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BWF89
January 26th, 2006, 10:39 PM
This article is a little old (September 2005) but since Microsoft Office is getting a new UI (user interface) and since MS Office is the de facto standard to which all other office software is compared should OpenOffice work on emulating the look and fell of our competator to provide better interlopability?

EDIT: Heres the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/uioverview.mspx

welsh_spud
January 26th, 2006, 10:45 PM
It's funny that Microsofts main reason for making people stay with Office are the re-training costs that come with openoffice.org

Now, upgrade to the new Office Vista (or whatever it's called) and re-train your staff so they can use the new interface, or just switch over to the free alternative that works exactly the same: OpenOffice.org

Now who has the lower totally cost of ownership?

Bandit
January 26th, 2006, 10:47 PM
I hate M$..

oh.. I was thinking out loud again....

Without looking at the new office layout it can be hard to say.
M$ does spend billions on interface designers to anylize what does conform to the human mind better. They normally do a good job of it..
Of course changing the interface to much can hurt for some users that are already used to the currect layout standards.
So at the momment its hard to say.

Cheers,
Joey

Lord Illidan
January 26th, 2006, 10:50 PM
It's funny that Microsofts main reason for making people stay with Office are the re-training costs that come with openoffice.org

Now, upgrade to the new Office Vista (or whatever it's called) and re-train your staff so they can use the new interface, or just switch over to the free alternative that works exactly the same: OpenOffice.org

Now who has the lower totally cost of ownership?

If OpenOffice was as good as MS Office, I would agree with you. In its present state, I can safely say that MS Office on Windows beats OOffice on Linux.

1. OOffice crashes for me. Especially in Impress. And it crashes so frequently, that I daren't tell anyone about it... once every slide..
2. Sloooow.

About the interface. I basically think that MS will make a bunch of money by introducing new ECDL exams.. basically, yes, people will learn how to use the ribbon interface, which might be good after all....and will ridicule OOffice for not having it...

Bandit
January 26th, 2006, 10:56 PM
If OpenOffice was as good as MS Office, I would agree with you. In its present state, I can safely say that MS Office on Windows beats OOffice on Linux.
I would have to disagree with you. I find M$ office to unstable and buggy. Plus I cant stomach all the maros... Yes I know you can turn them off, but at work everytime I log out and back in again they are all turned on again...

But, the topic question was about the User Interface...

Lord Illidan
January 26th, 2006, 11:03 PM
I would have to disagree with you. I find M$ office to unstable and buggy. Plus I cant stomach all the maros... Yes I know you can turn them off, but at work everytime I log out and back in again they are all turned on again...

But, the topic question was about the User Interface...

I voted 3 in the poll.. basically, I think we should have a choice.

Now, Bandit.....I rarely had a crash with MS Office 2003 on Windows XP. Could it be you are exaggerating a bit? And macros can be turned off... and they won't be turned on again, unless you did something wrong yourself..

TechSonic
January 26th, 2006, 11:06 PM
The last copy of MS office I used was the 2003 version. I always had trouble updating it just like the previous 2000 and XP office versions. That and once and a while crash where I have to save my data and restart the program thing and they always seemed to have a fix for the particular crash but then again like I said before, it never updated correctly. I got Openoffice on My MS Windows XP and it worked great. Never again did I have update problems or crashes at all. But eventually I did a full switch to Linux and well, openoffice still works wonders. All I use is writer, the other stuff, not so much. I do plan to dabble a bit on slide shows some time. See if I can make a comic in it.

xequence
January 26th, 2006, 11:10 PM
I dont like the new screenshots of Office 12...

The old Office 2003 rocked. It was an amazing group of programs. MUCH faster then open office.

Lord Illidan
January 26th, 2006, 11:12 PM
The last copy of MS office I used was the 2003 version. I always had trouble updating it just like the previous 2000 and XP office versions. That and once and a while crash where I have to save my data and restart the program thing and they always seemed to have a fix for the particular crash but then again like I said before, it never updated correctly. I got Openoffice on My MS Windows XP and it worked great. Never again did I have update problems or crashes at all. But eventually I did a full switch to Linux and well, openoffice still works wonders. All I use is writer, the other stuff, not so much. I do plan to dabble a bit on slide shows some time. See if I can make a comic in it.

