Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Patrick Schmid — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:14:54 GMT

It does look very interesting! Could you also show the contextual Drawing Tools - Format tab? In PPT the Home tab and the Format tab are to me the most crucial ones and belong together to some extent.
I'll be looking forward to using it!

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Andre Barbosa — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:19:43 GMT

Hi! Sorry for this comment in this post. I use the Office 2007 Beta 2 since it became public and I simply adore it. However, and since you're retouching the layout of the program, there's a thing that I find very little (un)ergonimic. For example, in Word, when I have a box and I select it for the purpose of changing it's shape, colors, etc...many times, the box completly overlaps the box (or another drawing or text), giving me no choice of seeing what's happening, in real time to the new aspect. To be completly honest, I don't know if you have already spoken about that subject or, since I implicity spoke of the transparency effect that should be enabled on the new Windows, I really can't figure if this should be contemplated for the older versions of Windows (XP in this case) or even if it has ever been thought for the Windows Vista.

[forgive me if I have wrote somethin' wrong, I am portuguese and I haven't write in english for a long time]

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Andrew Calvo — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:27:55 GMT

Jensen - I look forward to every one of your posts, because you really explain and get the point across that MS REALLY does listen to comments, and REALLY cares about usablity. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way..

Anyway, I just wanted to make a comment about how you removed the "Word Art" from the toolbar - GREAT IDEA! I don't know ANYONE who has ever used WordArt on a frequent basis, and I always felt it used up valuable screenspace, that can be used by a more useful, or more-frequently used function.. I think you folks finally got it right!

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Echo Swinford — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:15:52 GMT

Oh, thank god. I told some of the PPT team awhile back that this beta (PPT specifically) makes my hands ache. Part of the reason is the constant mousing between the Home tab and the Drawing Tools Fromat tab, exactly as you described.

I was just thinking this morning how I hate having to stop and *think* to go to the Insert tab each time I want to add a textbox specifically -- I want it in front of me within easy reach at all times. (For some reason, although it's still disruptive to my workflow, it seems more natural to go to the Insert tab to add a shape, but not a textbox.) Adding textboxes to the autoshapes gallery, and placing that gallery on the Home tab should help *tremendously*.

I suspect having the autoshapes gallery jump around won't be so frustrating as it was in B1, either, since I won't have to bounce back and forth between tabs and then adjust mouse position to use it more than once.

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Patrick Schmid — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:51:20 GMT

What are "Quick Styles"? I don't recall seeing that name anywhere in the B2 UI.

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Kdbertel — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:01:25 GMT

A lot of people tend not to realize the sheer amount of time and thought that has to go into a good UI. I'm really glad you all are spending that time and thought to create a polished product that balances placement with design and usability. I really look forward to using the ribbon in the future.

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Patrick Schmid — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 23:04:39 GMT

Jensen, did you implement proposal 3 completely including the changed switching behavior of the contextual tab? Meaning, that when you insert a shape from the Home tab, the tabs don't auto-switch to the contextual tab, but stay on the Home tab?
Thanks!

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

ramesh — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:51:56 GMT

How about giving users the choice regarding what components they want on their home tab?

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Patrick Schmid — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 05:33:25 GMT

I have made an alpha version of my add-in to customize the ribbon available. See more details in this blog post: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/08/01/35

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

jensenh — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:27:04 GMT

Patrick:

Yes, when you Insert shapes from the Home tab, you remain on the Home tab.

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Patrick Schmid — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:34:16 GMT

Jensen: great! I am completely sold!! Great job to the entire team!

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

SteveA — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 12:36:22 GMT

Brilliant. Being able to insert shapes from the Home tab is a great improvement. With current beta, there is a cycle, go to insert tab, select shape, drop it onto slide, click away (to see how it looks) which brings back the home tab, then go to insert tab, select shape...
Keep up the good work Jensen

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Owen — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 07:20:29 GMT

Great.

That UI doesn't look cluttered or complex at all. ;-)

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

PatriotB — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 07:59:01 GMT

My question is... why is the ribbon icon for "Cut" still in the same style as it was in Windows 95 and prior? XP introduced a new cut icon, now Vista has a new one as well. (Take a look at the Cut icons available in the IE6 and IE7 toolbars.)

Yes, you guys have made it a little prettier, but it's still the same dopey scissor design where the left-hand fingerhole is a pixel farther down than the right-hand fingerhole. There's a new scissors being introduced with Vista: please use it! Please work to add a *small* amount of consistency among Microsoft products.

(The same thing applies to the Paste icon. I didn't mention it here because I'm actually not a big fan of Vista's Paste icon; it's pretty boring looking. But I'd rather you use the OS standard boring clipboard icon, than feel compelled to use your own.)

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Benny Christen Grandahl — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 12:38:49 GMT

Hi Jensen

Why don't you use contextual tabs for Master Slide design??? It seems confusing that the Slide Master and Edit Master appears together whit Insert, Animations, Review and View as a whole new set of tabs.

Any good explanations other then that what we used to do in the earlier versioner???

Best regards

Benny - the crazy dane :-)

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

Jan Kucera — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 22:46:40 GMT

Hi, I didn't want to tell this but when PatriotB started, I have to agree. I really don't like this new flat paste icon. I don't feel it belongs to all other icons family nor only the cut/copy/paste group. I would rather see the shaded version as for example shipped with VisualStudio 2005.

Thanks and really really interesting post!

re: Evolution of the PowerPoint Home Tab

convert powerpoint — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 06:28:01 GMT

You can export PowerPoint presentations as preview pictures or as plain text.

http://www.sharewarecheap.com/business-finance-word-processing/abc-amber-powerpoint-converter9585-24.htm

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