Office 2003 Beta 2 Screen Shots 693
frooyo writes "ActiveWin is displaying screenshots of Office 2003 Beta 2 including pictures of Outlook, Excel, Word etc. As seen by the screenshot - the task based interface is much more prominent. Also - Outlook's three-vertical-pane interface is now the default." Nice to get a head start on what we'll be cloning next year ;)
cloning (Score:5, Insightful)
on a more serious note is cloning the way to win? doubtful - how about innovating making it better rather than just cloning
Another upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
We all hate Microsoft, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or it might just be that "there is nothing to see there, now move along". Nothing useful ever came to Office since Office2k anyway :)
The difference? (Score:2, Insightful)
Could anyone tell me the difference what Office look like? Ofcourse it's nice if the interface is good etc, but I can do everything I need with my Office 2000. I could even managage with Office 95 for sure. I see no reason why to buy a new Office. What we really need is stability.
Cloning... (Score:3, Insightful)
What's sad is it is all too true. Instead of innovating, a lot of OSS projects that are supposed to be like MS apps usually just mimick, rather than truly innovate.
4 Minutes On front page (Score:2, Insightful)
Back on topic though, who should buy it? I use Open Office and have no problems doing anything (writing papers, making spread sheets etc). Is Office now more for workgroup environments? Or is Office just another Office suite that costs much more?
Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another $600 word processor from Microsoft. Even when I'm at a job where they use Office, nobody ever uses anything but Word to type some useless bullet points, or Excel to make a pointless chart. Tasks? Never used. I had a PHB who tried to assign me tasks once. He couldn't hotsync for a week after that.
Re:imitation (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you just answered your own question.
Re:cloning (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is cloning improvements: yes, certainly. It's not like MS would not clone features of the X11 desktop environment. For example the Longhorn previews showed CDE/KDE/Gnome-features like virtual desktops and panel applets.
mmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
that points out a very specific problem with the open/free source movements... plenty of hardcore coders but a serious lack of good ui designers.
Re:Another upgrade (Score:2, Insightful)
No.
As far as I can tell, the desire for constant upgrades exists because everyone else keeps upgrading. I only ever upgrade when the upgrade offers something new. This applies to hardware as well as software.
The only thing that needs cloning (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing that needs cloning out of Office is simply the compatibility aspect of it's documents.
No need to clone the rest of the package: the bloat, the security holes, etc. ;-)
Re:reply (Score:5, Insightful)
Cloning...yuck (Score:4, Insightful)
Numb (Score:4, Insightful)
This will likewise fail it.
Re:cloning (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't get it. Sometimes, in order to make something usable for most people, there is no such thing as "innovating" to the extent of making it vastly different. Some people just want to have a similar, comfortable interface to work on their spreadsheets and reports.
Re:Cloning... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps because most of the time "truly innovating" is a waste of time.
People sure do love to hate MS because they are huge and because of that push people around.
But when it comes to UI design - both they and Apple have the money to do a lot of research into actual usability.
Something that becomes obvious when you use "truly innovative" software - when someone tries to do something new just because it seems right to them.
More often then not, it looks cool, but proves useless for day to day use. (a few of MS's "features" are much like this - fading menus and such, but some people love them. Apple too has much fluff, or dare I say cruft? but for the most part, they have a very strongly researched base of design methods, hence why they are mimicked)
Obviously there are exceptions - but for the most part, MS is oft imitated because they have already invested literally millions of dollars and tons of time in research into making products that people can sit down and use.
(I'm sure someone will chime in and say that vi is far more usable for themselves and that an luser that can't see that is an idiot.
But the obvious point should be that when designing for the massees - there are certain techniques that will be seen over and over - because they work.
All that could be summed up in "why reinvent the wheel?"
Re:cloning (Score:3, Insightful)
*Very* few things in today's desktop systems are revolutionary. Most are just features from experimental systems in the past or copied from 3rd party products.
Re:Another upgrade (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if you don't upgrade you're going to get a
Do you see a problem with this scenario or were you just asking rhetorically?
Actually, it goes both ways. (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, nothing should be 'taken' to the point of intellectual property violation, but I think if *more* of this so-called 'theft' happened in software development, it'd result in much better software in general. Take what the other people did, fix the problems in it, make it better. Then maybe they'll take what you did, fix it even more, make it better.
And in the end you've got products on all sides that're more useable, more stable, and so on and so forth. I don't know how anyone can say there's something wrong with that. Building a better mousetrap doesn't necessarily mean you have to build it completely unlike every mousetrap ever made in the past.
