The Glade 4.0

I give! I give! Death to the Menu bar! Long live the Ribbon!

Once you get used to the idea everything really is right at your finger tips.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Everything may be at your fingertips, but it's not in any logical place and I can't find any of it anymore. After several months using Office 2010, I am convinced I will never get used to the ribbon.

This guy explains fairly well why.
http://www.dexodesign.com/2007/08/24/wh ... bon-sucks/

In particular:

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Sure Talya, but there's still shortcut keys as an alternative.

Personally, I love the ribbon. I think I'm more used to organized chaos. I've tried to use machines with the old version of office on them, and going back is almost impossible.

I wouldn't mind the ribbon quite so much if MS had made it optional. The changeover from the old interface reminds me of "New Coke"

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I turn off/hide the ribbon, and set up my QAT to resemble old Office, plus some other commands that I use regularly. Frankly, of all the "cool ****" that you can do with Office, I probably use about2% of the features. I suspect the same is true for most users.

I always thought thought that the ribbon was more of a marketing ploy than a usability feature.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

I hated the Ribbon when I first started using it. Now.. you can have it back... if you are willing to pry it from my cold dead hands!..

So the Ribbon isn't just a scheme to make everyone pay for a new Office suite?

...and those friggin .<filetype>x's, too!

Man.

I have it at home (not at work, where I still have 2003) because a bunch of us at work share a technet subscription for 10 legal copies of every peice of software microsoft offers for a few dollars each.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I think you need to re-read your terms of service if you think those copies are 'legal'.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subs ... 72427.aspx

One user may install it--for evaluation purposes. On ten machines. Which is really--completely and utterly--unenforceable. (especially as anyone can legally install office without a license. You just cannot use it until you put in the license key.) Not only that, the terms of the subscription are themselves illegal. (they cannot legally prohibit you from letting someone else sit at your PC and using your software.) The copies are therefore legit. Microsoft could never charge you with anything or sue you. At worst, they could cancel your subscription. Much like the terms of an MMO EULA, they do not have the force of law.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

All I know is that I was working with Excel 2010 today and I found stuff I never knew how to do with Menu Hunt.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I still use my student copy of Office 2000 here at home. My only regret is the PowerPoint themes are atrocious... to the point of not even being usable. It's not the design that's the problem (though, frankly, 80% of them have ridiculous designs that should never have seen the light of day even in 2000) so much as the... resolution? Something like that. Terrible.

Otherwise... I'll eventually get used to the Ribbon, I suppose. I used 2007 in grad school and 2010 now back in... undergrad school again. I'm capable with it by this point. Still not as competent as I was in 2000, though. I definitely feel pressured into having to relearn software just to reach my level of competency with the old version, however, and I'm not too thrilled at that when it comes to potential implications in hiring.

In all seriousness I can grudgingly support such a drastic change if I give them the benefit of the doubt that it is better by a big enough margin that they're forcing the change on you tough love style. Progress marches on and all. I can imagine a future in which I am glad for the change, even if hours of using the 2007/2010 Office hasn't been enough to reach it yet.

...but damned if it doesn't smell a bit of forced obsolescence of their old software.

Office 2007/2010 has a horrible interface and is much worse quality than Office 2003. Don't ever upgrade unless you have to. (I haven't used 2010 but am assuming the interface is similar to 2007).

I despise the ribbon, before everything I need was right there always, now I have to hunt around trying to find which damn tab in the ribbon contains the command i'm looking for, all it did was add an additional step, or like 5 if you can't remember which tab and give you over-sized buttons like old people with bad sight like, the small ones work just fine for me that you.

The ribbon's fine. It actually effectively crams more options into a more readily accessible space. The only reason people hate it is because they haven't memorized what's where, yet. People hated menus when they didn't know what was where, too.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That reminds me, anybody know of the cheapest place to get a 2010 license? Legally...

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The Dude abides.

I got mine though my college so I can't comment. If you are still going to school yours might have the same deal.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

If you have access to a .edu address, Microsoft will offer you an excellent deal.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

As a general rule of thumb, I try to always use the most up-to-date version of any professional software I use. I find that if you disregard certain versions due to one or two things you dislike, you could end up missing out on an awesome feature that could make your life legitimately easier.

Yeah, the only price I can seem to find is $80 and up. That's still a lot of money.

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The Dude abides.

It's sticker price is between $150 and $500 dollars, depending on version.

Microsoft's education/academic discount page.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

OpenOffice is a potential option, too. I keep meaning to give it an honest try for a month or two and see if it sticks. If nothing else, it could be a nice thing to mention on a resume or in an interview.

If nothing else, using the most up-to-date software prepares you for when your employer eventually switches to it.

So I keep trying to use this **** useless ribbon. For the very few features in Office apps I use, however, I think it's really not designed for someone like me.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

My employer skipped Windows Vista and went straight to Windows 7 from XP. It would have been a waste of time using Vista. These rules of thumb don't hold up well in my opinion. Office 2007 would've been a good thing to skip, because in general it's certainly worse than 2003 in terms of user interface. I don't know enough about 2010.

Being familiarized with Vista still would have helped ease into Windows 7. Going from XP to 7 is a pretty drastic change.