Author Topic: Whoa, this gal hates MS Office 2010 -- 5 Reasons Why You Don't Need It (Read 30,040 times)

Tuxman · « **Reply #25 on:** July 26, 2010, 10:16 AM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on July 26, 2010, 09:49 AM

Given that most people these days have largish screens

Yep, but widescreen, not highscreen, so the whole ribbon thingy is quite anachronistic.

Josh · « **Reply #26 on:** July 26, 2010, 11:13 AM »

Tux, why do I get the feeling you are being oppositional just for the sake of being oppositional? Even more so since this is a Microsoft product? What exactly does "High screen" mean? You complained that the ribbon could not be minimized, yet we showed you it could (Also indicating you never actually TRIED). You complained it took up quite a bit of real estate, however when compared to OOo it takes up far less once the ribbon autohides. Could it be that you are just against change or really dislike Microsoft? I am not a fanboy of any specific product-line, but I am not afraid to defend a company when it deserves it.

Tuxman · « **Reply #27 on:** July 26, 2010, 11:24 AM »

Quote from: Josh on July 26, 2010, 11:13 AM

Even more so since this is a Microsoft product?

I am, have always been and will surely be for some more time a proud Windows user. What the heck are you talking about?

Quote from: Josh on July 26, 2010, 11:13 AM

What exactly does "High screen" mean?

4:3, not 16:9.

Quote from: Josh on July 26, 2010, 11:13 AM

Could it be that you are just against change or really dislike Microsoft?

See above. And all that "ribbon" stuff is more like an eye-catcher than of any real advantage for the daily use.
So you really like these bars, even if they require everyone to learn the whole office suite (which had been working the same way for one and a half decade!) from scratch?

Well, let's make up another example.

Can you tell me why it is of any practival use to have a simple text editor with a ribbon interface? It just doesn't make any sense!

In my very own opinion it is eye-candy and a waste of space, nothing more.

Josh · « **Reply #28 on:** July 26, 2010, 11:30 AM »

Who has to learn office from scratch? My entire organization, and in fact the entire US Army, uses Office 2007 and I rarely hear anyone complain about the suite (And believe me, I hear complaints about all facets of computing given that I spend most of my time doing desktop support).

If your goal is a simple text editor then I consider EVEN OOo to be overkill. I've watched my users become far more productive using Office 2007. One user in particular, who was always asking "Where do I find this" or "How do I do this", no longer asks these questions. Everything is presented to him and the appropriate ribbon tab is selected based on what he is trying to do (If he is working in a table, the tables tab is selected, etc).

I ask again, how long did you give the ribbon a try before dumping it? I hear a lot of users that bad mouth it do so only because they either A. Never used it or B. Used it for 5 minutes and said "This isn't a menu! WTF!".

Tuxman · « **Reply #29 on:** July 26, 2010, 11:36 AM »

I gave it several tries in several applications.

The point is: You'll have to switch the bars for various actions. But I rarely work with only one section of an application's functionality, so I waste too much time switching between the bars. Yes, it is more obvious what is where; but the things you really need are not visible at the same time.

Even when using Photoshop/GIMP, I prefer to have as many windows as possible on my screen.
In order to avoid unnecessary time loss while switching between them, you know?

Josh · « **Reply #30 on:** July 26, 2010, 11:40 AM »

In Office 2010 you can customize the ribbon to your liking, a one time task unless you change the way you work quite often. Also, the office applications are smart enough to detect when you are working in a section that requires different functionality. If you are working on something that requires another feature, you would have had to click through another menu anyways to get it. The ribbon actually makes it EASIER using keyboard shortcuts, something I have taught my user and increased their productivity exponentially. Hitting the ALT key displays an associated shortcut key for the ribbon tab and then hitting one of those keys displays shortcut keys for the remaining functions on the tabs. Once you learn a few basic shortcut keys, you will learn how to quickly access functions.

I wish thunderbird had the ribbon, firefox too. I am sick of not being able to "ALT N-F" to attach a file or "ALT N-P" to insert an inline picture.

f0dder · « **Reply #31 on:** July 26, 2010, 11:41 AM »

I was pretty skeptical about the ribbon before I gave it a decent try, and I have to admit I've come to like it. For the way I use Office, I find that the "focused" view it offers is much more convenient than always having a zillion icons on the toolbar, or having to go hunt endless cascaded layers of menus. And when I'm doing bulk writing, I can hide the ribbon to maximize screen real estate.

That said, it's silly when developers adopt the ribbon just for the sake of using the newest MS feature. It simply doesn't make sense in a regular text editor, and I find it to be overkill in MSPaint as well. But for Office, you can't use it as a general argument the suite, since a lot of people like it and it's really a personal preference kinda thing.

