I've been using Vista x64 for a couple of weeks now and I have no complaints so far. Although, Word 2007 is really confusing. I'm glad it was just a trial version bundled with the laptop 'cause I had to get rid of it and put 2003 on.
I've actually found the Ribbon to be a pretty solid improvement once I got the hang of it. But I hardly use Word for word processing any more.
Nevermind solid...its absolutely incredible. Its not going to gain much reception for now because lots of folks are trained on the old way of doing things but with Office 2007 they finally had a proper UI team give it a work over. Its a much smarter system, it does things faster, and once you've relearned its an overall better experience in my opinion.
Really? I have to disagree.
I found that having editing functions located under the 'edit' drop-down tab of the toolbar was far better than having editing functions located in the 'review' tab of the ribbon. Likewise with how everything seems to be made 'wizard-ized' rather than 'let me freaking do it-ized'.
That's just me, though.
See but everything is under Edit. Edit is huge. Alright thats a bit of an exaggeration...but Edit and Format for instance are a huge general grouping. And yet although yes they are all "Edit" functions not all of them are the same or even related. The Ribbon setup is more like Dreamweaver where like items are grouped together on the appropriate tab. Yes it takes 30 minutes of use to get used to the new setup but once you know where things are I find I'm making far fewer clicks....if I'm working on a task (like editing templates for PowerPoint) then the related items to that task are probably on the tab I'm already on.
Plus with the structure of it already being on the screen I don't have to click 'Edit', move the cursor to the category, move down to the item on that submenu, and then click again. Instead I just click what I want. Maybe with one submenu. So the ribbon setup means fewer clicks and much less moving. Its a huge UI improvement on both the usability (mouse movement, accuracy, and targeting) and the speed front (time saved by not having to click or be as precise with mouse movements).
I can understand people being reticent to change and I can understand people perhaps not liking the grouping (I'd like the next version of Office to have a grouping function) but the design itself I think is great. The biggest problem is the added screen space taken up by the ribbon versus the toolbar (which I think is 30 pixels versus something like 90 or 100 pixels for ribbon). I consider that an issue but not a huge one in the realm of large high res displays.