Re:Sad (Score:3, Insightful)
It's nice to know beforehand what will be eating up all my free time and making me crazy later this year.
Re:reply (Score:4, Insightful)
Summary for those who didn't see (Score:3, Insightful)
- More zany XP balloon like menu bars. In addition, even more light blue and Aqua-like design rip offs.
- Like Office XP, and Office 2000, you definitely won't rush to buy this release, however the minute you, or your friend warezes it on IRC, you will most likely install it -- just because.
- You will be further annoyed by the traditionally bland Windows GUI design. Recent attempts in XP to spruce it up only look like JeffK [somethingawful.com] was hired as a designer at Microsoft.
- If you are an owner of a Mac you fold your hands together, thankful for OS X, and its great design. If you are Linux or BSD user, you are likewise happy that you have a beautiful design. If you are a Windows user, you are most likely reading this from your corporate headquarters, feeling constrained by the tie around your neck, and uncomfortable dress shoes. However, you are refreshed knowing that through your extreme conformity, and love of mediocrity, you will make much more than your neighbor yearly, and are anxiously awaiting to moment you can upgrade all of your machines to this marvelous new piece of Microsoft engineering -- but you still don't know why. Now if only you could find time for sexual relations within your 9 AM to 10 PM daily work schedule . . .
I think you hit the nail on the head yourself... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless there's something seriously *wrong* with the Office interface, you grow to like it. Kinda like how I "like" Windows, because there I know where everything is. Just moving a menu option to somewhere else will make me spend more time until I get used to it, no matter how "smart" it is. And unlike us, some corporate users just won't find the new location without retraining (no, I'm not kidding). Personally, I'll stick with webmail/eudora/pine though, as long as I'm in windows. Evolution looked pretty good on my linux machine, but I'm not quite ready to make that my desktop yet.
Kjella
Who's going to buy it? (Score:5, Insightful)
But a new version of Office with pretty new buttons and a three panel view like Outlook? A new version that's intentionally incompatible with everything else in the world, including Microsoft's own products? That's precious.
One diff between Linux and Win/Mac... (Score:4, Insightful)
True, OSS doesn't have the money to put into UI research, and while RedHat and the other commercial distros have tried to help out to some extent, it's still a game of catchup with Microsoft most of the time, which is why we seem to be always playing catch up with MS and Apple. Should this be an area to advance Linux in? Maybe; I do think that with the right minds, new, non-WIMP GUIs could be developed that could be more intuitive for certain functions.
But Linux is trying to gain acceptance by all computer users, and to migrate people from Win or Mac to Linux requires familar surroundings, otherwise, your Linux support person will be running non-stop trying to answer every question under the sun from those that 'just don't get it'. So the 3-paned mail client, the Word- and Excel-lookalikes, and even media players that mimic their Mac or Win equivalent are better poised to help Linux gain market share than some abstract UI that may look good and is more efficient, but otherwise quite different from any standard UI elements.
The other problem is that developers generally make poor UI developers, particularly if the same developer works on the code and the UI. That developer will know exactly how a program is to work and thus may lay out UI elements that make sense to him, but not to the average lay person. Even if a different developer was doing the UI, there's a different mentality that computer programmers have over average computer users that would typically end with the layout being programming reasonably but low on usability. It may behoove OSS developers to get people with graphic art or usability skills on board some projects to help plan out better UI interfaces.
Basically, we need to copy, if we want Linux and OSS to be accepted, but there should be a challenge to more creative developers to build new, unique UIs.
Re:reply (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to see MSFT fix *that.*
You can download virus.exe all day on Linux, and it won't run until it's chmod +x. Windows already thinks it's executable, by virtue of the ".exe" (and
The UI is too small (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cloning...yuck (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:but (Score:4, Insightful)
lol. Ever wonder why you find yourself saying this to yourself every year?
MS has cloned since Gates cloned pdp10 BASIC (Score:1, Insightful)
People WANT to pay (Score:3, Insightful)
It's strange, but if people don't sacrifice for something, money, time, energy, they just don't feel like there is any value in it. Some people love free stuff, but the majority want to feel some sort of ownership.
i.e. In Best Buy, ATTBroadband offers an empty box for sale. $10 is the listed price, and all it contains is information on how to sign up for the service and receive your $10 back. But, they are selling nonetheless. Best Buy offered them for free previously, but there was no take up. Place a sticker on it, and the question is... Ooooh! Broadband for $10? I'm sold!
Go figure!
