Microsoft seems desperate
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@Gurth said in Microsoft seems desperate:
This, though, all well-behaved macOS apps do. Open a file in almost any document-based app, rename it (whether in the Finder or the terminal), and the document window in the app will update to show the new name.
And all well-behaved Windows apps should do. But none do. Because app developers are lazy motherfuckers, don't even know how the fucking OS they're writing their apps on work, and users generally don't give a shit.
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@blakeyrat said in Microsoft seems desperate:
In Numbers, you get a blank-ass space where you can put multiple worksheets, and each worksheet has its cells numbered from A1. (You could simulate this in Excel by using its window-in-window functionality, like SockPeter screenshotted.) And just for maximum confusion, Numbers calls worksheets "tables”.
No, Numbers calls the different worksheets, worksheets. The difference is that using Numbers terminology, each Excel worksheet has a single table on it that fills the whole worksheet.
Now that I get the difference, the Numbers method actually seems a bit more powerful, assuming it still has tabs at the bottom for selecting between blank-ass spaces.
At the top, but yes, it does. It makes it much easier to organise what you’re doing by keeping things separate, and to move stuff around visually, even if only to keep what you need visible when you work on another part of your spreadsheet :)
Because you can simulate the Excel UI in Numbers, but you can't simulate the Numbers UI in Excel. Then again, Numbers was written from scratch in like 2004 with zero consideration for backwards-compatibility with anything at all, and it doesn't run like 85% of all Fortune 500 companies like Excel does-- so they had a tiny bit more freedom when making it.
If I needed very powerful spreadsheets I’d probably turn to Excel. Numbers is more than adequate for my needs, and the easier UI only makes the choice simpler.
@Benjamin-Hall said in Microsoft seems desperate:
So many of the important things (for the people who are using the spreadsheets to actually calculate stuff instead of laying out pretty reports) are hidden under layers of menus (sometimes in odd, context dependent places) or just plain don't exist.
I find it a bit of an odd thing to say Numbers isn't very usable because there’s layers of stuff to wade through, when comparing it to MS Office — which tends to bury all kinds of things very deep in layers of windows to wade through before you get to actual settings you want.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Microsoft seems desperate:
@blakeyrat said in Microsoft seems desperate:
@Benjamin-Hall Possibly, but if Excel had a mode like that where you could get a blank canvas and "mirror" tables and charts from other sheets onto it, it would made executive dashboards a lot easier.
At the cost of, you know, making it easier to do everything in Excel. Which is
. Excel is great for doing what it's designed to do. Trying to make it a reporting tool as well with connections to outside data sources seems rather fraught with peril and a repeat of Access's "fun times".That was actually my explicit job a few years ago. I built a system of excel workbooks that would fetch, ingest, filter, format, and conglomerate various reports and data sources (i.e. from SSRS and SQL Server) into powerpoint "Decks".
I'm quietly proud of all the fuckery I was able to accomplish, though a significant portion of the system was partially broken when Excel came around and switched from MDI to SDI, and since I don't have the source (darn non-compete and company-owned IP) I can do nought but tell stories...
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Microsoft seems desperate:
I built a system of excel workbooks that would fetch, ingest, filter, format, and conglomerate various reports and data sources (i.e. from SSRS and SQL Server) into powerpoint "Decks".
Programming challenge:
Build "a system of excel workbooks that would fetch, ingest, filter, format, and conglomerate various reports and data sources (i.e. fromSSRSSSDS and SQL Server)."
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@admiral_p said in Microsoft seems desperate:
Still, if Microsoft tries to pull off some of the shit they used to do, they'd fail miserably today.
You sure? Apple's done all the same stuff and even worse, and been horrifyingly successful at it!
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@masonwheeler said in Microsoft seems desperate:
Apple's done all the same stuff and even worse, and been horrifyingly successful at it!
I didn't know Apple made hardware maker sign a contract to sell only computers with
WindowsMacOS on it
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@Gurth said in Microsoft seems desperate:
I find it a bit of an odd thing to say Numbers isn't very usable because there’s layers of stuff to wade through, when comparing it to MS Office — which tends to bury all kinds of things very deep in layers of windows to wade through before you get to actual settings you want.
You have discovered the reason for the ribbon again! Congratulations!
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@HardwareGeek Is VBA cheating?
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@blakeyrat said in Microsoft seems desperate:
blank canvas and "mirror" tables and charts from other sheets onto it, it would made executive dashboards a lot easier
MS calles that solution PowerBI
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@HardwareGeek said in Microsoft seems desperate:
Programming challenge:
Pfff importing became a lot easier with PowerrrQuery.
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@Magus said in Microsoft seems desperate:
You have discovered the reason for the ribbon again! Congratulations!
I’ve not used that enough to be able to say if it’s an improvement. I do know the (previously floating) tool windows of Pages and Numbers work far better than the old MS Office way I remember.
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@TimeBandit said in Microsoft seems desperate:
@masonwheeler said in Microsoft seems desperate:
Apple's done all the same stuff and even worse, and been horrifyingly successful at it!
