Office2007 Laundry List of Gripes

[C. Moya]

Some of these are admittedly nit-pickey... but they add up to what is a
truly horrendous User Interface and extremely disappointing version of
Office.

1) On my Silver themed WinXP, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are BLUE, while
Publisher (and some others) are SILVER. I don't get it. I realize there must
be some option to change this... but why isn't it the default to respect
Window's theme??? (I can just imagine the support calls from my company's
users if we ever roll this out... which I doubt we ever will..... EVER!).

2) Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have this Windows Media Player-esque
Min/Max/Close buttons and frame... but Publisher (and others) have the
traditional WinXP buttons with the red X (which I like). I don't get it. The
disparity doesn't make sense. No rhyme or reason.

3) I can move two Word windows so that they're side by side and even on two
different monitors. I can't seem to do that with Excel or PowerPoint
(there's a trick for Excel... but it doesn't apply to PowerPoint). Why is
that?

4) We have a custom Excel toolbar (to do in-house database related stuff)
that an XLA add-ins creates but doesn't show automatically (In previous
versions, the user can show the toolbar via right-click-on-toolbar whenever
he needs it). It doesn't show up ANYWHERE in Excel 2007. No, it doesn't show
up in the Add-ins Ribbon. What am I missing here?

5) Why does PowerPoint have a document icon next to the Home tab. Excel (the
other Classic-MDI app in the bunch) doesn't have one. Shouldn't it have one?
Or shouldn't PowerPoint NOT have one (for consistency's sake). I don't get
it.

6) Why is Outlook's new gradients a harsh two tone gradiation (look at the
status bar, and Mail,Contacts,Calendar, etc view buttons) while it's Toolbar
remains the a nice smooth gradiation like Office 2003. I don't mind either
one... but come on! Consistency!

7) Why can't I seem to get rid of the icon Outlook places in the tray (next
to the clock). What does "Hide When *Minimized*" mean? No other app in the
Windows kingdom works that way. Wouldn't a more intuitive option be "Allow
Outlook to run in the background" (Windows Messenger's wording)... that way
when I close the Outlook window (by clicking the X button which I often
inadvertantly do!) it leaves an icon in the tray to remind me of
appointments and show new messages, etc.

8) The marketable eye-candy user interface has been overhauled (great!) but
why is every single dialog box stuck in 1995? For instance, Excel's Insert
Function dialog box (when you click Fx in the formula bar) is as unweildy
and ugly as ever as is Word's Envelopes and Mailing dialog box (which
requires a PhD to use). In fact, once you get past the initial eye candy...
these applications have not really improved one iota (it seems to me).

9) Last (but certainly not least) I am so used to looking for the document
name in the left hand side of the titlebar. Why have we gone back to Windows
3.1 and centered it on the title bar? What's worse... it skips around. This
is NOT an improvement (to me at least).

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

1) On my Silver themed WinXP, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are BLUE,
while

Publisher (and some others) are SILVER. I don't get it. I realize there must
be some option to change this... but why isn't it the default to respect
Window's theme??? (I can just imagine the support calls from my company's
users if we ever roll this out... which I doubt we ever will..... EVER!).

You can change the Ribbon apps as I have pointed out before: Options,
Popular, Color Scheme

2) Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have this Windows Media Player-esque
Min/Max/Close buttons and frame... but Publisher (and others) have the
traditional WinXP buttons with the red X (which I like). I don't get it. The
disparity doesn't make sense. No rhyme or reason.

There are ribbon apps who got a new UI and there is the rest.

3) I can move two Word windows so that they're side by side and even on two
different monitors. I can't seem to do that with Excel or PowerPoint
(there's a trick for Excel... but it doesn't apply to PowerPoint). Why is
that?

Same story as in 2003 really. MS never really made true MDI/SDI apps.
They are all in some hybrid state. And all three are in a different
state...
The setting in PPT for toggling its behavior is: Options, Advanced,
Display section, Show all windows in the Taskbar.