Writer seems to be quite stable for me.. It is Impress which makes me swear like a drunken sailor.

Bandit
January 26th, 2006, 11:16 PM
I voted 3 in the poll.. basically, I think we should have a choice.

Now, Bandit.....I rarely had a crash with MS Office 2003 on Windows XP. Could it be you are exaggerating a bit? And macros can be turned off... and they won't be turned on again, unless you did something wrong yourself..

Well I am running Office2000 on some crapy NAVY computers.. Thats a big factor. The security settings and permissions on these system are reset each login... Everything is reset, even my dang wallpaper!!!

But honestly I dont like any version of M$ Office that came after Office97.
I realy like OpenOffice2.0. Of course I like KOffice 1.4.2 also...
I dont like M$ Office becuase its so eat up with AI stupididty..
I am totally against any software that tries to do things for me, it normally just ends up getting in my way, like M$ Office does...

EDIT:: I just saw the preview of M$O12.. Its horrible... Screw that..

ember
January 26th, 2006, 11:48 PM
Hmm ... I admit that I like the new interface. Anyway, MS Office is one of the better pieces of software made by that company.

DigitalDuality
January 27th, 2006, 02:37 AM
My opinion on where all MS products whip the pants off OO product....

load time.

Frankly i think OO copies MS enough.. even adding the easter egg to a video game just like old MS.

I think OO could benefit from an updated interface, but not by copying MS.

What's sickening is the amount of money this country will spend on an updated GUI. I know their format is changing a bit, but from the end user's perspective most don't and won't know.. or care if you told them. What's more sickening is that my tax dollars will be going for copies so people can do Fax and Memo templates all day.

honestly...i like MS Office better, but even on a PC with legally purchased MS Office.. i'll just delete it and install OO.

Stormy Eyes
January 27th, 2006, 04:30 AM
As a taxpayer, I think that any government worker who approves the use of proprietary software on government machines ought to be hanged for wasting taxpayers' money. It's bad enough I have to see my taxes wasted on the War on Drugs; seeing my money used to enrich Microsoft without my consent is more than I can forgive.

DaMasta
January 27th, 2006, 04:36 AM
I think it's a huge mistake on Microsoft's part. Windows users want repetition. I would think Microsoft wants it to be intuitive. Like trained monkeys. Most windows users don't want to learn anything new. That's why they continue to use windows and get spyware and get virii etc.

Stormy Eyes
January 27th, 2006, 04:47 AM
That's why they continue to use windows and get spyware and get virii etc.

You're right, except for one thing: it's viruses, not virii. You don't say penii instead of penises, do you?:)

mettallicat
January 27th, 2006, 04:49 AM
i don't hate microsoft becose i'll need forever something to look from the top.

Microsoft Appz are needed we need to compare solutions and to an versatil sysadmin is good have a lot of options.

check that:

i've an client but he don't have a lot of mony to spare in licences so i'll give an opensource solution. the secound client have a lot of money and want windows in all computers including servers and msoffice running everywere ( or other ms appz ) so i'll try to explain the advantages in port somthings to opensource appz but normaly he wont acept that offer.

So the client 2 will give to me more money becouse licences and assistence.

About the new office the final user should choose.

Think about that ... an old lady all is "informatic life" has worked with msoffice it ill toke some days to port that old lady to OOo even in windows.

We need to think and be better that microsoft and do not spare time saying that microsoft is **** or we hate som much bill gates to spare 24/7 speeking evil things on he..

Things are changing for better is now better to port clients from windows to linux thanks a distros like ubuntu but microsoft is allways need to give some thing to push us up and keep figthing.

Regards

Ricado Leal , Portugal ( 100% unix/linux user )

drizek
January 27th, 2006, 05:04 AM
once the odt formati s more established, koffice will be the best linux office suite. ooo is too slow/buggy/big. koffice is 1/4 the file size and quite a bit faster(just from experience, never seen a benchmark). koffice does lack features ATM though, and because oasis isnt more widespread, compatiblity isnt too great either.

DaMasta
January 27th, 2006, 05:09 AM
You're right, except for one thing: it's viruses, not virii. You don't say penii instead of penises, do you?:)
You sure are right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural_of_virus
Thanks for the correction.