As for the rest of the summarized points (can't be bothered to RTFA), well... yeah, there's free alternatives, and they might work just fine if you only have simple needs. But if you have to do document exchange, you're SOL if you need to process anything but the simplest .doc or .docx documents. If you do VBA developing, the OOo offering sucka compared to the debugger and help integrated in MS-Office (which isn't even that hot compared to visual studio).

While I'm not that big a fan of SharePoint (the system implemented for our school was so poor that we had to dismiss it after a semester or two - probably not SP's fault but sucky developers developing a crap system around SP), suggesting that you can just copy/paste instead of doing a proper save is ridiculous... c/p a couple hundred of pages, great idea? I think not. Besides, what would that do to version tracking?

And dismissing simultaneous editing, heh. The author is describing a people management problem, not a problem with the feature. Yeah, great dismissing a program feature because you and your co-workers are disorganized, non-communicating clobbermonkeys

Tuxman · « **Reply #32 on:** July 26, 2010, 11:54 AM »

Quote from: Josh on July 26, 2010, 11:40 AM

I am sick of not being able to "ALT N-F" to attach a file or "ALT N-P" to insert an inline picture.

There's the keyconfig extension for Tb and Fx. Works exactly this way without scrambling your UI.

Josh · « **Reply #33 on:** July 26, 2010, 11:57 AM »

I agree f0dder. It is quite silly to adopt the ribbon just for the sake of it. The ribbon becomes useful in applications where you have countless menus to sort through. It exposes functionality once hidden to the user interface. I forget where I read it, but I do believe Adobe is toying with the ribbon for it's suite of applications.

And tux, I use keyconfig, it is in no way a substitute for what I want to do.

Tuxman · « **Reply #34 on:** July 26, 2010, 12:03 PM »

Of course it is, at least regarding your complaint about missing default hotkeys.

BTW:

Quote

It simply doesn't make sense in a regular text editor, and I find it to be overkill in MSPaint as well.

So why should it make more sense in a web browser then?

Josh · « **Reply #35 on:** July 26, 2010, 12:13 PM »

Tuxman: How are you going to tell me it will work for my intended purpose? I've used that extension for years and am fully aware of what it can and cannot do. Do you have some deeper insight into how I work or use t-bird? Anyways, I am done feeding the flame war that has once again started with your posting. Back on track for this topic.

Tuxman · « **Reply #36 on:** July 26, 2010, 12:17 PM »

You said you were missing some hotkeys in the first place, so ...

cyberdiva · « **Reply #37 on:** July 26, 2010, 01:44 PM »

Quote from: Tuxman on July 26, 2010, 12:05 AM

(I would really like to legally own a license for SoftMaker Office, but as I already do all my office stuff with OO.org, I still need a good reason for paying the price, although it seems to be well worth it.)

When SoftMaker Office 2010 came out, the company actually gave away copies of SoftMaker Office 2008 for free. I gather they're no longer doing that, but I took advantage of the offer. That put me on their mailing list AND entitled me to "upgrade" pricing. Earlier this month, I got a message offering an upgrade to SoftMaker Office 2010 for $34.95 minus a 15% discount to celebrate the World Cup. So I was able to get an upgrade to SoftMaker Office 2010 for $29.71. You might see whether you can still find a copy of 2008 for free or for very little and get on their mailing list.

app103 · « **Reply #38 on:** July 26, 2010, 03:12 PM »

Quote from: Tuxman on July 26, 2010, 12:03 PM

So why should it make more sense in a web browser then?

Because some of us have browsers that look like this:

Yes, that's 3 rows of bookmarks and a scrollbar you see on my bookmarks toolbar. I would love to have a ribbon just for my bookmarks, if nothing else.

zridling · « **Reply #39 on:** July 27, 2010, 04:13 AM »

Face it, some folks -- including me -- honestly do NOT like the ribbon. No amount of perfume is going to make that pig smell any better. The ribbon is:

Cheesy (really, this is just bad design and Microsoft poured too much cash in it to admit it)
A waste of space (I got better uses than a dead ribbon eating up screen space)
Looks like a 1st grader designed it (see cheesy above)
Its icons are unnecessarily HUGE (I'm not a retarded blind person)
Keyboard shortcuts and self-designed start pages are more efficient and economical (simple is better)

No matter. I no longer pay for OS, nor would I pay for an office suite. Ninety-nine percent of my work is done using a text editor.

tomos · « **Reply #40 on:** July 27, 2010, 08:25 AM »

^ well it's pretty obvious a bunch of people here disagree with you Zaine!

