and here's a post from the new laptop

[subplotkudzu]

I hope you are able to make out the subtle differences in the spelling and typing that indicate that's I've got a new keyboard. bright shiney beloved new keyboard. 

The rest of the machine is nice too. The only problem is my gaining a new goal of finding the guy who changed the interface between Word and Excel 2003 and 2007. Why, oh why do they keep changing a working interface to something even bulkier and uglier? Ick ick ick. 

Comments

It does take some getting used to...

[(Anonymous)]

Believe it or not, there was actually a ton of research and testing that went into the new interface. Office had grown a TON of cruft in the UI, and it was time to reorganize and get rid of it. One report I saw was that 80% of new feature requests the Office team got were already in the product, they were just buried in such obscure places that the requester didn't know they were there.

The net result is that for those who has already been scarred by the cruft, the new interface takes some getting used to, but give it a couple months. It is much easier to find things with the new ribbon than it was with the old menu/toolbar/reference pane disaster area. Just let go and trust your feelings...

P.S. Hope you got a good deal on those office apps. If you want any other MS software let me know and I can hook you up.

-Chris

Re: It does take some getting used to...

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I have heard how much time and effort MS spent on the new interface, but that doesn't mean I like it. One factor is that I didn't spend extra money to increase my screen size to sacrifice the top inch to a work around for people not knowing where the "customize toolbar" option was - especially since at first glance the "customize toolbar" option went away!

A little digging revealed the "customize quick access toolbar" to get my icon toolbar back and hide the ribbon, so I have my screen space back and my regularly used functions back where I can find them. I only routinely need 20 functions in Word, slightly more than that in Excel, and I want to be able to access them with a single click from a reliable spot.

Anything outside those functions aren't things I should be doing while I'm writing. Messing with the layout, changing the font, headers and footers and so on, are things that break my concentration from the task of getting words on, er, paper and are better done as an independent action after the writing is over. I don't want the list of options brightly visible because it's just an excuse to spend 20 minutes fiddling around with the margins and column widths to get everything I've written so far onto a single page when a) I'm about to write more and b) it's gonna get edited anyway. I want my desktop and interface to be as minimalist as possible.

Having all of the editing options clustered into a single, normally invisible window worked for that. Having them strung out in front of me like bright twinkly toys does not. Fortunately, I found the mechanism to hide the ribbon, which turns it into a series of normally invisible options.