4) We have a custom Excel toolbar (to do in-house database related stuff)
that an XLA add-ins creates but doesn't show automatically (In previous
versions, the user can show the toolbar via right-click-on-toolbar whenever
he needs it). It doesn't show up ANYWHERE in Excel 2007. No, it doesn't show
up in the Add-ins Ribbon. What am I missing here?

There is no way to show a toolbar in Excel 2007 manually. You need to
either have it show automatically (so that it shows on the Add-Ins tab),
or you have to actually integrate it into the Excel Ribbon using
RibbonX.

5) Why does PowerPoint have a document icon next to the Home tab. Excel (the
other Classic-MDI app in the bunch) doesn't have one. Shouldn't it have one?
Or shouldn't PowerPoint NOT have one (for consistency's sake). I don't get
it.

The setting in 3) will toggle that behavior. A similar named setting
also toggles this in Excel.

6) Why is Outlook's new gradients a harsh two tone gradiation (look at the
status bar, and Mail,Contacts,Calendar, etc view buttons) while it's Toolbar
remains the a nice smooth gradiation like Office 2003. I don't mind either
one... but come on! Consistency!

Outlook didn't get the full conversion to the new UI as its Inspectors
already required 19 different ribbons (Excel, PPT, Access and Word have
1 ribbon each). MS didn't have the resources to do the main window of
Outlook as well.

7) Why can't I seem to get rid of the icon Outlook places in the tray (next
to the clock). What does "Hide When *Minimized*" mean? No other app in the
Windows kingdom works that way. Wouldn't a more intuitive option be "Allow
Outlook to run in the background" (Windows Messenger's wording)... that way
when I close the Outlook window (by clicking the X button which I often
inadvertantly do!) it leaves an icon in the tray to remind me of
appointments and show new messages, etc.

Have you tried Help? I typed "tray" into the help search and the first
article describes how to do this.

8) The marketable eye-candy user interface has been overhauled (great!) but
why is every single dialog box stuck in 1995? For instance, Excel's Insert
Function dialog box (when you click Fx in the formula bar) is as unweildy
and ugly as ever as is Word's Envelopes and Mailing dialog box (which
requires a PhD to use). In fact, once you get past the initial eye candy...
these applications have not really improved one iota (it seems to me).

See http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/10/75 for the list of things that
are new/improved

9) Last (but certainly not least) I am so used to looking for the document
name in the left hand side of the titlebar. Why have we gone back to Windows
3.1 and centered it on the title bar? What's worse... it skips around. This
is NOT an improvement (to me at least).

You either hate the new UI, or you love it.

Use the new Office for a month or so and then come back. Your opinion
might have changed quite a bit.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

 

[C. Moya]

You can change the Ribbon apps as I have pointed out before: Options,
Popular, Color Scheme

Most users won't know- or even bother. The decision to install in an
Anti-OS-Scheme mode just doesn't make sense to me. (In other Words, I
shouldn't have had to go digging to make Office use the Silver scheme).

There are ribbon apps who got a new UI and there is the rest.

From my point of of view (as a developer) and most normal users they're all
Office apps. Some just happen to have an "exploded menu" that the Office
Team or Marketers call "The Ribbon."

Same story as in 2003 really. MS never really made true MDI/SDI apps. They
are all in some hybrid state. And all three are in a different state...
The setting in PPT for toggling its behavior is: Options, Advanced,
Display section, Show all windows in the Taskbar.

Still doesn't answer the meat of the question (side by side, multi-monitor,
inconsistent paradigms, etc)
Tabbed Document Interface (like Access employs) for Excel and PowerPoint
would be somewhat of an improvement. But True-SDI (like Word's) would be a
great option to have (as an option). Their implementation of Windows in
Taskbar is not it.