Qrk
January 27th, 2006, 05:11 AM
I microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot by changing the interface. Any change (besides security... ) in their core app suites are an invitation for competition. But they can't maintain their market share by keeping everything the same, like say, IE.

Lets face it, its hard to compete with free.

mettallicat
January 27th, 2006, 05:19 AM
yes I.E has stoped in time ... firefox and konkeror don't ... no i'll see the mess with the new I.E ... finally They got tabs ... ROTFL "

poofyhairguy
January 27th, 2006, 04:48 PM
This article is a little old (September 2005) but since Microsoft Office is getting a new UI (user interface) and since MS Office is the de facto standard to which all other office software is compared should OpenOffice work on emulating the look and fell of our competator to provide better interlopability?


Actually I think the opposite. I think the new Office is a great opportunity!

Why?

Because it looks SOOO different from old versions of Office. The training cost will be through the roof. Sure MS might think that it will be an easier to use interface (and they might be right) but that does not matter at this point. What matters is what a group of people is used to. Most Windows users I know have no real understanding of computers. They know if they click "here, here, then here" something they expect happens. To many learning a computer is learning repetitive motions. And the new Office will totally screw that up.

I can't blame MS because they have to do SOMETHING but I think such a drastic change is a bad idea.

I think OpenOffice should continue to copy (in a way) the former Office interface. That way when the new Office comes out its actually easier (training wise) to migrate someone from the old Offices to OpenOffice then it is to migrate to the new totally different Office.

poofyhairguy
January 27th, 2006, 04:49 PM
1. OOffice crashes for me. Especially in Impress. And it crashes so frequently, that I daren't tell anyone about it... once every slide..


I had problems with Ubuntu's Impress but then I used Automatix to get the newest OpenOffice version and the problem went away.


Try it and see.

Alpha_toxic
January 27th, 2006, 05:38 PM
I haven't seen what the new offiece UI looks like, but I think that the as OOo ims at the same market as MO, they should keep resemblign the MO's UI. I personaly would preffer to have both UIs to choose and perhaps even the old OOo look (the one OOo1 style).

btw, as I haven't used (or even seen) MO for quite a few years now, will someone please tell me which is faster and liter? I mean OOo has pretty slow interface (java?) in my opinion. Is MO significantly faster or may be slower?

P.S. check this out (it's flash)
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/windowsxp.php
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/winrg.php

commodore
January 27th, 2006, 07:26 PM
I don't think the new UI is good.

Currently M$ Office older versions are taught in school, but when they change the UI people just have to use openoffice.org because that's what they have been taught.

awakatanka
January 27th, 2006, 07:34 PM
As a taxpayer, I think that any government worker who approves the use of proprietary software on government machines ought to be hanged for wasting taxpayers' money. It's bad enough I have to see my taxes wasted on the War on Drugs; seeing my money used to enrich Microsoft without my consent is more than I can forgive.
I'm with what he said. ( damn never tought that would happen :mrgreen: )

xequence
January 27th, 2006, 07:36 PM
That's why they continue to use windows and get spyware and get virii etc.


Or windows users use windows because it works...?


You're right, except for one thing: it's viruses, not virii. You don't say penii instead of penises, do you?

I laughed at that =P


Because it looks SOOO different from old versions of Office. The training cost will be through the roof. Sure MS might think that it will be an easier to use interface (and they might be right) but that does not matter at this point. What matters is what a group of people is used to. Most Windows users I know have no real understanding of computers. They know if they click "here, here, then here" something they expect happens. To many learning a computer is learning repetitive motions. And the new Office will totally screw that up.

So now people are so stupid you need to train them to use a different UI? =P

"Ok, this is the File button. You can click it to make a little box appear with more options!"

bored2k
January 27th, 2006, 07:39 PM
Yes, redesign the interface to match MS Offices interfaceI hav never found the OOo interface intuitive enough (even when It's trying to emulate MS's). On the other hand, those screenshots look good.

tseliot
January 27th, 2006, 07:53 PM
You're right, except for one thing: it's viruses, not virii. You don't say penii instead of penises, do you?:)
Just an off-topic thing:
Viri would mean "men" (vir = man, but more important than "homo") in Latin. Virus doesn't change in the plural in Latin but in English does (just like you say, Stormy Eyes).

prizrak
January 27th, 2006, 08:29 PM
So now people are so stupid you need to train them to use a different UI? =P

"Ok, this is the File button. You can click it to make a little box appear with more options!"
That is exactly what the books on MS Office looked like when my college made me take the class cuz it was part of the major (completely disregarding the fact that I've been using the suit for years). Moreover VB4 programming handbooks looked like that as well (haven't read any VB programming books since ver 4 so I dunno what they look like now).

