Thrown For a Loop

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re: Thrown For a Loop

headtoadie — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 20:34:27 GMT

By far the biggest offender of loop that I run across on a daily basis is un-hiding sheets.

It's 5 clicks for each sheet you want to un-hide (assuming you don't have to scroll the list to find the sheet, then it's more):

Format->Sheets->Unhide->Select sheet->OK
then repeat x times to unhide each sheet. If you're un-hinging 10 sheets, that 50 clicks (minimum) - it's horrible!

re: Thrown For a Loop

Mary Branscombe — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:56:13 GMT

Allowing users to customise the tabs would be another good way out of the modal maze - adding that commonly used command from another tab to the tab where they use it rather than cramming it into the File menu/toolbar (which I expect will look like the Quick Launch bar on my husband's PC: currently 2/3rds of a 17" screen wide). I know how much of the current Office logjam is down to too many ways to customise toolbars, but don't veer too far the other way, please! Personally, I'd like to see an option like the Windows taskbar lock, to allow advanced users to customise things without confusing novices.

re: Thrown For a Loop

Kawigi — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 20:08:37 GMT

Just what I was going to say, they just told us they were starting that blog yesterday :-)

re: Thrown For a Loop

Step — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 10:01:42 GMT

lol

Thanks, zz. If only it was always that easy... :)

re: Thrown For a Loop

zz — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 06:13:26 GMT

Ask and you shall recieve!

The newly christened Access blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/access/

re: Thrown For a Loop

Step — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 23:52:00 GMT

Yes, It sounds like you're going to cover the "Floatie" (gotta get a better name - hmmmmmm). I'd really like to hear just a bit about what other valves are built in also.

Kawiqi, please tell me you have or know of a blog about Access 12?!

Oh, and Jensen (and others working on this stuff) please know you're inspiring me as I work on a design document to dramatically improve our very complex instrument's interface. I had already been working on it before hearing of Office 12, but seeing what you've done has helped me have a fresh view and approach.

It is very exciting to see the possibilities of ease of use and reduced training "just" by properly designing an interface. :)

re: Thrown For a Loop

Kawigi — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 20:10:32 GMT

In the original Access ribbon designs, a similar command loop was found in designing forms and reports - the tendency is to go back and forth between the Form Design and Layout tabs and the text formatting commands on the data tab.

Based on that, I'm guessing if the feature he's aluding to isn't "Floaties" (someone after me is going to add something like "heh heh, he said floaties"), it's "Duplicating commands on multiple tabs" (we did the latter)

re: Thrown For a Loop

Someone Special — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 18:21:30 GMT

My guess is that you will have some type of floating command bar that is context aware to the current cursor or content selection.

For instance, with normal text editing, selecting a word or group of words would give you commands from the Word 2003 formatting toolbar.

This will probably only be for text and not fully context aware. To be truly useful, we should get things like select a table and not only does the ribbon change to table but the context floater provides quick access to Word 2003 tables and borders toolbar.

re: Thrown For a Loop

Mr. Dee — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 17:26:37 GMT

Jensen, do you know that song by Stevie Wonder - "Ribbon In The Sky"? :)

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/stevie-wonder/131889.html