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From: Daniel James on 15 May 2008 05:31
In article news:<q7ol24dmo3v5o5gu50jlme1roilrg4r4kt(a)4ax.com>, Joseph
M. Newcomer wrote:
> That stupid widget bar is based on the premise that I (a) would not
> run everything full-screen and (b)want to waste space on pointless
> rubbish like RSS feeds from rock music sites, or a clock that looks
> like the clock I can see on the wall (except mine is digital). I
> looked at each widget, said "kill", ended up with nothing, killed
> the widget bar, and never missed it.

Same here ...

One good thing about the widget bar, though: at least it only uses up
/horizontal/ screen real-estate -- something that we do at least have
(the potential to have) more of in these days of wide screens.

With the new Office 2007 gewgaw -- the bozo-bar -- MS have found a
new way to take up more than ever of the precious /vertical/ screen
real estate. For what? A menu with pictures on it?

Oh, for <expletive deleted> sake! Do these people really not get it?

Cheers,
Daniel.


From: Joseph M. Newcomer on 15 May 2008 12:12
As far as I can tell, they don't get it *at all*. Totally clueless.
joe

On Thu, 15 May 2008 10:31:57 +0100, Daniel James <wastebasket(a)nospam.aaisp.org> wrote:

>In article news:<q7ol24dmo3v5o5gu50jlme1roilrg4r4kt(a)4ax.com>, Joseph
>M. Newcomer wrote:
>> That stupid widget bar is based on the premise that I (a) would not
>> run everything full-screen and (b)want to waste space on pointless
>> rubbish like RSS feeds from rock music sites, or a clock that looks
>> like the clock I can see on the wall (except mine is digital). I
>> looked at each widget, said "kill", ended up with nothing, killed
>> the widget bar, and never missed it.
>
>Same here ...
>
>One good thing about the widget bar, though: at least it only uses up
>/horizontal/ screen real-estate -- something that we do at least have
>(the potential to have) more of in these days of wide screens.
>
>With the new Office 2007 gewgaw -- the bozo-bar -- MS have found a
>new way to take up more than ever of the precious /vertical/ screen
>real estate. For what? A menu with pictures on it?
>
>Oh, for <expletive deleted> sake! Do these people really not get it?
>
>Cheers,
> Daniel.
>
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer(a)flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
From: Joseph M. Newcomer on 15 May 2008 12:52
I say these things here because I harbor this delusion that someone with MS with more than
two functioning neurons might be reading these posts and notices our unhappiness, and
communicates it back. I know this is a silly delusion, but maybe, just maybe, there is
some intelligence left in the documentation team and UI design teams, and perhaps there is
even an adult who might take responsibility for these decisions.
joe

On Thu, 15 May 2008 10:31:57 +0100, Daniel James <wastebasket(a)nospam.aaisp.org> wrote:

>In article news:<3qol24t65u149bki7flbu7cv7k0cqre9nr(a)4ax.com>, Joseph
>M. Newcomer wrote:
>> How many times have you had a message box pop up and say "Contact
>> your system administrator"?
>
>Not very often ... because I tend to find it more pleasurable to
>stick red hot nails into my eyeballs than to use Vasti!
>
>> Every message box, every error, must give enough information that
>> the user, who is his/her own sysadmin, can figure out what is
>> wrong, and fix it!
>
>Or, indeed, so that the sysadmin who is someone else's sysadmin can
>figure it out and fix it.
>
>Preachin' to the choir here, Joe.
>
>Cheers,
> Daniel.
>
>
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer(a)flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
From: Tom Serface on 15 May 2008 13:58
I kind of like the new Ribbon Bar. There are some things I wish I could do
to modify it, like put things I use most often on my own panels, but I find
it easier to use than right click menus or the menu at the top and it
doesn't take any more room than the 3 or 4 toolbars I used to have
available.

Tom

"Joseph M. Newcomer" <newcomer(a)flounder.com> wrote in message
news:o5oo24p409p51nj0jhgmggutk50vikttuc(a)4ax.com...
> As far as I can tell, they don't get it *at all*. Totally clueless.
> joe
>
> On Thu, 15 May 2008 10:31:57 +0100, Daniel James
> <wastebasket(a)nospam.aaisp.org> wrote:
>
>>In article news:<q7ol24dmo3v5o5gu50jlme1roilrg4r4kt(a)4ax.com>, Joseph
>>M. Newcomer wrote:
>>

From: Joseph M. Newcomer on 15 May 2008 14:26
I my version of Word 2003, EVERYTHING I NEED ALL THE TIME IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!!!

I NEVER have to switch ribbon bars, or use menus, for 99% of my editing tasks. To do
this, I created custom menu bars. Most of the time I need custom work it is because they
are (a) too stupid to give me top-level commands for everything and (b) insist on
pointless modal dialog boxes I have to keep bringing up.

For example, I want Format Paragraph Keep With Next as a single button, and I can't get it
without going to all kinds of custom VB programming. But I can't leave the Format
Paragraph dialog up, because it is modal, which is a really, really stupid idea. I am
becoming very disenamoured of modal dialogs, and more and more have been going to great
work to avoid them. What I deeply resent is that I can't get a modeless file dialog, a
modeless color dialog, a modeless font dialog, and so on. In an intelligent world, the
entire color dialog set would be an ActiveX control I could plunk down anywhere I wanted,
and the CColorDialog would essentially be a modal dialog that had this control along with
an OK and Cancel button, and/or an Apply button. A real design failure here.

The existence of modal dialogs in Word to set properties is a serious design failure, and
with all the touted "improvements" in Office 2007, it is littered with these remnants of
poor design.

Not only do I have problems figuring out which silly icon represents what I want in the
Office 2007 ribbon bar, but once I select a ribbon bar, it will randomly and whimsically
revert to some OTHER ribbon bar after I do what I want; this violates so many principes of
good GUI design that it is amazing such an idea passed an initial design review, let alone
got put into a product!

We didn't need a ribbon bar; it is a fundamentally bad idea to replace menus (which were
easy to use) with something that is this hard to use, and furthermore, the failure to
provide for unlimited user customization of a single ribbon bar shows that they did not
(and seem to be incapable of) understanding the Expert User.
joe

On Thu, 15 May 2008 10:58:49 -0700, "Tom Serface" <tom.nospam(a)camaswood.com> wrote:

>I kind of like the new Ribbon Bar. There are some things I wish I could do
>to modify it, like put things I use most often on my own panels, but I find
>it easier to use than right click menus or the menu at the top and it
>doesn't take any more room than the 3 or 4 toolbars I used to have
>available.
>
>Tom
>
>"Joseph M. Newcomer" <newcomer(a)flounder.com> wrote in message
>news:o5oo24p409p51nj0jhgmggutk50vikttuc(a)4ax.com...
>> As far as I can tell, they don't get it *at all*. Totally clueless.
>> joe
>>
>> On Thu, 15 May 2008 10:31:57 +0100, Daniel James
>> <wastebasket(a)nospam.aaisp.org> wrote:
>>
>>>In article news:<q7ol24dmo3v5o5gu50jlme1roilrg4r4kt(a)4ax.com>, Joseph
>>>M. Newcomer wrote:
>>>
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer(a)flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
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