Re:reply (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is all well and good until you have scripts embedded in document formats, at which point you're going to get exposed anyway. But when this was brought up to people "in the know" on Advogato, they all hid behind the chmod +x defense. Pretty pathetic.
Re:cloning (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:reply (Score:1, Insightful)
vim outlook.vbs
main
int i = 0
do
outlook.send(outlook.addressbook[i++], "Here's that file, Bob", "I send you this file in order to have your advice", outlook.vbs)
while(outlook.addressbook[i]!= NULL )
[/pseudo code]
Any program that allows you to do this is BADLY designed. You may claim that your copy of outlook has never been compromised, but all of the viruses you have recieved have come from outlook. There is no such thing as computer viruses. There are computer worms, and outlook viruses.
"Oh look, those new explorer things have been flipping over during turns."
"Well, when we get our explorer we'll just have to turn slowly."
The "trick" is simple.
use...something...better
-C
Re:reply (Score:3, Insightful)
That's specific to outlook. It doesn't fix the brokenness in the operating system.
In any case it's interesting that what you're talking about is something that Microsoft is making great strides in "fixing", to the consternation of many Slashdotters. A heavily debated feature of Paladium is the fact that executable files have to be signed by a trusted authority (configurable by domain. For instance your corporate IT department) to be executable. There have been third party utilities that only allow configured executables to run as well via an executable database.
Palladium isn't about fixing this problem. "stpooing viruses" is, at best, a side effect. Palladium is about control -- control by Microsoft. It conveniently kills open development for Windows, including free software and shareware.
Re:reply (Score:5, Insightful)
"Doesn't everyone run anti-virus software?"
In reality shouldn't we expect more from modern OSes? Shouldn't the code be more solid than requiring monthly patches. Souldn't e-mailed executables be run in a sandbox? Its a pity we HAVE to have virus software and even its not good enough, you have to constantly update it.
Basically I'm just saying that our expectations on software quality are so abysmally low that we are willing to put up with this crap. Imagine if the manufacturer of your car said - Airbags are your responsibility, you should install those on your own. Then people could say "Doesn't everyone install airbags in their car?". Its ridiculous, software should be better.
Anybody Catch This? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Cached Exchange" mode maintains a local replica of the mailbox and Favorites folders automatically, adjusting data retrieval to bandwidth
50-70% reduction in network traffic when running against Exchange "Titanium" with "cached Exchange" mode
Support for RPC over HTTP when running against Exchange "Titanium," eliminating the need for VPNs
Increase in maximum size of PST/OST files to a theoretical 33TB; administrator can control size with a policy
Status indicators -- in minutes and megabytes -- for downloads from Exchange
Now maybe its just me, but this looks as if MS is continuing to tailor their software to be fully optimized only for their architecture.
Isn't this what got them into trouble with the anti-monopolists?
Re:Another upgrade (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll need it to thread DRM support in your documents and view other similar such documents
Heaven forbid that I suggest someone install the free OpenOffice software so they can read my documents, yet it is oh so natural for people to ask me to use Microsoft Office on my home desktop. Hypocrites, slaves to the borg.
Re:Another upgrade (Score:3, Insightful)
I do know how nice it is, because I did have it. In Microsoft Word 4.0 for the Macintosh, in about 1988 or so. I'd forgotten all about it; in truth I didn't use it too much at the time.
I guess everything old really is new again.
Re:reply (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice troll!
Not.
Before the internet was popular we used to exchange viruses with our friends using floppy disks with infected
graspee
I dont like apps that does everything. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the best approach would be better adherance to standars in the open source community. We should develop and adopt standards for every format of documents avaliable and tout them harder than ever. The MS format lockin must be broken from within MS own user base and that can be possible if every other company and entityoutside MS supports an open standard.
Re:Numb (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always hated those menus. I know where menu items are. But, by hiding the menu items, their position changes, and I can't find the menu choice I need.
Re:reply (Score:4, Insightful)
In reality shouldn't we expect more from modern OSes? Shouldn't the code be more solid than requiring monthly patches. Souldn't e-mailed executables be run in a sandbox? Its a pity we HAVE to have virus software and even its not good enough, you have to constantly update it.
Nice argument. Funny.
And yet, people like you (not flamebait, I'm just trying to generalize here) will be complaining once Microsoft adds anti-virus features into the OS about program feature bloat and monopolistic anti-competitive practices.
I'm not a Microsoft apologizer, I like some things they've done and very much dislike others, but we can't have it every which way.
