151 replies to this topic

[Larry the Lobster]

The more I see of the direction Microsoft is going, the more I dislike the new stuff. I shall not feel the need to rush forward with this.

[Javik]

djdanster, on 16 July 2012 - 22:35, said:

Agree completely. Although I think it's to do with the whole metro style. It just doesn't fit with how they've done it.

Going a bit offtopic but kind of not.... The metro stylings used really does remind me of Windows 3.1. I'm not trolling so don't say I am; it just really does seem like it.

Yeah, I have no doubt that is true. Microsoft's UI designers seem to me to be churning out one disappointment after another at the moment it would seem.

[simplezz]

I'd have to put on my to use that lol

[Calum]

I think I need to give it a chance and use it regularly before I judge the amount of whiteness, and I recommend others do the same.

[Brian Miller]

It really does look ugly!

[ChrisJ1968]

if you have an earlier version of office on your system, you'll have to de-install this beta version. it wouldn't allow me to run my outlook 2007. must be some conflict

[rfirth]

Ambroos, on 16 July 2012 - 22:10, said:

I was just trying out Office 2013, been playing with it for a while. Aside the fact that it seems to be (much) slower than Office 2010 everything seems about okay.

That's weird. Office 2010 is slower than Office 2013 on my machine. Office 2013 is very fast here.

Quote

One thing that annoys me slightly is the cursor animation, it makes me feel like I'm a slow typist even though I'm absolutely not.

Explain.

Quote

One huge thing I absolutely hate right now is the inability to choose another color for the user interface

Yep, I looked around for that option too and couldn't find it.

I like Office 2013 a lot, but I do wish there was a little more contrast. That's all I would ask for.

What's really cool, though, is the consistency between Office 2013 and Visual Studio 2012. They now look like they were made by the same company. There are small differences, but they are very similar.

Calum, on 16 July 2012 - 22:47, said:

I think I need to give it a chance and use it regularly before I judge the amount of whiteness, and I recommend others do the same.

I agree. I think I like Office 2013 because I have grown used to the style... it's the same style that Visual Studio 2012 uses.

ChrisJ1968, on 16 July 2012 - 22:50, said:

if you have an earlier version of office on your system, you'll have to de-install this beta version. it wouldn't allow me to run my outlook 2007. must be some conflict

You might find some conflicts in some circumstances, but it should work. I have Office 2010 working just fine alongside Office 2013.

[lcg]

My first impressions are similar to Ambroos', but as Calum has said, I'll need to use it regularly before I can develop a reasonable opinion.

ChrisJ1968, on 16 July 2012 - 22:50, said:

if you have an earlier version of office on your system, you'll have to de-install this beta version. it wouldn't allow me to run my outlook 2007. must be some conflict

Thankfully it hasn't affected my installation of Office 2010.

[+TCLN Ryster]

If you have an Office app open full screen like that, then why wouldn't you also have the document full screen. I've fixed Ambroos' image a bit to illustrate my point. It's nowhere near as "white" if your set your window size to something more appropriate to the document you are viewing.



I agree the grey (and it is grey, although a very light grey) behind the document could be darkened a bit to better differentiate between the "paper" and the app background. Perhaps something like this...

[Charisma]

nesl247, on 16 July 2012 - 22:32, said:

I think it actually is off by default. The reason I think we're not seeing it like that is we've all probably had 2010 already on our systems. A clean user profile will probably have it unpinned.

Ah, fair point.

jakem1, on 16 July 2012 - 22:40, said:

The ribbon is off by default in touch-mode.

There ya go. I knew he said something about that.

It is awfully bright--I know some like that, but I'm a Darkside/dark background type. A lot easier on my eyes I know when I first installed 2007 or 2010 for some users, their first question was how to change the light blue to something more demure.
Again... come on, stop taking away our options... I want to like this!

[Ambroos]

rfirth, on 16 July 2012 - 22:52, said:

That's weird. Office 2010 is slower than Office 2013 on my machine. Office 2013 is very fast here.

...

Explain.

About the speed issue: opening things is much slower for me. And sometimes things don't react instantly, as if they're waiting to see if you're going to make some other gesture. Scrolling, moving things around, ... All feels less smooth. And in PowerPoint from time to time it takes over 10 seconds for a slide to load when clicked on it in the slide strip on the left, even almost empty slides. And a lot of text in PowerPoint types very slow since it seems to want to render them with all the shading right away. Feels like you're typing in Photoshop. But I'll give it to them that this is a beta/preview and I hope those things will get ironed out. (like the bug where when you open documents the window gets pushed completely to the background)

The typing then, the cursor doesn't instantly move to it's new position after the letter you just typed, instead it gradually moves there over a short period of time. This sort of gives me the impression I'm typing too slow. And it is quite distracting, even though I'd have to give it more time to form a proper judgement on that.

And about the theme, I know I shouldn't maximize one-page documents, and usually I roll with two documents side by side or two pages side by side. But the issue remains that because everything is just white with very faint borders, you lose overview. You can no longer glance at your screen to have an approximate idea of where something is located in your user interface because everything looks the same. In other Metro apps this problem is much less apparent because they have different font sizes everywhere. In Office and Visual Studio they seem to not want to increase font size but decided to go with the ALL CAPS APPROACH, which makes me feel like my computer is shouting at me. Even though nothing in the ribbon changed place in Word it still had me looking for features longer than it took me in 2010 or 2007.

[+scumdogmillionaire]

Hotmail accounts in Outlook don't show subscribed calendars (Birthday Calendar, US Holidays, my wife's shared calendar with me, etc...)
The Hotmail Connector in 2010 worked great, but the Exchange ActiveSync implementation doesn't seem to be doing it

That makes it a non-starter for me. Hopefully they fix for RTM.

[DrCheese]

Quote

The typing then, the cursor doesn't instantly move to it's new position after the letter you just typed, instead it gradually moves there over a short period of time. This sort of gives me the impression I'm typing too slow. And it is quite distracting, even though I'd have to give it more time to form a proper judgement on that.

oh god this... it's really strange. It feels like you're typing through mud... I don't see this feature lasting until the RTM in it's present form, unless MS wants users to think that the product is slow (even when it's not)

Publisher doesn't have this, but publisher has always been a generation behind on office improvements (2007 had no ribbon)

As for the UI.. Oh god outlook. Why Microsoft, WHY?!

[majortom1981]

Ambroos, on 16 July 2012 - 22:58, said:

About the speed issue: opening things is much slower for me. And sometimes things don't react instantly, as if they're waiting to see if you're going to make some other gesture. Scrolling, moving things around, ... All feels less smooth. And in PowerPoint from time to time it takes over 10 seconds for a slide to load when clicked on it in the slide strip on the left, even almost empty slides. And a lot of text in PowerPoint types very slow since it seems to want to render them with all the shading right away. Feels like you're typing in Photoshop. But I'll give it to them that this is a beta/preview and I hope those things will get ironed out. (like the bug where when you open documents the window gets pushed completely to the background)

The typing then, the cursor doesn't instantly move to it's new position after the letter you just typed, instead it gradually moves there over a short period of time. This sort of gives me the impression I'm typing too slow. And it is quite distracting, even though I'd have to give it more time to form a proper judgement on that.

You probably downloaded the office 365 preview. That one is streaming so the apps a streaming from the web. So if you have a slow connection you will have a slower app. You have to download the 700 meg full version of office 2013

[Javik]

It's much the same in Outlook. The level of whiteness just doesn't look right.

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