Microsoft Office Classic Edition
Dec 22, 2016 11:04:08 GMT -8
Post by R.O.B. on Dec 22, 2016 11:04:08 GMT -8
So I mentioned in this thread that I had kind of, sort of found a fix for Microsoft Office and the Windows Classic theme on Windows 8+, however I also said that there is quite a large cost for getting it to work flawlessly. Well, here's all of the information I've found on this topic thus far.
-------------------------
Firstly, the cost for getting Office to look acceptable with the classic theme... is the Ribbon UI.
Like, the entire Ribbon UI. It needs to be removed in order for the window to work as intended. And I don't just mean collapsing/hiding it; I mean completely killing it from the process of said Office application.
And I have managed to do just that! I have tested this on Office 2007, 2010, and 2013, and it seems to work flawlessly on each version.
Here are some screenshots (taken on Windows 8.1) to show you exactly what that looks like:
Now I know what you're thinking: "R.O.B., you're crazy! There's no way Office can be even slightly usable without the ribbon. I mean without access to all of the Office features, I might as well be using Wordpad."
And for the most part, you'd be right.
HOWEVER, while ribbon needs to die here, that doesn't necessarily mean functionality needs to be sacrificed.
This screenshot shows Word 2007 without ribbon on Windows 7 and with an add-in called ToolbarToggle:
"But R.O.B., I like the Ribbon UI. I'd rather not go back to using an Office 2003 interface."
Well I can't say that I really blame you there. After all, ribbon was introduced nearly a decade ago, and by now most people have probably gotten used to it. And even though my personal preference is the Office 2003 toolbars, I can still understand the appeal of ribbon (in fact, even I use it almost daily).
But if ToolbarToggle can emulate the Office 2003 toolbars as well as it does, then who's to say that the same thing can't be done for ribbon?
However, this brings us back to one of our biggest running problems here on WinClassic. One of the most important things that we lack:
And I wish I could say that was the end of the problems with all this is. But unfortunately, it's not. Because even if you WANT to use ToolbarToggle, it's payware (with a 5 day free trial). And its vendor doesn't seem to be in business anymore, which means that our only real option for that is to try and pirate it. Since I can't seem to find a working serial key for it anywhere on the internet, I'm currently attempting to crack it myself. But I don't really have a lot of experience with this type of thing. I'll update if I manage to get a serial key for it.
Now, as for how to actually disable the ribbon yourself, it basically involves killing the parent window (with the MsoCommandBar class) of the ribbon's MsoWorkPane window. To do this, you can use a program such as Window Detective to kill it manually. But I'd say the most practical thing to do would be to make the process automated (probably with AutoHotKey or something similar). Based on what I could find, I think this would probably be the most practical method for doing this:
(PARENT) | Window Class: MsoCommandBar | Window Text: ""
|
|- (CHILD) | Window Class: MsoWorkPane | Window Text: "Ribbon"
1) Find child window (MsoWorkPane) with the window text/title "Ribbon"
2) Kill parent window (MsoCommandBar) But Only kill if it has child window is as described in step 1.
3) Automate via AutoHotKey
4)
??
5) PROFIT!
So as you can see, there's still a lot that needs to be done for this to be usable on a regular basis, especially if you want to continue using a Ribbon interface. But I think if we get things moving, we could have the ultimate version of Microsoft Office: a version that has all of the features introduced in Office 2007 and later, but with the OPTION of switching back to Office 2003's classic toolbars if the user wants to do so.
But what about for now? Well like I said, I'm going to continue to try and crack ToolbarToggle. But for the fans of the Ribbon interface, you could look into getting your hands on Office 2013 if at all possible. It works perfectly with the Ribbon UI, even if you are using the classic theme (haven't tested 2016 yet, but I'm assuming it works just as well). The biggest issue I have here is, in my experience, Office as a whole seems to get slower with every new release, so that wouldn't be my favorite solution.
Well, sorry for that big wall of information. I just had a lot I wanted to cover here. I do hope this information can be helpful, and I especially hope we can do something with this.
-------------------------
Firstly, the cost for getting Office to look acceptable with the classic theme... is the Ribbon UI.
Like, the entire Ribbon UI. It needs to be removed in order for the window to work as intended. And I don't just mean collapsing/hiding it; I mean completely killing it from the process of said Office application.
And I have managed to do just that! I have tested this on Office 2007, 2010, and 2013, and it seems to work flawlessly on each version.
Here are some screenshots (taken on Windows 8.1) to show you exactly what that looks like:
Now I know what you're thinking: "R.O.B., you're crazy! There's no way Office can be even slightly usable without the ribbon. I mean without access to all of the Office features, I might as well be using Wordpad."
And for the most part, you'd be right.
HOWEVER, while ribbon needs to die here, that doesn't necessarily mean functionality needs to be sacrificed.
This screenshot shows Word 2007 without ribbon on Windows 7 and with an add-in called ToolbarToggle:
"But R.O.B., I like the Ribbon UI. I'd rather not go back to using an Office 2003 interface."
Well I can't say that I really blame you there. After all, ribbon was introduced nearly a decade ago, and by now most people have probably gotten used to it. And even though my personal preference is the Office 2003 toolbars, I can still understand the appeal of ribbon (in fact, even I use it almost daily).
But if ToolbarToggle can emulate the Office 2003 toolbars as well as it does, then who's to say that the same thing can't be done for ribbon?
However, this brings us back to one of our biggest running problems here on WinClassic. One of the most important things that we lack:
And I wish I could say that was the end of the problems with all this is. But unfortunately, it's not. Because even if you WANT to use ToolbarToggle, it's payware (with a 5 day free trial). And its vendor doesn't seem to be in business anymore, which means that our only real option for that is to try and pirate it. Since I can't seem to find a working serial key for it anywhere on the internet, I'm currently attempting to crack it myself. But I don't really have a lot of experience with this type of thing. I'll update if I manage to get a serial key for it.
Now, as for how to actually disable the ribbon yourself, it basically involves killing the parent window (with the MsoCommandBar class) of the ribbon's MsoWorkPane window. To do this, you can use a program such as Window Detective to kill it manually. But I'd say the most practical thing to do would be to make the process automated (probably with AutoHotKey or something similar). Based on what I could find, I think this would probably be the most practical method for doing this:
(PARENT) | Window Class: MsoCommandBar | Window Text: ""
|
|- (CHILD) | Window Class: MsoWorkPane | Window Text: "Ribbon"
1) Find child window (MsoWorkPane) with the window text/title "Ribbon"
2) Kill parent window (MsoCommandBar) But Only kill if it has child window is as described in step 1.
3) Automate via AutoHotKey
4)
??5) PROFIT!
So as you can see, there's still a lot that needs to be done for this to be usable on a regular basis, especially if you want to continue using a Ribbon interface. But I think if we get things moving, we could have the ultimate version of Microsoft Office: a version that has all of the features introduced in Office 2007 and later, but with the OPTION of switching back to Office 2003's classic toolbars if the user wants to do so.
But what about for now? Well like I said, I'm going to continue to try and crack ToolbarToggle. But for the fans of the Ribbon interface, you could look into getting your hands on Office 2013 if at all possible. It works perfectly with the Ribbon UI, even if you are using the classic theme (haven't tested 2016 yet, but I'm assuming it works just as well). The biggest issue I have here is, in my experience, Office as a whole seems to get slower with every new release, so that wouldn't be my favorite solution.
Well, sorry for that big wall of information. I just had a lot I wanted to cover here. I do hope this information can be helpful, and I especially hope we can do something with this.