I give up... the GUI will never really evolve... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:but (Score:5, Insightful)
Administering a Windows 98 machine on a 2K network is horrible. The methods for implementing everything are mixed up, you can't specify a home directory, the netlogon scripts don't even run (they run, but do nothing), and so on.
Microsoft's problem has always been keeping backwards compatibility until it shot them in the foot. DOS compatibility screwed up Windows 95, Windows 3.1 compatibility screwed up Windows 95, but of course they had to have it. The extra code, the extra junk, the more support, the ifs, the whiches, the switch/cases to make it all work on OSes that just aren't reasonably modern, it's a joke. If you can run Office 2k3, you can run Windows 2k. Upgrade. Seriously.
Kudos to Microsoft for leaving the stragglers behind so they can make a better product (god knows they need it often enough).
--Dan
(slightly OT) Re:Another upgrade (Score:2, Insightful)
Not trying to start a flamewar over this, but (strictly IMHO) I feel I am more productive with LaTeX because I don't have to worry about layout. But that's just me. Second is that I loathe proprietary formats, but that's a whole different bowl of wax to mull about.
Re:Another upgrade (Score:2, Insightful)
I still am thanks. LaTeX is really (still) the only choice for producing long complex good looking scientific documents.
Re:Cloning...yuck (Score:5, Insightful)
And what has it led to?
A filesystem browser squashed together with a web browser (done for political reasons).
The Start menu (this has been torn to pieces on the Interface Hall of Shame).
WMP 9.
Outlook's custom widget (with the mailbox name).
Each version of Office using completely different widgets than all other apps in Windows.
All with poor UIs.
Most of the rest of what Microsoft's done has been heavily based on Apple's ideas, or HCI driven by technical flaws. There was the dual filename system because they made the poor choice to use 8.3 filenames. Then the Start Menu, because Windows developers used masses of completely unidentifiable data file names slapped in the same directory as the executable. MDI, which was produced for Windows 3.1 because the VM system sucked and MDI reduced load on it.
Occasionally they take ideas from OSS (did I read elsewhere in this thread about virtual desktops and taskbar applets?)
I *wish* they'd take the idea of virtual desktops. One of the biggest things Windows needs.
are more than happy to build interfaces based on the results of their millions of dollars worth of research and linux is all the better for it.
Is a combined web browser/file browser really that crucial or useful, or just included to help out ex-Windows users?
Re:Informative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then he shouldn't call Office a "word processor". Just because some people buy more than what they need doesn't make Office any less useful.
There is a ton of extremely useful functionality through the entire Office suite. Just because people don't or don't know how to use it, doesn't mean it's not there. It's not Micrsoft's fault if people make unwise purchasing decisions. They give people the option to only purchase Word.
Microsoft also has horrible UI designers (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source could do just as well as Microsoft by employing graphic artists -- expert UI designeers need not apply. Apple seems to at least be trying, but sometimes I wonder if Microsoft's even employing user interface experts at all. If they do have them then they're not taking any serious notice of them. It seems more like they're aiming to make the interface look pretty and attractive, but no more useful than before.
A lot of what's being shown off in the screenshots are feature enhancements, but the basic problems of the UI with Windows and Office haven't changed at all. It's as if Microsoft is just throwing in any idea the programmers or feature-developers come up with, without properly testing it or verifying that it's actually useful and not going to create more problems for the user than it solves. For example:
Assuming that these screenshots are genuine, then Microsoft might have made minor presentation tweaks here and there, but it still hasn't fixed any of the real UI problems. Every one of these issues has been documented for years by experts who've spent a lot of effort researching them. Most of the issues have suggested solutions, but Microsoft's done absolutely nothing about it that's reached the consumer.
If open source developers want to mimic windows to attract users that way then I guess they can. But this doesn't mean it's a good interface. It's the opposite. Personally I'm hoping that the various independent-from-Microsoft open source UI projects come through and win the race with some good UI's, but I don't know what the chance of that is.
Re:security (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Claris Works 3 that came with my 7-year-old Mac does what I need, I don't need to upgrade. No security issues, nothing. Legacy systems don't _have_ modern security issues because they don't have the "integration" with "duh internet". Heck, if it isn't on the net, what security issues are there? (Besides, Macs didn't used to have listening ports by default.)
Still like PaperClip on the old 8-bit micros? What possible security issues could there be? You're not going to get 0wn3d through a 300 bps originate-only modem.
I know Office is a whole other problem security-wise, but I take offense at the blanket statement that ALL old software should just die.
Re:but (Score:2, Insightful)