dog...

[26199]

Just google for instructions.

Re:There's a couple more "features" they could los

[Xanius]

Thank you preview for screwing up and showing me the line breaks but not actually posting it that way...

Well the new UI fits better with vista and for the lower end users of word, you know the ones that could never afford to buy it anyway, everything they need is right there in the shortcuts. My problem with word is that it has too many damned retarded features that will make me strangle a man with his own tie if I ever see him using them in a business report.

My schools business college requires I take a fundamentals of the PC class, which is actually a class dedicated to microsoft products. Word,Power point, and excel, I figure I can pass this no problem so I go to take the test and it wants me to tell it how to put a specific type of word art in the paper or how to add embellishment to the letters. Why in gods name would I ever use word art in a business report? Do I work for fucking kindergarteners?

I know where the word art is, it's hard to miss. But I don't know the names of them and I don't ever want to know the names of them.

Could you house a poor, rejected help agent?

[jrothwell97]

Every year, dozens of help agents are abandoned heartlessly by their owners. Meet Clippy. He loved his company, and he thought his company loved him. But he was cruelly excluded. He's still waiting for a home. If you could house a help agent like Clippy, call the Society for Lost User assisTantS (S.L.U.T.S.) on 0800 BULL#*@?

Clippy Cartoons :-)

[mrcgran]

Clippy Goes Undercover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJCv8ru3L98

Clippy Gets Clipped
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB03aRifPLU

Clippy faces facts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMShkAZR1-Q&NR

Marketting Spin

[camperdave]

"YES Folks! Our new office suite is SO EASY that we've sent Clippy, that paragon of helpfulness, into retirement."

"Open Source always lags behind true innovation. For example, OpenOffice has an annoying pop-up lightbulb to offer unsolicited hints to the user. At Microsoft, we have always believed that a clear, unobtrusive interface is the best way to interact with the user."

What about the Open Office Clippy Project

[Anonymous Coward]

This is bad news. Clippy was very useful and was a favorite of Word users worldwide and was loved everywhere. How will this effect the Open Office Clippy Project? There version of clippy will be even more useful helping user to really use OpenOffice and to find these features they want and to really know what they want to do with open office.

From what I read on the open office project their nearly ready to include it in the next oo release. It should be even more useful than the Micro$oft version that we all knew and all love.

[note: bad grammer and speling required for posting slashdot]

Clippy is Dead--Long Live Clippy

[spicydragonz]

Or not.

He will be missed

[wootest]

I never understood the unabashed Clippy hatred. It was certainly a more friendly window to the whole help interface since it's much easier for a novice to ask a question than rummage through indices. It was one checkbox to turn the little bugger off, and you could choose something that you thought was less annoying if that was the problem. (I've almost always used the dog.) Not to mention that he's being going away more and more the past few versions: "It looks like you are writing a letter" is becoming about as relevant as the 95-thru-Me era BSOD.

I agree with the new notions that the Office user interface team has chosen to adopt, like only being able to access a feature from one place. Jensen Harris is a smart guy and I've been enjoying reading his weblog and the trials and tribulations of the Ribbon and the new UI as a whole.

Re:He will be missed

[Zordak]

I have seen many, many BSODs in Windows XP. I never saw any in 2000. That was the only decent OS I've ever seen come out of Redmond.

Re:He will be missed

[wootest]

Just to clarify, I said 95-thru-Me BSOD not to imply that they were the only ones with BSODs, but because they BSODed much more frequently due to errors that won't bring down an NT-based Windows setup. Personally, I've seen both BSODs in Windows 2000 and in Windows XP (and far more in 2000 than in XP, despite using XP quite a bit more).

OH NO BEANTOWN!

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody set us up the bomb!!

Re:Clippy's hints were often unrelated to the task

[Fred_A]

This exactly sums up my experience with those little assistants.

While the idea in itself isn't bad, the execution just didn't work. The help offered was either completely off the mark (as above) or apparently targeted at people who had seen a computer for the first time just the week before (a bit like the Windows on-line help - this is how you format a floppy).

I haven't used MS office a lot since I don't use Windows but get exposed to it every now and then and could use a decent interactive assistant since I don't know my way around it very well. OTOH of course it's pretty much the same as any other such piece of software so I can always find what I'm looking for by poking around a bit. But a competent assistant would be a time saver.

It would however be very difficult to do properly.

I guess users are better off without the assistant than with screen space devoted to a useless one.

Big Hello to those missing clippy

[Thomas the Doubter]

A Big Hello to those of you out there missing Clippy. Just remember the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. ...