There is no way to show a toolbar in Excel 2007 manually. You need to
either have it show automatically (so that it shows on the Add-Ins tab),
or you have to actually integrate it into the Excel Ribbon using RibbonX.

I changed the macro to show the toolbar automatically. Now I have to
maintain two XLA's. One for XL2007 and one for everybody else (where I don't
want the toolbar to show automatically).
Sorry this is a downright STUPID oversight on the part of the Office 2007
team. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (Did I say it was stupid?)

The setting in 3) will toggle that behavior. A similar named setting also
toggles this in Excel.

Ah... I see. Thanks for that tip. It does indeed get rid of the icon. I
thought I had Windows in Taskbar set for PowerPoint... apparently I didn't.

Outlook didn't get the full conversion to the new UI as its Inspectors
already required 19 different ribbons (Excel, PPT, Access and Word have 1
ribbon each). MS didn't have the resources to do the main window of
Outlook as well.

I don't mind not having the ribbon in Outlook Explorer. I'm questioning the
aesthetics of the gradients. It's distracting.

Have you tried Help? I typed "tray" into the help search and the first
article describes how to do this.

Ah yes. You mean the help topic that reads at the top:
"Note: The notification area feature was introduced with Microsoft Windows
XP and is not available in Microsoft Windows 2000 or earlier. The
notification area is also known as the system tray."

LOL. I don't even know what to say about that paragraph above. It makes me
want to cry.

In any case you missed the point of what I was trying to say. I know how to
use the feature. I'm saying the feature- as implemented- is non-standard and
unintuitive. Read what I wrote again. Then go double-clicking on a few tray
icons and see if ANY *shut-down* their respective application when you
dismiss the resulting window.

See http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/10/75 for the list of things that are
new/improved

OK. All incremental at best. None compelling (except maybe Excel's increased
limits).

You either hate the new UI, or you love it.

Use the new Office for a month or so and then come back. Your opinion
might have changed quite a bit.

I'll try

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

Still doesn't answer the meat of the question (side by side,
multi-monitor,

inconsistent paradigms, etc)
Tabbed Document Interface (like Access employs) for Excel and PowerPoint
would be somewhat of an improvement. But True-SDI (like Word's) would be a
great option to have (as an option). Their implementation of Windows in
Taskbar is not it.

I can't disagree. The three different implementations are indeed a pain.
If at least all three would use the same one...but they don't.

I changed the macro to show the toolbar automatically. Now I have to
maintain two XLA's. One for XL2007 and one for everybody else (where I don't
want the toolbar to show automatically).
Sorry this is a downright STUPID oversight on the part of the Office 2007
team. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (Did I say it was stupid?)

Not an oversight, on purpose. CommandBars are dead in the Office UI
team's view and they'll do anything they can do discourage using them.
Welcome to the world of all add-in developers that need to support more
than one version. Most add-in developers need to maintain two versions,
especially if they use VB6. With .NET, you can get away with doing just
one version with two UIs. It's a real pain and everyone wished MS had
made our life easier.
Why two versions in your case? You could just check the version string
of Excel and if it starts with 12, then show it automatically, otherwise
don't. Of course, you can also look into creating a true Ribbon
interface for it.
Just as a tip: If you right-click on any of your toolbar icons on the
Add-Ins tab, and select "Add group to QAT", then you have it as sort of
real toolbar accessible via the QAT (sort of, as it is one more click
away than a real toolbar).

In any case you missed the point of what I was trying to say. I know how to
use the feature. I'm saying the feature- as implemented- is non-standard and
unintuitive. Read what I wrote again. Then go double-clicking on a few tray
icons and see if ANY *shut-down* their respective application when you
dismiss the resulting window.

Sure. OneNote does.

I'll try

I am missing one complaint from you btw The ribbon cannot be
customized...?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

 

[C. Moya]

I am missing one complaint from you btw The ribbon cannot be
customized...?

