First observation: the famous "ribbon" of the new interface is probably very enjoyable for a novice who can navigate intuitively in better conditions than with previous versions.
For the user "warning" or "advanced", the situation is more mixed. Changing the interface to lose all the marks gained and enriched since the early versions of Word, Excel or Powerpoint. The result is a real loss of performance using both the command search the tape is different from the old hierarchy of menus.
Deception
So you tell yourself, informed user can use the "Quick Launch" as he used the custom bar in previous versions. Indeed, this bar allows you to store and organize the icons of frequently used commands.
But what a disappointment! After a quarantine order, the bar retains its linearity and additional icons are only accessible by an extension: they are not displayed at all times on the screen.
Chagrin
Disappointment turns into annoyance when it comes to find the personal tools developed with earlier versions.
With Office 2003, I developed an array of such tools, to facilitate my own task as custom bars where, according to my needs, I position my favorite commands. For example, in Excel, direct access to "Paste values" and "Paste format" that I use frequently and whose access is through a menu intermediary, as well as inserting cell line, etc..
I also created very basic macros are particularly useful for the many repetitive tasks. Thus, perform a standardized layout when creating a new worksheet becomes a macro personal, whose creation requires no knowledge of programming since it is sufficient to record a series of actions.
Another use of macros is to create specific buttons in the personal toolbar in Word, pour obtenir certains caractères spéciaux, tels que les majuscules accentuées. (Rappelons que pour la langue française les accents ne sont pas facultatifs sur les majuscules : l’absence des accents n’a été tolérée qu’en raison de la difficulté de les produire avec les machines à écrire mécaniques).
Lorsque j’ouvre un document Word, j’ai toujours à ma disposition cette barre personnelle
où j’accède en un seul clic au majuscules accentuées, aux caractères spéciaux les plus courants («e dans l’a», «e dans l’o», espace insécable, hyphen, etc.)..
Dazed
To find my usual tools, so I went around Word and Excel. I scoured every corner of the "ribbon", asked dozens of questions to the online help. And I found nothing.
I then continued my research on the Internet, questioned the conventional engines, scanned the forums, and there ... surprise: the custom toolbars are no longer part of Microsoft products. Not only have they been removed, but in addition, Microsoft justifies this development backward as if it were an asset to humanity.
The head seems to be one Jensen Harris, one of the bosses of the "Microsoft Office User Experience Team." This team is responsible for the overall design of the interface of Office programs. He published a comprehensive blog about these activities, which he admits his misdeeds ( http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/default.aspx ).
According to Jensen Harris, customizing the interface was very complex to manage. To create a new look, it was considered "a highly customizable framework where you can never predict where a function, and how it can be presented to the user. " But this is a concern of designers and programmers. And users that they think?
Microsoft has studied the behavior of its customers. It shows that the hundreds of millions of users, only 2% of sessions using personalization, and only 15% of them for more than 4 orders. The alibi was therefore found: not worth to flog so few people (see http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx )
Anger
If one considers the number of users of Office is about 400 million, customization is performed, according to Microsoft, with "only" 1.2 million people, whose activity is considered negligible.
This is all the more surprising in terms of volume of usage, they certainly represent a far more important because it is the most sophisticated users.
To summarize the reasoning of our friend Jensen: since most customers use Office in a timely and rudimentary simplify the design, and too bad for those who use it constantly.
This way of treating customers makes me angry.
And more so it shows the part of Microsoft incredible contempt for all of its market and its partners. Having spent years require software, a unified interface (the menus of Windows), and customers get used to this standard interface, teams Jensen unilaterally decide to abandon this interface in favor a ribbon tasteless.
And at a time when most vendors offer personalization features of the interface, that Microsoft decided to return to the single option. A change in total current cons of current trends.
Concern
This evolution of the office suite from Microsoft is also a worrying sign of a sort of "group think" imposed by Microsoft with its software. After
PowerPoint and "models" that are found in all the conferences, their layout uniform frozen and structuring of thought ...
After endless doodles black library "clipart" ... After the apostrophe
mismanaged by the same PowerPoint, and the space above the default all slides ...
That tape that you can not touch, for not disturbing the appearance of windows well organized by the development team in Redmond.
"But if," says Microsoft, you can customize the Ribbon. However, this is reserved for developers as explained three feature articles in the MSDN ( http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx ) that detail how to write additions (add-ins), COM, or extensions XML. Not really within reach of a user's desktop even warned.
A glimmer of hope
In this situation a developer had the clever idea to create an extension of the ribbon that finds a certain flexibility of customization. It is available as a demonstration site http://pschmid.net/index.php .
While the product RibbonCustomizer is paid (invoice Patrick Schmid 29.99 euros) but it can regain some flexibility, although some limitations remain, imposed by Microsoft. Thus, it is not possible to edit or delete the names of icons.
And here is my personal tab on the Ribbon of Word 2007:
It is always better than nothing.
can now hope that other solutions will emerge, perhaps more sophisticated and more flexible. As
to imagine a return to custom "made in Microsoft," my "friend" categorically excludes Jensen Harris in his blog.
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