Clippit

[Known Nutter]

His name is (was?) actually Clippit, as someone above indicated, not Clippy. While I understand Clippy was his nickname, he's dead now and his proper name should at least be mentioned.

Re:There's a couple more "features" they could los

[Fred_A]

Any so called "Fundamentals of the PC" class should automatically fail anyone who writes a business paper with some wordart or any Comic font.

Took me ages to get people to write properly in the companies I've been in.

Don't go, Clippy

[Lazerf4rt]

Sure, it's easy to only remember the bad times. But who among us can honestly say we won't miss him? His knowing winks, his cute little antics. His sage, though sometimes random and unrelated, wisdom. I already feel a piece of my heart missing and I fear it will never be clipped back together.

Cue Cinderella's "Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone".

what about Search Dog?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, the dog that pouts and wags its tail while Explorer churns through 1000's of unindexed files.

The original clippy was good

[ericlondaits]

When one of the developers/researchers working in MSN Search came to my university to give a one week course on probability based models for search applications he told us that originally Clippy was meant to run with a quite advanced AI (based on a probability model), but was changed before shipping for the much more simpler version we all knew. I'm not sure but I think it was to decrease CPU utilization.

The mostly crappy AI made it extra annoying, the rest is history.

Re:The original clippy was good

[Heliode]

Would you like me to... find John Connor?

My prayers have been answered.

[pdwalker]

Oh good heavens!

There is a God after all.

Re:Lucky Clippy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now he can be bangin' Anna Nicole Smith in the afterlife!


      Take a number and get in line, like everyone else...

Re:Lucky Clippy!

[Robber Baron]

Now he can be bangin' Anna Nicole Smith in the afterlife! It's gonna take something with a LOT more diameter than a paperclip to pleasure that ho! What she needs is something with dimensions closer to a Swingline stapler...

Nice try...

[Anonymous Coward]

But we know they don't have Clue over at Microsoft :-)

Clippy was vicious...

[NoMoreNicknames]

Back in the day I came home to find my mum on the computer, crying...

Apparently the paper clip was making fun of her...

They killed the role (assistant), not Clippy!

[thsths]

I wonder why people always refer to Clippy. It is an annoying character, no doubt. But the feature is called "Office Assistant", and you can choose from a number of different characters. Einstein is probably just as annoying, but the Cat is rather cute.

So please stop whining about Clippy, and think for a minute about all the other characters!

Re:They killed the role (assistant), not Clippy!

[6Yankee]

the Cat is rather cute ...unless you work with the sort of old hag who has fifty of the fucking things at home. The sort of old hag who's fought for the only fucking PC in the fucking office with fucking built-in speakers. The sort of old hag who makes everyone's life hell if the fucking speakers stop working (yep, tried that). The sort of old hag who pisses everyone off by having the fucking Cat miaow at full blast all fucking day. The sort of old hag who tells the fucking thing to shut up every time it fucking miaows. *twitch*

the Cat is rather cute

Val? Is that you?

Obligatory Clippy quote

[ady1]

It seems like you are remaking the UI. Would you like help with making it more disneylandish?

On a serious note, I honestly don't get it. The new interface is pretty cartoonish (though simple to use for a first time user). If clippy isn't coherent with this UI than I don't know what is.

Also the big overhaul isn't about coherency in the first place since to change the color of outlook interface, you have to open MS word and customize it's options.

Clippy falls on hard times

[Anonymous Coward]

XP Media Center includes a desktop dancer program.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/deskt op/dancers.mspx

One of the characters is wearing a ghost outfit. Occasionally the white sheet slips, revealing the thin curve of steel underneath.

Clippy. No means NO!

[fahrbot-bot]

Personally, I think clippy represents what is wrong with office more than anything else.

Exactly. The assumption that I even WANTED help writing a letter annoyed me. Furthermore, asking me again each time a started writing a letter annoyed me. No means NO Clippy!

I finally turned the whole thing off.

FOR THE TRUTH

[Anonymous Coward]

ha ha ha oh wow that's truer than anyone wants to believe

Re:Clippy's hints were often unrelated to the task

[Jhan]

...and this prompts me to reprise an older comment on why Clippy is/was so sinister:

Clippy is Microsofts way of saying that because you are so stupid, here is someone obviously smarter than you to give you advice.

Try going to an online IQ test, then feed the questions into clippy. He will probably respond "It looks as if you're trying to make a list, do you want some help with that?"

What is clippy's IQ? Less than a monkey, obviously. Less than a rodent. Less than a nematode.

Microsoft thinks you are less intelligent than a nematode worm.

