Never mind those touch apps, full Office 2016 is coming this year Microsoft let slip a few more details of its plans for the company's Office productivity suite on Thursday, including hints about when we can expect the next major version of its desktop suite to land. Most of the Office talk at Wednesday's Windows 10 preview event in Redmond focused on the touch-centric Office for Windows 10 …
...do we get a proper Menu back, or are you sticking to that cluster fuck of a "Ribbon" UI? It's not Accessible, even my Sighted Friends & Family can't stand the bloody thing, and we could all get our work done in a more fluid & intuitive manner if you just gave us a classic menuing UI to use.
Even if it's just a "Use Classic or Modern" radio option, if we have the choice of what UI theme to use, then we can use the one that fits our workflow rather than try to relearn all the keyboard shortcuts to figure out where the hell you've hidden $Function again.
Seriously, Alt+F to open the menu, Right Arrow to the Edit section, and Arrow Down until we find the Sort function may have taken a bit versus SightedFolks using the mouse to clickclickclick straight to it, but the damned Ribbon makes it fucking impossible to do even the most basic of tasks. I've had to use NotePad++ to do any word processing, because Microsoft Word 2010 "Professional" is anything *BUT* Professional. It's a pain in the ass, the Ribbon sucks monkey bung, and we want a classic menu back...
But what the fuck do I know? I'm just a paying customer whom will wait to hear if that ribbon is back before making my purchasing descision. If that ribbon is back, or gods forbid something worse, then MS can kiss my money goodbye. And NO, I will NOT get an Office365 subscription - I like keeping my data local, under my own control, and NOT spaffed in some imbicillic "cloud" for everyone & their dog to data mine, Thankyouveryfuckingmuch. I'll spend my money on something that can open/save MS Office formats, but does NOT treat me like a crayon snorting Yoof. I hear Jarte is such a company worthy of my coin.
*Cough*
So, seriously Microsoft, give us a classic menu option for the UI. No ribbon, no touchy bullshit, no Metro/Modern ejaculate from the loins of a diseased MyLittlePony, just a simple, intuitive, sane Alt Menu that lets me get my damned work done.
I'd ask if that was too hard to code, but given your "progression" from "Ribbon" to "Metro", your track record is headed distinctly downhill...
In a rocket sled with the throttle shoved to the stops.
Calm down! If genuine Office is your bag, grab a copy of Office 2003 Pro and download the Office 2007 compatibility kit. If not, use LibreOffice or OpenOffice.
I enjoyed the rant, though I quite like the ribbon these days - and I was an ardent hater. For years. But something happened between Office 2007 and Office 2010 that made the newer Word much more usable - I'm guessing better quality telemetry, or better telemetry parsing. Certainly, whenever I'm forced to use Word 2007 my heart still sinks.
+1 for that. I have no problem with folk liking the ribbon, just mighty pissed off that we are given no bloody choice in the matter.
I often use LibreOffice and its great, but rarely follows the document layout in .docx in my experience, better with .doc
Office 2003 + 2007 compatibility sort of works, but often it borks on newer .docx in my sad experience.
Office 2010 is not that bad, so I tend to use if if I can't handle documents in older versions, or simply to convert to a format that is better parsed.
"I often use LibreOffice and its great, but rarely follows the document layout in .docx in my experience, better with .doc"
I've seen the opposite. I regularly get .doc files from others that don't look quite right. Especially if you get the "wrong" version of office. In any case, LibreOffice gets it mostly right enough to get the job done. Cross-version support for RTF is even worse.
I even have one associate who distributs everything in .doc format, because (his words) "PDF doesn't display properly". He doesn't see the irony when I call and ask what version of word he used just so I can bloody see it properly.
> Seriously, Alt+F to open the menu, [...]
Press ALT: see ribbons overlaid with the available short cuts. As you enter them more specific ones appear.
Once you know where the command is on the ribbon (they are easier to find as the organisation is far more consistent, but you're used to the inconsistency of the menus).
So to sort a table: Alt-JO and the Table Tools Layout tab is opened, SO and the sort dialog is open.
And this works even if the ribbon is collapsed (Control-F1 to toggle).
The ribbon is different, but it is not hard.
'So to sort a table: Alt-JO and the Table Tools Layout tab is opened, SO and the sort dialog is open.'
I can go with 'SO' to open the sort dialogue but what is the relationship of 'JO' to Table Tools, surely Alt-TA should open Table Tools. Alt-JO should open some kind of Join tools tab/dialogue.
I don't use MS products anymore, does Alt-FX still work ?
Why can't they stop themselves coming out with this crap? Seriously, do they talk like that at home? "Darling, do you fancy a compelling new experience for breakfast?" "No thanks dear, I'm all worn out after a compelling experience with the dishwasher"
It's an office suite. It's not going to be exciting, no matter how you spin it. I neither want nor need "compelling new experiences" whilst I'm using a word-processor, spreadsheet, or the like. Particular if, for example, the compulsion I feel is to punch my monitor because some smart-arse UI designer has re-organised everything so I can't find the simple features any more.
A bit less compelling, a bit more doesn't get in my way would be nice.
Can I have an option to change Excel back to its previous function of multiple sheets opening in a single instance?
Database applications built around an Excel front end have a hella time with opening several copies of Excel simultaneously.
And maybe, juuuust maybe, can we not continue the trend of each new version of office being bloated and vastly slower than the previous version?
And stop the need to run a repair of the software a clockwork like 4 weeks after install due to buggyness?
I should stop now as I could go on with this for hours.
Oh, did they ever fix the fact that Excel 2013 CAN'T open a spreadsheet with 2 passworded pages?
Or that Word falls over to OLE errors when importing text that has a character from Word 2003?
..........
Well, everyone will buy the Apple Office suite then, MS will be bankrupt.
Or they will use the Oculus rift, MS will go bankrupt.
Or they will use the Google Office suite, MS will go bankrupt.
They will all switch to AWS or summat else, MS will go bankrupt.
Or they won't, and they won't.
For all that is good and holy, LET ME ACTIVATE OFFICE WITHOUT A MICROSOFT ACCOUNT!!!
Next, take the UI in Office and throw in a sack, throw the sack in a safe, and hurl the safe in the sun. From the blog I see the look of Office "2016" is far superior to Office 2013 insofar as the all capital menus are gone and there are *gasp* rounded edges. But it is still far inferior to Office 2003. The flat look has to go yesterday. The UI designers at Microsoft need to be sent packing because even Windows 10 still has this flat look despite the many many requests for Aero to return.
Curiously enough quite a few people who use Office for a living would be quite happy if it still looked like it did in 2005 and not get metamorphosed into some childish disaster area every year, just to satisfy the whims of a deranged moron who thinks we all need a new 'compelling experience'
bah..
/rant
"quite a few people who use Office for a living would be quite happy if it still looked like it did in 2005 and not get metamorphosed into some childish disaster area every year, just to satisfy the whims of a deranged moron"
It is official, Microsoft is a kink in the Hose of Progress...
Let the downvotes begin.
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