I didn't know Apple made hardware maker sign a contract to sell only computers with
WindowsMacOS on itWhy do you think Apple computers only have MacOS on them?
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@TimeBandit said in Microsoft seems desperate:
@masonwheeler said in Microsoft seems desperate:
Apple's done all the same stuff and even worse, and been horrifyingly successful at it!
I didn't know Apple made hardware maker sign a contract to sell only computers with
WindowsMacOS on itThis one falls in the "even worse" bucket. They've made it impossible to legally sell or build a third-party MacOS or iOS machine in the first place.
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@TimeBandit said in Microsoft seems desperate:
@masonwheeler said in Microsoft seems desperate:
Apple's done all the same stuff and even worse, and been horrifyingly successful at it!
I didn't know Apple made hardware maker sign a contract to sell only computers with
WindowsMacOS on itActually, Google are closer to doing this. To be part of their special privileged set of Android hardware makers, which allows easier access to things like Google Play Services, you can't sell devices using any non-Google branch of Android. This is why Kindle Fires and the Kindle Phone are/were made by no-name unknown Chinese manufacturers
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@Gurth They basically got tired of 90% of the feature requests they received being features they already had, but that people couldn't find, so they designed a menu system that shows you far more categorized items, with more icons to indicate what they do, in a way that you can customize freely and supports contextual sections.
It immediately was yelled and screamed about because it was different.
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@Magus said in Microsoft seems desperate:
@Gurth They basically got tired of 90% of the feature requests they received being features they already had, but that people couldn't find, so they designed a menu system that shows you far more categorized items, with more icons to indicate what they do, in a way that you can customize freely and supports contextual sections.
It immediately was yelled and screamed about because it was
differentconstantly self-modifying and thus literally impossible to memorize, especially if you have more than one computer.FTFY
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@Gąska No, it actually wasn't that. The only things that change are the context specific stuff.
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@Magus I distinctly remember it being marketed as adaptive to user's behavior. I also distinctly remember people arguing that it's a good thing. And I have memory of one situation where I saw a tool I wanted to use in a moment but not right now on the toolbar, switched tabs, did something else, went back, and the tool was gone. Not moved. Not hidden behind arrows. It was gone completely, replaced by something entirely different.
But that must be just my imagination because it's impossible for new Office to be worse than old Office isit.
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@Gąska They typically have a bar with a set of tabs that have consistent subsections, which are all static, but you can customizeable, and one section at a time that shows up based on what you have selected onscreen: you don't need image manipulation options if you don't have an image selected.
It's all very understandable.
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@masonwheeler said in Microsoft seems desperate:
They've made it impossible to legally sell or build a third-party MacOS or iOS machine in the first place.
While they still sold MacOS in boxes (I think they don't do that anymore) you could legally install it on a Hackintosh here, no matter what the license said, since the license wasn't valid because they didn't make you accept it BEFORE selling the product to you.
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@Magus said in Microsoft seems desperate:
@Gąska They typically have a bar with a set of tabs that have consistent subsections, which are all static, but you can customizeable, and one section at a time that shows up based on what you have selected onscreen: you don't need image manipulation options if you don't have an image selected.
It's all very understandable.
For tables in Word you get two sections (layout and design).
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@Magus said in Microsoft seems desperate:
They typically
And is it possible for Word 2007 to behave in non-typical way? Because my experience shows Word 2007 didn't behave in the way you call typical.
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@Magus said in Microsoft seems desperate:
they designed a menu system that shows you far more categorized items, with more icons to indicate what they do, in a way that you can customize freely and supports contextual sections.
I know what the ribbon interface is :) I just haven’t used it much because it first appeared when I had already said goodbye to Word in favour of Pages. When I do use Word or Excel (as said, the 2008 version), the ribbon doesn’t help me all that much, but that’s probably just because I’m not used to where everything is on it.
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@Magus said in Microsoft seems desperate:
, in a way that you can customize freely and supports contextual sections
You can customize the ribbon freely?
Maybe in code and making your own tab, but I don't recall this really being a thing....
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@Tsaukpaetra Open Word. Right click the ribbon, and there's a customize option. You can make your own tabs and groups and put whatever you want in any of them.
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@Gąska said in Microsoft seems desperate:
And is it possible for Word 2007 to behave in non-typical way?
It's possible for you to misremember something that happened a decade ago, and also apparently possible for you to assume there's been no advancement in the ribbon interface in that decade.
What you describe sounds like you had one of those context based tabs open and then you selected another part of the document so it wasn't available any more because it wouldn't have made sense
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@Magus said in Microsoft seems desperate:
@Tsaukpaetra Open Word. Right click the ribbon, and there's a customize option. You can make your own tabs and groups and put whatever you want in any of them.
Huh. I only remember there being a "add to quick toolbar" option, making your own tabs and groups necessarily required you to create a VBA module. Good on Microsoft I guess...
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@Tsaukpaetra That was an intentional design choice in Office 2007 (the first one with the Ribbon), which they rolled back in Office 2010.
