Of2007 Silver Scheme

  • Thread starter Thread starter C. Moya
  • Start date Start date
C

C. Moya

Am I the only that thinks Office 2007's silver scheme in ribbon apps looks
"dirty?" I don't know it just looks.... um, not very good. It's not the same
color set as Office 2003's silver colors (at least it doesn't seem so)...
and it's definately not the same color set as XP's standard shiny Silver
Scheme (which I think is perfect IMHO).

Everytime I look at an Office 2007 app on my desktop I get sleepy. Something
about it. I dunno...
 
OK. I think I realized it's not so much the color scheme as the fact that
TEXT all over the place (ribbon, status bar, even the title bar(!)) is a
dark gray. IMHO this doesn't have the effect that I think the designers
intended (to soften the look and feel). It instead makes it hard on the eyes
and seem.... sorta dirty (dusty, old, etc.).
 
Am I the only that thinks Office 2007's silver scheme in ribbon apps looks
"dirty?"
Click to expand...

Perhaps not, but at this point it's a done deal. Not much to be done about it.

And in any case, this group is a collection of users and volunteers; MS gives
us the sandbox but doesn't join in our playtime here. We're pretty sympathetic
to a bit of needed venting, but can't do much beyond lend a sympathetic ear and
offer the occasional "Hear, hear". ;-)
 
Eh... I was just wonder if maybe my eyes were going... in my old age. :-)
The dk-gray text on the lt-gray background is just annoying me. In all my UI
learnings I always thought that was definately a no-no.

I thought Office XP/2002's (and VStudio 2003) two-toned silver flat toolbar
got everything right... easy on the eyes and pleasing. Office 2003 (and
VStudio 2005) are a bit on the gaudy and ugly side (aside from the initial
"gee-whiz" cool factor). But Office 2007's silver takes the cake in
uglliness IMHO.

*sigh*
 
Has anyone given some thought to how these Office 2007 themes are applied.
The change is instant, so I'm assuming the colors etc are stored somewhere,
and one only has to change a registry setting or some such thing to make the
effect. If this is the cast, and either MS will show us how, or someone can
find the files, we could color or theme our Office 2007 anyway we wanted.
Any thoughts on this? Maybe a MVP could suggest this to someone who can
really listen at MS.
 
According to a blog by Jensen, the Office UI Program Manager,
(http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/) there was all sorts of Rocket Science to
make Office 2007's color schemes. They're not simple color1-to-color2
gradients. Yeah yeah yeah. If you ask me- you could not tell by looking at
the Silver scheme. I haven't worked with Blue long enough, but it didn't
look earth-shattering either... at least nothing worth the aggravation of a
madly inconsistent UI experience.

P.S.
I wonder what the few folks who run XP's Olive's scheme must feel.
 
Any thoughts on this? Maybe a MVP could suggest this to someone who can
really listen at MS.
Click to expand...

<catty>

I'm not convinced that the UI team at MS listens to much of anybody.

</catty>
 
MS has said before that no one will be able to change the theme.
And just to echo Echo's sentiment, Office 2007 is done and this is what
it will look and feel like until the next version comes out. MVP or not,
you can complain and suggest as much as you want, the effect will
probably be barely noticeable...

For all the UI issues (inconsistencies etc), you can either learn to
live with it, find some workaround or just not use Office 2007. MS won't
change anything.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed
 
You're probably right. But my feeling is that MS is on the ropes in many
ways. It would behoove them to add a little spring to their step. Office
2007 has the potential of being a huge disaster.

--
-C. Moya
www.cmoya.com

Patrick Schmid said:
MS has said before that no one will be able to change the theme.
And just to echo Echo's sentiment, Office 2007 is done and this is what it
will look and feel like until the next version comes out. MVP or not, you
can complain and suggest as much as you want, the effect will probably be
barely noticeable...

For all the UI issues (inconsistencies etc), you can either learn to live
with it, find some workaround or just not use Office 2007. MS won't change
anything.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed


Has anyone given some thought to how these Office 2007 themes are
applied.
The change is instant, so I'm assuming the colors etc are stored
somewhere,
and one only has to change a registry setting or some such thing to make
the
effect. If this is the cast, and either MS will show us how, or someone
can
find the files, we could color or theme our Office 2007 anyway we wanted.
Any thoughts on this? Maybe a MVP could suggest this to someone who can
really listen at MS.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
C. Moya wrote...
You're probably right. But my feeling is that MS is on the ropes in many
ways. It would behoove them to add a little spring to their step. Office
2007 has the potential of being a huge disaster.
Click to expand...
....

Responding from the Excel newsgroup.

It all depends on whether corporate buyers will act like critical
thinkers or lemmings. If like the latter, they'll probably adopt Office
2007 at a slightly slower rate than they adopted Office 2003 (slow
lemmings getting slower). If they think about the upgrade, then some
will adopt quickly for the new features, and some will decide not to
update any time soon. The not-any-time-soon group will include
companies that have heavy investments in Excel and/or Access
applications that had made heavy use of modifying the default menus
and/or created several special purpose toolbars. That is, if the
reprogramming cost of converting toolbars to either the ribbon or task
panes is perceived as too great, then a fair number of companies will
likely wait for the next version after Office 2007.

As for the wonderful new themes and the inconsistencies between
applications, Microsoft was faced with a choice: be embarrassed by
these inconsistencies or be embarrassed by not shipping a new Office
version until mid-2007 at the earliest. They chose the option that
would bring in more revenue (what a shock!).

As someone whose Office usage is roughly 70% Excel, 25% Access, 5% Word
and have changed the default operation for .PPT files from Open to Show
(since I only view the @#$% things and never create 'em) and don't use
Outlook for e-mail, my UI preferences are probably skewed compared the
the 'average' Office user. Still, it was VERY USEFUL to be able to dock
some toolbars on the right or on the bottom of Excel and Access
application windows. The new Office 2007 UI eliminates that
functionality. And unless the feature some poor, dumb user wants is on
the current ribbon tab, claims that it'd be easier to find in the
ribbon seem specious to me. In case it isn't clear yet, I do just kinda
sorta hope that Office 2007 is a disaster sales-wise. But there's a lot
of lemmings out there.
 
Has anyone given some thought to how these Office 2007 themes are applied.
The change is instant, so I'm assuming the colors etc are stored somewhere,
and one only has to change a registry setting or some such thing to make the
effect. If this is the cast, and either MS will show us how, or someone can
find the files, we could color or theme our Office 2007 anyway we wanted.
Any thoughts on this? Maybe a MVP could suggest this to someone who can
really listen at MS.
Click to expand...

I was hoping Patrick would pop in with a how-to on this; I see he's at least
come up with an authoritative answer. Not the one we wanted, but at least we
don't have to make anymore head-dents in this particular wall.
 
I was hoping Patrick would pop in with a how-to on this; I see he's
at least
come up with an authoritative answer. Not the one we wanted, but at least we
don't have to make anymore head-dents in this particular wall.
Click to expand...
I wished I could. MS was clear that we can't do it. If anyone wants to
try and find a hack, give it a try...

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed
 
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