I think I've gotten a better understanding of the ribbon with the, eh, haggling that's been going on here about it. It sounds interesting.
I dont see any reason though (for me) to pay double the price of Softmaker Office (for the Home & Business MS version). If you've got a lot invested in it though it's not outrageously priced for a home business user.

iphigenie · « **Reply #41 on:** July 27, 2010, 09:03 AM »

i bought outlook 2010 - think they really improved that one. well, i bought outll look 2007 cheap when the "free up to 2010" was offered, but that was for that very reason.

my only issue with the ribbon was the "hmm where did they move *this* to now?" phase, which is slowly over. Still find menus faster from the keyboard, but never investigated keyboard ribbon control...

cant imagine getting the other products though - the ones i really like in Office are Onenote and Outlook - everything else I can use alternatives

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #42 on:** July 27, 2010, 10:06 AM »

Quote from: zridling on July 27, 2010, 04:13 AM

Face it, some folks -- including me -- honestly do NOT like the ribbon. No amount of perfume is going to make that pig smell any better. The ribbon is:

Cheesy (really, this is just bad design and Microsoft poured too much cash in it to admit it)
A waste of space (I got better uses than a dead ribbon eating up screen space)
Looks like a 1st grader designed it (see cheesy above)
Its icons are unnecessarily HUGE (I'm not a retarded blind person)
Keyboard shortcuts and self-designed start pages are more efficient and economical (simple is better)

1) Cheesy is a matter of taste - personally I find it MUCH clearer than an amorphous block of cryptic icons (and toolbars that are often hidden - if you show them all then you use up about 40% of your screen) and menus that constantly change and move so you can never find anything (yes I know you can turn of the popular menu items feature but lots of users don't and I find it a real pain on client computers to find what I am looking for). Having been using the ribbon for a long time now the one thing you can say is that it was designed - by comparison earlier versions of Office weren't even designed they were thrown together.
2) If you don't like wasting space minimize it - it takes one line on the screen. On my screen (a 22" 16:9 monitor) I can work on two full A4 pages side by side without having to scroll at all - and my eyesight isn't great.
3) You have some very clevery first graders in the US then!
4) Most icons are pretty much the same size as they have always been. Some are larger but actually that is a really good idea (and comes from a lot of UI research - not just MS research) as they are much easier to hit quickly with a mouse and therefore less tiring. Also if you are going to have a fixed height ribbon (even if you minimise it) you may as well use the space the user's advantage.
5) You can customise the ribbon bar completely in Office 2010, and assign any keyboard shortcuts you like to any functions).

Quote

No matter. I no longer pay for OS, nor would I pay for an office suite. Ninety-nine percent of my work is done using a text editor.

If a text editor meets your needs that is great - for most people using MS Office a text editor wouldn't do what is required.

Josh · « **Reply #43 on:** July 27, 2010, 11:24 AM »

1) Cheesy is an opinion. Your thinking it is cheesy does not make it so for everyone.
2) Wasting space is an easy fix. Minimize it
3) I second what Carol said above
4) All of the icons are the exact same size. Some formatting options have been given a larger section on the ribbon because they demonstrate how hitting the button will apply formatting to the document. The insert ribbon has larger icons due to the fact that it makes it easier for people to identify what they are inserting.
5) Keyboard shortcuts are actually far more prevalent in office 2007/2010. Simply hitting ALT brings up a letter under each ribbon tab which, when pressed, activates that tab and display keys that can be pressed to activate that tabs various functions. As I said earlier, many of my 400 users have become far more productive once I showed them they can activate various functions without moving their hands from the keyboard to use the mouse. So yes, office 2010 definitely FITS your requirement for this comment.

If all you use is a text editor, then it is obvious you have no need for an office suite. This is like someone commenting on a Hummer H3 when they have A. no need for one, B. Never used one. Given that you are a "born-again" Linux user and are very adamant about your anti-Microsoft beliefs, I would like to question just how much time you have spent in either office 2007 or 2010 to formulate your opinion and test out the new options.

mrainey · « **Reply #44 on:** July 27, 2010, 04:35 PM »

Quote

Ninety-nine percent of my work is done using a text editor.

Same here. That's why I don't feel qualified to evaluate the ribbon.

rjbull · « **Reply #45 on:** July 27, 2010, 08:33 PM »

Quote from: mrainey on July 27, 2010, 04:35 PM

Quote
Ninety-nine percent of my work is done using a text editor.
Same here. That's why I don't feel qualified to evaluate the ribbon.

Same here too (when I was at work). A WordStar-style text editor is the quickest, most efficient way to get bult text down on disk, and edit it afterwards. See e.g. A Writer's Word Processor, by Robert J. Sawyer. M$ Word is for tarting up text so it looks fancy, or pompous, or official.

wraith808 · « **Reply #46 on:** July 27, 2010, 11:03 PM »

There are other uses also for Word other than 'tarting up text'

IMHO, mrainey got it right...

Quote from: mrainey on July 27, 2010, 04:35 PM

Quote
Ninety-nine percent of my work is done using a text editor.

Same here. That's why I don't feel qualified to evaluate the ribbon.

If you use a text editor for your work and it's enough, then you wouldn't see the use of the ribbon. For those of us that do other things, it's a better way to get to what we use.