Sheinar
January 27th, 2006, 08:36 PM
So now people are so stupid you need to train them to use a different UI?
Yes.

mohapi
January 27th, 2006, 09:07 PM
Is it just me, or does every "new" Microsoft tweak look remarkably like a weak copy of what Apple has been doing? Don't get me wrong, I'm no Apple fanboi. It just seems to be a recurring trend.

Oh, wait. You mean someone already noticed this? My bad. :p

briancurtin
January 27th, 2006, 09:16 PM
the new MS office UI is absolute garbage

if openoffice copies it, i will not use it

prizrak
January 27th, 2006, 09:34 PM
OO is teh suck! I like Abiword, but that thing has no PowerPoint functionality or anything but a word processor really :(
If they could include those I'd never touch OO (mostly cuz I don't need all the advanced crap)

super
January 27th, 2006, 09:48 PM
the new office interface looks like it would take a while to get used to.

but since it's not out yet, i really can't pass judgement. it definitely looks interesting. and who knows, maybe it really would improve user productivity. the concept sounds pretty good to me.

i would love to check it out if it was in openoffice. i say make this sort of interface an option.

DigitalDuality
January 27th, 2006, 10:04 PM
What i WOULD like to see in Open Office is for the following to look alot nicer (and not just OO in KDE, but Gnome as well )

1. Default icon sets suck (to open the app itself) I prefer the default icons OO gives in Windows, but even those aren't that great. Other than by color, they're impossible to tell apart by icon alone. Hell in Windows the Math and Write icons look like the same thing.

Default in linux, you don't even have the color difference in the icons between Writer, Calc, Impress, etc.. you have to go solely by file name for the most part, especially if you have a really high resolution set on your monitor.

2. The GUI is fine to me in terms of layout. I'm ok with that. It's not broke. Don't fix it. What would be nice though is if it had a more updated look. Maybe if the buttons looked a little more 3d with some shading/shaddowing applied. As it stands now.. it looks like Office 95-97.

3. I know they're trying to be "different" but i know of NO other application, regardless of what type and who it is made by.. that puts the damned cut/copy/paste functions at the bottom of the right click menu rather than the top. Standards are a good thing. This move was flat out stupid, though petty.

4. OO needs a grammar check.

5. I think by default the nix version of it should give the option to install the Firefox plugins.

6. Improve the load time.

7. More templates for your regular ol' end users.

8. They should look into developing better web development tools. Create a app that would be halfway in between say...Front Page and Dreamweaver.

I think the OO.org, Mozilla Foundation, and the creators of GIMP, Scribus..and Dia, hell..i'd say even GNU Cash as well.. if they all co-ordinated with each other and found out to help (by option of course) integrate their products into one another, or at least make the use between these apps more seamless we'd really be getting somewhere.

I would love to see the FOSS excel on the desktop, regardless of OS. They're not going to compete with Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Access/FrontPage/OneNote/Publisher/Visio/Outlook/IE by staying divided. Opening the lines of communication and sharing work between each other, or even collaborating.. will get all these apps really far.

super
January 27th, 2006, 10:31 PM
6. Improve the load time.


try disabling the java re in the settings. it really helped my load times.

a few people have mentioned the load times in comparison to msoffice. don't forget that msoffice has some of it's components loaded at boot by windows. in windows with the oo.o quickstart turned on, ooffice.org starts faster than msoffice for me.

BWF89
January 27th, 2006, 10:39 PM
How can 46.67% of the people think that we shouldn't try to copy the latest MS Office interface? If someone is going to be useing MS Office at work and OpenOffice at home their going to want the settings and features to be constant between them.

Why not give the user the choice between the "New and improved" or the "Classic" theme?

DigitalDuality
January 27th, 2006, 10:47 PM
try disabling the java re in the settings. it really helped my load times.

a few people have mentioned the load times in comparison to msoffice. don't forget that msoffice has some of it's components loaded at boot by windows. in windows with the oo.o quickstart turned on, ooffice.org starts faster than msoffice for me.

