Comments on: We May Now Discuss Excel 12

By: Harald Staff

Harald Staff — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 00:14:00 +0000

It's NDA as in "Now Discuss Application". Keep it coming !

Best wishes Harald

By: Graham

Graham — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 16:55:00 +0000

But J-Walk – think of the book sales!!

By: John Walkenbach

John Walkenbach — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 03:21:00 +0000

NDA is still in effect, eh?

Well, in that case, forget everything I said -- which is nothing that hasn't already appeared in Microsoft's blogs.

By: Tushar Mehta

Tushar Mehta — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 21:15:00 +0000

FWIW, I asked for clarification from MS in a beta-participants-only forum. The response from a MS employee was to the effect “The NDA is still in effect…”

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 21:00:00 +0000

Stephen -

Perhaps you're right about the ribbon customization, but all I remember hearing about in the context of changing the ribbon was XML (and I was really trying to pay attention).

I know you've been working on the task pane issue, and I figured you'd have something for us at some point. I know I'll be sure to check it out.

By: Stephen Bullen

Stephen Bullen — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 17:39:00 +0000

Jon, I think it's premature to write off the ability to customize the ribbon from VBA. It's a bit like the charting - too much isn't yet there (in beta1) for us to form an opinion. Let's wait until beta 2 and later to see what we end up with.

As for the custom task panes, if you want a full DIY solution, you can only create them using ActiveX controls (i.e. VB6/.Net, not VBA). However, I have written a COM Addin that I'll make public on my site that will allow us to show standard VBA userforms as Task Panes.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 14:55:00 +0000

Jokes about old dogs and new tricks aside, I don't think retraining will be the largest burden of Office 12. After a couple days with the Beta, I'd internalized how the interface worked. I couldn't always find what I was looking for, but neither can I in legacy versions of Office.

The biggest problem will be the customizability of menus and commandbars. The backwards compatibility consists of dumping all of the customizations into a single Add-Ins tab, where things are all kind of mushed together. The Ribbon-Tab-Chunk interface, which admittedly is no dumber than menus and submenus and sub-submenus, is completely invisible to VBA. It can be changed via XML, but it is not straightforward to a VBA jockey such as myself how this will play out in practice. I suspect that it will be a more tortuous process to effect customizations than in 2003. You will be able finally to control and create task panes, but this also seems like it will take superhuman (well, superVBA) powers.

Anyway, Jensen Harris' blog has reams of information about the new UI:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/default.aspx

By: Harald Staff

Harald Staff — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 14:22:00 +0000

Thanks John. I hope that those of you that spend time on the beta will find time to post something here from time time.

And I'll definitely buy your "migrating to Excel 12? book. (You are writing one ?)

Best wishes Harald

By: Bill Schanks

Bill Schanks — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 07:05:00 +0000

They still work. I read some time ago on the XL12 Blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/default.aspx) that it would be kept for backwards compatibility.

I have seen where if you create a toolbar it will place it under Add-ins at the top.

By: Ken Puls

Ken Puls — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 02:38:00 +0000

Surely the product must be backwards compatible to support menus and toolbars made in prior versions? If it isn’t then I, for one, can not afford to upgrade, simply for the effect it will have on my users.