What a horrible disappointment

[CMM]

I gotta say that I am profoundly disappointed with Office 2007. I'm still
trying to understand the ribbon... (it seems to basically be just an
"exploded" menu bar)... but in essense, this is nowhere near the
revolutionary release MS marketing is contending.

1) Excel and PowerPoint STILL have the same confusing, horrible MDI /
fake-sdi interface. How hard is it to get Word's true SDI right? Even
better, implement a nice TABBED document interface. Give the taskbar a
break. This is a showstopper.

2) Dialogs are just as unattractive- and more importantly, unintuitive- as
ever... in fact they look completely untouched. For instance, Word's Modify
Style dialog box (with the unintuitively placed Modify button in the lower
left hand side) is just as unweildy as ever. Excel's equation dialog doesn't
look like it's been touched since Windows 3.1.

3) Why does resizing the window not resize the view? How do we get a Text
Width view? Oh, now I have to go into dialog box to do it?! You gotta be
kidding me. Word's "view" of a document is just as distracting and annoying
as ever.

4) No *unified* Template Center / Gallery / Task Manager? Office has needed
an attractive, nicely designed Task Manager for a long time. The old New /
Open tools were a beginning but they were never IMPROVED. The idea wasn't
bad.... it just wasn't followed through on. Often, I'll need to create a
document but not sure which app to use (Word or Publisher... I don't know!!!
I'm so confused! Let me call IT.... wait I am IT!!!).

There's more... but these are biggies. So far, I don't see much in this
release that especially compelling. Same old Office..... with a new menu
bar.

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

I have had the opposite reaction. Editing work documents in Office 2007
from Office 2000 has been a revelation as far as discoverable options are
concerned.

For instance, try finding where to format a table cell in Word in 2000
versus 2007.


--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, CMM asked:

| I gotta say that I am profoundly disappointed with Office 2007. I'm
| still trying to understand the ribbon... (it seems to basically be
| just an "exploded" menu bar)... but in essense, this is nowhere near
| the revolutionary release MS marketing is contending.
|
| 1) Excel and PowerPoint STILL have the same confusing, horrible MDI /
| fake-sdi interface. How hard is it to get Word's true SDI right? Even
| better, implement a nice TABBED document interface. Give the taskbar a
| break. This is a showstopper.
|
| 2) Dialogs are just as unattractive- and more importantly,
| unintuitive- as ever... in fact they look completely untouched. For
| instance, Word's Modify Style dialog box (with the unintuitively
| placed Modify button in the lower left hand side) is just as unweildy
| as ever. Excel's equation dialog doesn't look like it's been touched
| since Windows 3.1.
|
| 3) Why does resizing the window not resize the view? How do we get a
| Text Width view? Oh, now I have to go into dialog box to do it?! You
| gotta be kidding me. Word's "view" of a document is just as
| distracting and annoying as ever.
|
| 4) No *unified* Template Center / Gallery / Task Manager? Office has
| needed an attractive, nicely designed Task Manager for a long time.
| The old New / Open tools were a beginning but they were never
| IMPROVED. The idea wasn't bad.... it just wasn't followed through on.
| Often, I'll need to create a document but not sure which app to use
| (Word or Publisher... I don't know!!! I'm so confused! Let me call
| IT.... wait I am IT!!!).
|
| There's more... but these are biggies. So far, I don't see much in
| this release that especially compelling. Same old Office..... with a
| new menu bar.

 

[CMM]

My comments aren't about the Ribbon bar. It may be an improvement... but
also frankly will distract Testers from the fact that these apps have only
been incrementally improved (at their heart).

P.S. I accidentally crossposted the original post. I apologize.

 

[Guy]

Wow. I am surprised. Everyone I have spoken with loves the new UI. I found
it very intuitive from the first minute of use.

 

[CMM]

I wasn't talking about the "new" ribbon... it's fine.
What I meant is that this new window dressing (as cool as it may be) is
going to distract from the fact that the underlying programs are largely
unchanged.

Case-in-point.... try aligning two Excel documents so that you can see both
at the same time. Ahhh, the Windows 3.1 MDI interface rears its ugly head.
In 2006! That's fine... but, why doesn't Word work the same way.... or vice
versa. Consistency is key!

Worse, dialogs are still as unintuitive as ever (Modify Style in Word for
instance. Formula dialog still requires expert training in Excel). They
haven't changed one iota. Etc etc.


--
-C. Moya
www.cmoya.com

Wow. I am surprised. Everyone I have spoken with loves the new UI. I found
it very intuitive from the first minute of use.

 

[Guy]

I see. I will have to look at it in more detail. I only spent about an hour
with it and it was mostly UI stuff. The only in-depth stuff I did was for
BCM in Outlook. That has been changed dramatically for the better and I am
very anxious for it. I will have to look at the rest of the suite.

--
Guy
Forefront Business Solutions
www.forefrontbusinesssolutions.com
www.forefrontbusiness.com

I wasn't talking about the "new" ribbon... it's fine.
What I meant is that this new window dressing (as cool as it may be) is
going to distract from the fact that the underlying programs are largely
unchanged.

Case-in-point.... try aligning two Excel documents so that you can see
both at the same time. Ahhh, the Windows 3.1 MDI interface rears its ugly
head. In 2006! That's fine... but, why doesn't Word work the same way....
or vice versa. Consistency is key!

Worse, dialogs are still as unintuitive as ever (Modify Style in Word for
instance. Formula dialog still requires expert training in Excel). They
haven't changed one iota. Etc etc.