I'll remember that.even with the OO quickstarter loaded though, i could still open MS word faster. And that's even disabling what i can from Msconfig --> startup tab related to MS office.

Unfortunately there's not much i can do on *nix to fix it though. They just need a better gui, but the same layout, more features, but improved load speed.

Bone Down
January 28th, 2006, 12:06 AM
I voted #3 after all linux is suppose to be about choice.

I just made a full switch over to ubuntu as of 6 weeks ago.

I did not do this because I hate M$, I was finding that a couple of the programs that I was using on a more consistant basis were available on linux (firefox, thunderbird).

I was using MSXPPRO, with MSOFFICE2003.

Now the only problems that I was having were that ms word and excel out of nowhere in the middle of what ever work I was performing would give me a fatal error occurred word is now saving your open documents.

now at first (about 9 months or so) I had no problems with MS Office 2k3, but the last 4 month's just started bugging the crap out of me.

it has been about 4.5 years since I last messed around with linux *caldera, redhat, bsd* so I thought I would see what linux had to offer these days, in my search I came across ubuntu, loaded it up (dual boot), discovered OO 2.0 and I decided to give it a go around, so far I have not had any issues and I have since purchased a new HD for the laptop no more dual boot, and I have not looked back yet.

Currently I use write/calc/impress on a daily basis with no issues.

I hope that OOo continues to develope and grow, I do not think that it is to far from M$ Office.

I have a good close friend the works for M$ for the M$ Office team, he was telling me that M$ had done a study about what they needed to be improved in Office, turns out that most people that used the latest versions don't even know how to use 60% of the features within Office now as it is.

Which is what created his job, maintaining the Office www help and how to website.

Long story short, I switched and he can't understand why, I just did it to do it and so far i'm ok with it.

poofyhairguy
January 28th, 2006, 12:27 AM
How can 46.67% of the people think that we shouldn't try to copy the latest MS Office interface? If someone is going to be useing MS Office at work and OpenOffice at home their going to want the settings and features to be constant between them.

Why not give the user the choice between the "New and improved" or the "Classic" theme?

Because Openoffice is barely usuable as it is in some ways. It needs major work in many areas before it can care about emulating the newest versions of MS Office.

So far Openoffice is equivilent to Office 98. It needs to catch up to Office 2000 or Office XP before it can hope to overtake an Office that is not released yet.

poofyhairguy
January 28th, 2006, 12:29 AM
So now people are so stupid you need to train them to use a different UI? =P


Yes, but it does not mean they are stupid. It means they don't grok the whole computer thing and that getting through the experiance is a set of repetitive tasks to them.

psychicdragon
January 28th, 2006, 12:30 AM
I think the new UI looks pretty cool. That said, I have no idea how usable it will prove to be.

The whole,

Titlebar
---
Menubar
---
Toolbar

thing is getting pretty old at this point. Maybe there is a better way to position all that stuff. Make it easier to find things possibly.

xequence
January 28th, 2006, 01:02 AM
Yes, but it does not mean they are stupid. It means they don't grok the whole computer thing and that getting through the experiance is a set of repetitive tasks to them.


I just find it odd how anyone would have any problem switching from Writer to Word or anything like that. My 11 year old brother didnt care when I deleted openoffice and installed ms office 2003. (He uses it for school work sometimes)

benplaut
January 28th, 2006, 04:08 AM
The new UI seems to put everything once click farther away, but there are less buttons on the screen at once, making it easier to find what you're looking for (of course, for many of us, we've memorized our interface. Many more haven't)

personally, i prefer the old UI, but i've been using it since office 97, so i'm a bit biased

bored2k
January 30th, 2006, 11:54 PM
The new UI seems to put everything once click farther away, but there are less buttons on the screen at once, making it easier to find what you're looking for (of course, for many of us, we've memorized our interface. Many more haven't)

personally, i prefer the old UI, but i've been using it since office 97, so i'm a bit biasedTHat's also the exact same problem that people used to Windows find in Linux. They have already memorized how to make their systems work that they dare not try anything else, rendering Linux unconscious.

To me, a new UI is always welcomed as long as it is noticeably better than the old one.