So far, I haven't missed that functionality. I think the Ribbon was
beautifully implemented (in terms of layout and functionality). My only wish
(right now) is that it would fade in and out (like Visual Studio's
toolboxes) when you hover over a tab in Ribbon Minimized Mode.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi C.,

On your question of why don't the Office Ribbon theme colors follow the Windows XP 'color' schemes, well except when you select a
Windows classic theme from the Accessibility=>Display applet in the Windows control panel) you may want to post that question on the
Office UI team's blog.

The 'why' question has been asked a number of times but I don't recall (but may have missed it) seeing a specific answer to the why
question. http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh

Part of the answer on why were some things changed and some not comes down to time available in an overall schedule that affects
other products, resources, languages, etc. While the Office apps are in a single boxed 'suite' and are able to (somewhat) 'talk' to
each other the products do each have their own development path and challenges, in part because of differences in the way the
original programs were developed or purchased then developed.

It's not clear if the MS Dev folks plan on participating in any of the new Dev 'forums' on http://msdn2.microsoft.com for UI
discussions, but it can't hurt to check
==============
Some of these are admittedly nit-pickey... but they add up to what is a
truly horrendous User Interface and extremely disappointing version of
Office... [snip]>>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Actually, even with .NET you cannot get away with one code base. The class
that Implements the ribbon must also Implement IDTExtensibility2. So that
means at best 2 addins, one compiled for earlier versions and using the
PIA's for the earliest version you want to support and another version
compiled for Office 2007 and that references the ribbon.

Certainly you can have one common DLL that you call for most of your code
base but you still need 2 addins that respond to On_Connection and each
checking the version. If .Version starts with "12" the old style addin shuts
itself down. If it's an earlier version the 2007 addin shuts down.

That was never necessary at all before, I always maintained one code base
and one addin that ran in all versions of Outlook from 2000 on with no
problems. Now if I do that my UI is banished to the netherworld of the
Add-Ins tab with other second-class citizens.

The only possible way for an addin to be able to do what's necessary in one
addin would be to code in C++ or Delphi. It's not possible for VB 6, VB.NET
or C#.

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

Actually, even with .NET you cannot get away with one code base. The
class

that Implements the ribbon must also Implement IDTExtensibility2. So that
means at best 2 addins, one compiled for earlier versions and using the
PIA's for the earliest version you want to support and another version
compiled for Office 2007 and that references the ribbon.

My add-in compiled with the 2007 PIA's loads and works just fine in
2003.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

And you get no errors at all when the class definition:

public class Connect : Object, Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2,
Office.IRibbonExtensibility
{
}

is executed in Office 2003? That's odd since that implementation doesn't
exist in the Office library in Office 2003.

I certainly wouldn't expect it to work at all if you tried to install it on
Office 2000 or 2002.

I'd also expect errors for any ribbon declarations, although those could be
handled with try{ } catch{ } blocks.

C# can't do conditional implementations can it?

Actually, even with .NET you cannot get away with one code base. The class
that Implements the ribbon must also Implement IDTExtensibility2. So that
means at best 2 addins, one compiled for earlier versions and using the
PIA's for the earliest version you want to support and another version
compiled for Office 2007 and that references the ribbon.

My add-in compiled with the 2007 PIA's loads and works just fine in 2003.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

 

[Don Guillett]

That was never necessary at all before, I always maintained one code base

and one addin that ran in all versions of Outlook from 2000 on with no
problems. Now if I do that my UI is banished to the netherworld of the
Add-Ins tab with other second-class citizens.

I have written web query macros for xl2002 that did not work in xl97 due to
placement of the data. So, I either had to have a version check or use FIND
instead to lookup data in the query results

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

But those are specific data format issues and COM addins aren't supported
before Office 2000. If you use the Outlook 2000 object model and reference
the Outlook 9 tlb and only use Outlook 2000 available events, properties and
methods an addin compiled that way runs without change in Outlook 2000,
2002, 2003 and 2007 (other than the ribbon/commandbar difference).