menus and toolbars on the side not the top

K

King Rufus

I would like to see the option, in all programs, to have menus and toolbars
displayed on the side of the program OR the top.

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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...-f0fa0ae5fb5a&dg=microsoft.public.office.misc
 
A

ANONYMOUS

You can already do in the current versions. You need to drag them to
wherever you want them.

hth
 
K

King Rufus

Thanks, but I'm not sure you've taken my meaning. I can drag them to the side
or the bottom, but they remain horizontal. I would like the option to have
the menus/toolbars VERTICAL at the side, ie

File
Edit
View
etc
 
T

Tony Jollans

At first glance, it has some merit as a suggestion, but in practice most of
the time it would occupy far too much screen real estate for most people.
 
K

King Rufus

Really? Given most screens now are "widescreen" I would suggest that in many
programs the unused real estate is at the side. Word and publisher for
example; but also in any text-based program or utility like programming
workbenches, which I used a great deal. I keep my taskbar on the side, it
would be good to keep menus and toolbars there as well. Publisher and
powerpoint (and Adobe Reader and some image-editing software) have gone
partway to this end, with some functions available on the side. I would like
to see it extended, so that all functions can be viewed/executed from the
side.
 
T

Tony Jollans

I would disagree that most screens are wide (aren't many new ones 5:4 ratio
rather than 4:3? - which is actually narrow).

Regardless of that, I don't see any real reason why you shouldn't be able to
have the option of having what you want - and the implementation of side
toolbars in Office is slightly odd at the moment - but I still think that it
would occupy too much space for most users. I don't normally have any spare
space on my screen - and usually wish I had more of it -but we are all
different :)

Programmer workbenches and other tools (I have Photoshop in front of me as I
write this) often have many windows that individuals can organise as they
wish - a lot of which I personally find obtrusive and switch off by
default - but windows and toolbars are slightly different, if related,
animals.

I auto-hide my taskbar and usually find the top of the screen the least
obtrusive place for it. When at the side it does squeeze down to icon size -
and every control on it has an icon. The Menu Bar in Word doesn't have
icons to squeeze down to, but, as already said, I see no reason why you
shouldn't have the choice.
 
K

King Rufus

A 5:4! No wonder you have no real estate! I have never seen or heard of a 5:4
but will keep my eyes out (would never buy one but curious to see). I believe
with the evolution of PCs into entertainment centers, the widescreen will
replace 4:3 and 5:4s completely. If you look at the beta version of Office
2007 (Office 12), you will see the developers have put enormous effort into
re-designing the menu bars and toolbars into context sensitive ribbons
(tabs). It just seemed that if they were going to all this trouble they could
go one step further. By the way, I think this functionality is more
appropriate for notebook users than desktops... If you've got a 19 inch
screen (or even 17), which is fairly standard for a desktop, I don't think I
would be concerned about screen real estate at all. Cheers.
 
T

Tony Jollans

I suspect this is going OT but I run my 17" 4:3 desktop at 1280*1024 (which
means I have a slightly elongated view of the world) but I use every square
inch - and would love a bigger or second monitor. Yes I think you are right
that some laptops now come with wide screens but not generally desktops (at
least not in the UK).
 
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