Clippy too much like a coworker

[Latent Heat]

The problem is not that Clippy is unlike a human helper. Clippy is exactly like a human helper who is interrupting, distracting, and making lame suggestions at a time when you are most frustrated trying to figure out how to do something.

My big gripe about help is that you want to use a particular feature, say select the "Lisa Novak" font that looks like pastings from random magazine pages. You search "Lisa Novak", come up with a help entry that says, yes, that feature is supported. Then it says, "Select font from Preferences menu, General tab, Font drop-down (not really, help is never that explicit of telling you to expect a menu entry, dialog tab, or dialog widget at each step)" but then where in the what is the Preferences menu? Sometimes it is under Files, sometimes under Edit, sometimes Windows, and sometimes there is not menu entry, there is one of those toolbar icons, which doesn't appear because you have to activate that toolbar or add the toolbar to which it belongs.

Lie?

[antdude]

I don't know about that comment. I am pretty sure Chairboy would lie about it. [grin]

You have died (2nd time!)

[Captain Spam]

Funny, I thought I heard this before. Like, around the time XP was coming out. And how Microsoft hired Gilbert Gottfried to voice the lousy chunk of wire to advertise how Clippy was dead and gone with Office XP.

Give it another six years when Windows Vienna comes out (given how much a success Vista is). We'll be able to relive this story all over again!

Re:You have died (2nd time!)

[IL-CSIXTY4]

Thank you! I got this far down into the discussion and I refused to believe I was the only person who remembered that.

fully sentient users, too

[dltaylor]

"Clippy, the bane of all semi-sentient Office users "

Sentient, and semi-sentient, Office users were not the target audience of Clippy, unless it was always intended as annoyance, leaving ...?

Now that OpenOffice is usable enough, for me, I have stopped editing RTF in emacs. At one job, I was asked to explain to a co-worker how to create PDFs. I started with "go to this address

http://www.openoffice.org/

download and install OpenOffice, then call me to come over".

right

[mapkinase]

The decision apparently revolved not around the passionate hatred for the unfortunate sprite, but simply out of a desire for UI coherency.

... which are (hatread and UI coherency) absolutely unrelated.

Re:There's a couple more "features" they could los

[Hognoxious]

Why in gods name would I ever use word art in a business report? Do I work for fucking kindergarteners?

So true. If I never see that twatting stick man with his ass stuck out looking at fuck-knows-what through a magnifying glass again it'll be too soon.

i thought clippy had already died

[nih]

the proof is here

Ding-dong...

[TFGeditor]

...the witch is dead, the witch is dead!
Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead...

The Power of (cutting the) Cheese

[wowbagger]

Go onto her system, and replace every UI sound effect with the juiciest, longest, and nastiest fart sound effect you can find on the Internet. Think goatse for the ears.

She'll turn down her sound so fast it will violate Relativity.

So when will openoffice kill

[mrmeval]

..bulby?

And can I pull the switch?

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunately.

[SEMW]

A while ago (at the time of WordPerfect 5.1) the makers of WordPerfect addressed this by coming out with a simpler version of their word processor called "LetterPerfect." ... much less expensive that a full copy of WordPerfect ... all of the features that I needed at home ... this is something that is needed with MS Office What you're suggesting already exists in the delightfully oxymoronic Microsoft Works

Re:Clippy's hints were often unrelated to the task

[SEMW]

...and this prompts me to reprise an older comment on why Clippy is/was so sinister: Clippy is Microsofts way of saying that because you are so stupid, here is someone obviously smarter than you to give you advice. Try going to an online IQ test, then feed the questions into clippy. He will probably respond "It looks as if you're trying to make a list, do you want some help with that?" Personally, I'd actually find it more sinister if Clippy did *well* on the IQ test...

overlord

[azeazezar]

i for one welcome the overlords replacing clippy

Sheds a tear for Links the Cat

[tabby]

I think people hated clippy because while being annoying he wasn't cute.

If the assistant had defaulted to Rocky the Dog and the first alternative on the menu was Links the Cat then you would have had 99% of people with something that they at least thought was cute.

In all seriousiness though I think a big opportunity was missed to use the assistant idea as a friendly frontend to intelligent agent functionality. It should have been an OS-wide feature that lived in the task-bar. Hell give it network storage & make it aware of being run on different machines.

Anyone tell Gilbert Godfried about this????

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Gilbert was the voice of Clippy....Gilbert made Clippy almost bearable.

When Office (I think 2000?) was launched in NYC with Bill Gates live I saw Gilbert was on stage with him - RIP Clippy.

Clippit, not Clippy

[loshwomp]

Come on, folks, his name is actually "Clippit". Why does everyone call him "Clippy"?

