Office 2010 Technical Preview Leaked 341
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft was planning on giving out the Office 2010 Technical Preview to select testers in July on an invite-only basis. Office 2010 will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and both flavors have been leaked to torrent sites and the like. Multiple screenshots of each application are available. '... some applications have changed a lot more than others. The ribbon seems to be on every application now, which is great for consistency's sake. ... The biggest change, in my opinion, is that the no file/orb menu is no longer a menu. When you click the colored office button, you get a screen that is shown in the second screenshot for each application.'"
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:4, Informative)
Have you tried Dia as an alternative to Visio? I've used Visio myself in the past, but it seems that Dia does just as much as I ever did with Visio.
Re:What the f*** is happening to Office? (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't seen or read anything about the new interface before this, so the screenshots weren't especially helpful in seeing what people are complaining about. So I found a video, while not the best walk through by a long shot, shows some of the new interface in action [youtube.com].
Generally, I like new ideas being tried out, even when part of the benefit of a product is everyone being familiar with the previous way it did things. In this specific case, I don't particularly have much of a stake in how it turns out. I just write content from time to time (technical specs for small development projects) and someone else provides the template, so it hasn't been that important what word processor is used (it's been Pages mostly, with a little Word).
Even so, watching this video made me think "click, click, click, click", or something along those lines. Without the standard menu, are keyboard shortcuts (of the alt-f or alt-e variety, quick-browing menus to find an option) still be as prevalent?
I imagine tabbing toolbars and that panel down the left is a move to "unbury" options from menus and make them more accessible, but if I end up having to go to the mouse more often it'll be less productive for me, even if it's generally more intuitive overall.
Re:One of the early lessons of GUIs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:3, Informative)
My browser (called "Firefox") has a spellchecker...
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:3, Informative)
Expression Design is their equivalent program. I guess it targets Adobe Illustrator more than OpenOffice Draw.
However, their "Mac support" is a copy of Parallels. Sorry, that isn't going to work.
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:5, Informative)
Visio isn't part of any of the Office suites. It's effectively a completely separate package.
Did you even look at the screenshots in the article that clearly show Visio as part of Office 2010 in the Start Menu? There's a difference between "part of the Office suites" and "included in the Office suite that most people have." And the fact that only a few advanced users use Visio just goes to further my point.
Re:Why does everyone hate Ribbon? It's great! (Score:5, Informative)
If you have to read the manual to get the Ribbon, you're beyond help. You'd be just as confused by any other computer UI, and probably most household appliances.
Re:Can we just bring back the "File" menu, please? (Score:2, Informative)
If you were looking for the file menu, didn't you notice the orb in it's place was glowing (fading to brignt orange and back) until you click on it for the first time?
Why does everyone have to hate any changes to something they think "is the way it should be?" I for one, have gotten used to the ribbon. sure there are changes, but there's also a fully interactive tutorial right there on the help tab that shows where options have moved to. "you used to click here, then here, then here.. now you just click here."
Not to mention the fact that now EVERY option is available through the keyboard? try hitting alt and see what happens! you can even script, or macro commonly used functions. and the quick access toolbar is even better... if there something ou use a lot, make your own shortcut! alt+4 is WAAAAY faster than "alt-f>p>r>tab tab tab"
Why is it that people fear change so much? God, people, grow some (proverbial) nuts and learn something new.
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:5, Informative)
On that note, would you mind telling me what it is that Visio does?
Visio is a type of vector-art program specifically designed for making diagrams. The textbook example would be a flowchart, but the most common usage seems to be things like network diagrams. (Of course I worked with network people...) It has dozens of "sets" of shapes for use with any kind of diagramming out there, and they all have the correct "connectors" and text labels and such in-place, so it's really easy to create a powerful diagram from scratch.
It has a lot of cool features, for example, you can point it at a SQL database and it'll automatically populate a diagram with all your tables and relations. I use that one all the time.
You can also script it, like you can most Office applications, to make horrible abominations unto God: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The_Customer-Friendly_System.aspx [thedailywtf.com]
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:2, Informative)
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/ [openoffice.org]
Re:Not the biggest fan (Score:5, Informative)
It's an interesting presentation if you work on UI design and have some time, or are curious as to why the hell they went to the ribbon.
Re:What the f*** is happening to Office? (Score:5, Informative)
You can still assign custom commands to keyboard shortcuts, just like you could before. No, you can't create custom toolbar buttons.
Go to the office button, Word Options (for example, in word, excel options in excel, etc..), Go to the customize tab, click Customize Keyboard Shortcuts. Everything is there.
What are you talking about, exactly?
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:2, Informative)
Well gee, Open Office is in my start menu, so it must be part of Windows...
Visio must be bought separately from any of the Office suites and actually costs MORE than the entire equivalent suite ($559.95 for Visio Pro compared to $499.95 for Office Pro).
Microsoft choosing to store its icon in the same start menu folder as other Office packages doesn't make it part of the suite. Bundling it would do that.