David Coleman wrote...
true, so consider a way to allow users to chose from a list of Look-And-Feel
options suitable to this type of option as well as other similar UI options
which would simplify the functional options from the UI options. Such a
cleanly arrayed set of categorized program options would clearly benefit an
application such as Excel.
....
In an ideal world in which neither users nor IT departments had to
worry about storage it might be beneficial for users to be able to
choose which particular UI convenience features from thousands of
pre-programmed options to include with the base software. However, in
the real world each of those thousands of optional features would take
up storage. They might not eat RAM, but they'd make it necessary to
distribute Excel or Office on many disks. If individual business users
were installing Excel or Office on their own from disks, maybe this
would be workable, but most business users have their software
installed by IT departments, and allowing users large scale
post-installation configuration options simply won't happen because
it'd be a nightmare - too much could go wrong.
Excel and Office are programmatically customizable. Use the macro
recorder in Excel to record the actions necessary to perform your most
needed convenience features.
but only in texture. Nearly every other MS application remembers how each
user last viewed the document, and also how they like their UI to interact.
?
There's nothing remotely like Excel's multiple worksheets per file in
any of the other Office applications. Sections in Word documents are
nothing like them.
Excel remembers considerably more than Word from session to session.
Create 2 windows into the same Excel file, save it, exit Excel, reopen
the saved Excel file and it'll still have two windows displaying it.
Create multiple windows displaying the same Word document, save the
Word document, exit Word and reopen the file and Word will only show
the single window into the file that was active when the file was last
saved.
Forgive me for believing Excel's UI functionality is distinctly
superior to that of Word's.
The new shared workbook feature in MS is academic until the profile is
integrated with UI. Excel sheets are a volitile method of sharing
information due to the fact that when you select multiple sheets to perform a
network action, they are frequently saved grouped. Thus the instant danger
for the remote user to unknowingly change unrelated data is unavoidable in
many circumstances...
New? excel has offerred it since Excel 97, so for more than 8 years. 8
year old software features generally aren't considered 'new'.
If you want to ensure any user opening the file starts off with only a
single worksheet selected, then ensure that by including the statement
ActiveWindow.ActiveSheet.Select
in the ThisWorkbook_Open event handler.
Sometimes programming is necessary to ensure idiot-proofing. Developers
should know more than average users.
Excel is so powerful, that it is understandable that the level of user view
control present in most MS apps has not been implemented. But it is close to
time, as increasing numbers of businesses rely on IS to use aught but Excel
and its powerful data tools to provide reporting... reporting which is
famously the neverending IT headache, since excel *is* the best option in
those cases...
No, Access and most any other database front-end are much better than
Excel for standard, periodically recurring reporting tasks. It's far
too easy to screw up Excel workbooks. It takes some deliberate effort
to screw up existing Access reports.
And what specific user view control features in, say, Word does Excel
lack?
I think the tabs should work like file selection... if you click a single
one w/o the shift or ctrl key, it goes right to only that one... same for
edit content in excel and clicking tabs to bring up the pane... add an
action level option to affect a group, so selection is for actions or
something more logical than the current document managment scheme... It's
still win31 level. If we have a separate window for each document then why
is every one the same app, w/the same win31 excel workspace as always inside
a fancy win3k window border?
....
MDI (in the old sense - multiple document interface). It's common to
Excel, Access and Word, and a great many other applications. Dunno &
don't care about PowerPoint and Outlook.
From my perspective, Excel does mostly the right thing with respect to
worksheets as portions of workbook files. If *YOU* want single
worksheet workbooks, you can make *YOUR* own workbooks default to
contain one worksheet, then *YOU* can experience the joys of nothing
but external reference links between worksheets.
For me, the good news is that Excel already works mostly the way I want
it to. The bad news for you is that there's a considerable portion of
the total Excel user base who share my opinion, and combined with
Microsoft's demonstrated inertia, you'd better get used to current
functionality.