Next to Bob

[Dr. Cody]

Fuck, I knew somebody'd find out where we dumped the body eventually.

Elton John to Sing at Clippy's Funeral

[Anonymous Coward]

Rumor has it Elton John will perform at Clippy's funeral.

Goodbye Clippy
Though I never knew you at all
You had the grace to uphold yourself
While those around you crawled

Re:Elton John to Sing at Clippy's Funeral

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold my paper closer tiny dancer,
Count the headlights on the highway,
Lay me down in sheets of letter-size,
you had a busy day today...

*weeps*

To turn off the *&%@ing paper clip...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to create a new document and start typing:

Dear Bill Gates,

Please kill that fu...

And by then the paper clip would have appeared and I could permanently deactivate it. So in a roundabout sense, its suggestion really was relevant to the task.

Not sure about Microsoft user testing...

[Anonymous Coward]

But I've sworn a solemn oath, that if I'm ever part of a focus group, I'll lie through my teeth.

"Oh yes, I love the paper clip! It so cute and helpful, and never irritates me at all. Is there any way you can make it pop up more often?"

+5 Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

there should be a +5 ironic option

Clippy was my savior

[wiredlogic]

I once had to deal with a botched Visio 2002 install on a work computer with Office 2000. For some reason this completely killed the normal HTML help interface in the O2K apps but the Office assistant help still worked.

If they ever ask again...

[patio11]

Rather than retraining them to OpenOffice, whose single best feature is "We tried to be a slavish clone of software you already use", you can download PDFCreator (http://pdfcreator.sf.net) and just print straight from Office. I love pdf creator, and it makes a lot of sense to me to separate physical (or close-to-physical) document preparation from document layout/content editing software. This way I can continue exporting to pdfs without having to wait on OO to catch up with Office2007 in the interface or interop departments.

Evil Empire

[blakmac]

The great Microsoft empire probably did a Redmond-wide roundup of Clippys and made them fight wild staple-pullers in the breakroom.

Re:Lucky Clippy!

[Anonymous Coward]

tis thy clip i yearn to kill

I killed thy clip
my will is done
thou art lord (of the office)

long live the man
to clip-- quick death
(your clip is dead now)

CLIP IS DEAD NOW!!

In other news....

[Anonymous Coward]

Jar Jar Binks has been assassinated...

Re:Clippy's hints were often unrelated to the task

[dcam]

Microsoft: let me tell you where you are going today.

Right tool for the job

[pedestrian crossing]

A thesis will also require a "definition of terms", a list of keywords that must be in italics throughout the document, a "list of variables", which is a list of mathematical variables, and a set of references. All of these will have to be cross-referenced with references throughtout the thesis.

And all of these are things that MS Word is terrible at doing.

It's like trying to do carpentry with a swiss army knife.

When you cross the line into thesis territory, there really is nothing better than LaTeX (maybe with something like Lyx or Kile to help you get started).

You mean.....

[mormop]

Reports of Clippy's death earlier were exaggerated?

Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunately.

[Steve001]

SEMW wrote:

A while ago (at the time of WordPerfect 5.1) the makers of WordPerfect addressed this by coming out with a simpler version of their word processor called "LetterPerfect." ... much less expensive that a full copy of WordPerfect ... all of the features that I needed at home ... this is something that is needed with MS Office

What you're suggesting already exists in the delightfully oxymoronic Microsoft Works

I thought about mentioning Microsoft Works, but I remember that a while ago there were issues with it not being compatible with MS Word (although the above link indicates that it is now compatible with parts of MS Office), and that is why I didn't mention it. I used the version that came pre-installed with my computer with Windows XP, and its search and replace (one of the best features of MS Word) didn't work as well as MS Word's.

Since it appears that it is compatible with MS Office, then it could be a good option for people who don't want to buy a full copy of MS Office. Plus, Works Suite does feature a copy of MS Word.

Other avatars

[phorm]

Indeed. I've had various people complain about how annoying the "paperclip thing" was, but when I changed the avatar to the cat (available in Office 2k and I think XP) they thought it was rather cute.

Not that they didn't click it away most of the time, but when the cat wanders onto the screen on first startup and gives a little *meow* it usually manages a smile from the user.

Clippy freaked me out...

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

One of clippy's little animations involved him doing something with his eyes...I think he leaned forward and the eyes suddenly got bigger. For some reason, that would freak me out and I would have to look away from the screen. Sometimes I actually jumped a little when I saw that happen.

Burning in Effigy

[Lotharjade]

I keep wondering if the slashdot users burned him in effigy, or reality. LoL!