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dosgame.club is the fediverse home of <a href="https://dosgameclub.com">DOS Game Club</a>. People here are all in one way or another involved with retro computing or retro gaming.

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Finally have 3 displays set up for working from home. I have these vague memories, as if from some previous life, of using a computer productively with only a single display. How... how did we ever do that?

Here is Windows 9x and Word 9x at 800x600 resolution. Spacious. Comfy. Super Usable.

Here is a modern Word replaced (TextMaker from Softmaker) in an 800x600 window. Barely usable. Editing space is eaten up by TONs of GUI elements. text is hard to read. SMH

@48kRAM And here is Word 2019, which I daresay is even worse than TextMaker. Look at the big gap on the ribbon where you could put lots of nice buttons!

@lunarloony Yeah I feel like the ribbon paradigm is largely to blame for this issue. Unfortunately it's an all-or-nothing setting. You either see Everything or Nothing (if you collapse the ribbon). I remember spending time customizing my toolbars in Win 9x versions of Office and that was super powerful. I feel like that choice has been taken away from us largely. (Though I'll bet a terrible version of it still exists if I looked hard enough)

Lunar 🛸 ♾

@48kRAM The closest thing I've found, save for reverting to Office 2003, is this: ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-lang
It's a little janky, but it's something!

Unfortunately, the "classic" menu is long gone from Office itself.

www.ubit.chUBitMenu International Languages
@lunarloony @48kRAM m more reason to use #OpenOffice. I got more of my family to switch to Free Software when Microsoft Introduced the Ribbon. Unfortunately #LibreOffice has adopted it, under the premises of making adoption easier by non-free software users, but #openOffice is still perfect 😉

@fu @48kRAM LibreOffice uses the old-school menu by default, but it does include an option for a ribbon-style interface too! Also, it's still maintained.

@lunarloony @fu Honestly, I can't stand anything descended from StarOffice anymore. It feels so slow, the install is mahoosive, and the GUI looks like.... well.... like it was descended from Java. Anyway, that's my Office Suite Hot Take for today :blobrofl:

@lunarloony @48kRAM OpenOffice is still maintained they had a new official release earlier this year. Personally I prefer to use products that have less churn.

@fu @48kRAM @lunarloony OpenOffice is dead, stabbed in the back by Oracle.

LibreOffice for the win. For me the only snag is that the word processor module doesn't have an outliner. Outlining is an essential writer's tool, and I miss it badly... so I keep Word 97 around, running under WINE.

@fu @lunarloony @48kRAM Hey, nothing wrong with options. The problem with LibreOffice’s implementation of the ribbon (and so mant others) is that it’s just kind of a coat of a paint that looks like the ribbon, but lacks the functionality (KeyTips, for example).

That being said, I’m pretty sure that functionality is patented and while I don’t think their goal was to turn it into an income stream, I do think the idea was that devs targeting Windows would want to use their SDKs to integrate the ribbon into their software, not have FOSS folks imitate it elsewhere, so they probably could be shitty about it if they wanted to…

@fu @48kRAM @lunarloony A lot of legitimate implementations have misused the concept so badly though, I can’t blame some people for hating the ribbon. But I do think a lot of people rag on the ribbon without really giving it a chance, mainly because I did for years, but I must give credit where credit is due: Microsoft has made many terrible UI choices over the years; the ribbon had some solid thought put into it.

And this is coming from someone who is really, really, really not a fan of Micrsoft.

@48kRAM @fu @lunarloony Highly recommend Tantacrul’s video on Sibelius for a good example, but mainly because it manages to be both an in depth UI case study, and bloody hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKx1wnXClcI

@gordoooo_z @fu @48kRAM I feel like I've given the ribbon a fair chance over the years - even participated in the Office 2010 beta at the time, which improved the ribbon massively from 2007 if I recall. But having used earlier versions since, I can safely say I prefer the old-style menu bar.

That said, anyone who prefers the ribbon, they're welcome to it. Like you say, it's nice to have the option: alas, alack.

@lunarloony @fu @48kRAM Fair enough. I wasn't really aiming that directly at you, for the record, but I just know that a lot of people still hold on to that initial "ugh, change" reaction to the ribbon, much like I did.

What sold me was when I started using Excel at a logistics job for 12 hours a day, and those KeyTips had me up and running on my keyboard game in no time.

Compared to hovering over buttons to wait for a tooltip to tell you what key combo to hit, the key sequences were like a speedrun trainer.

@gordoooo_z @fu @48kRAM Oh, I apologise! - didn't mean for it to come across that way at all. Darn text still eludes me with its lack of social nuance.

@lunarloony @fu @48kRAM Don't worry, you're good. I was just being extra clear in light of text's lack of social nuance 😁