Development

PureText, the coolest thing since they put a pocket in the pita

Heather Solomon — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 16:00:00 GMT

I picked up a link to this tool from a comment to a blog post and I have already used it extensively this morning. It allows you to strip the formatting that gets added to text copied from an Office application by clicking an icon in your systray between the copy and the paste. So basically it takes out that added step of opening up NotePad, pasting in the text, copying it once more, and pasting again in your final target place.

It is an ideal and essential tool for both SharePoint CEWPs and MCMS. Definitely worth a download:

PureText 2.0

Countdown to Xmas Webbie Style - 24 tips

Heather Solomon — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 17:36:00 GMT

Interesting site... a new tip will be posted each day this month. The first was easy Ajax and the second an insight on the em unit of measure.

24 Ways to impress your friends

Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar has been updated

Heather Solomon — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 15:17:00 GMT

Thanks Renaud! This toolbar is invaluable and you should install it. MSFT has released an updated version on 10/31/05.

» Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar

If you don't already, get a feed for Jensen Harris

Heather Solomon — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 23:43:00 GMT

Jensen Harris works on the MSFT user experience team and has been regularly posting great info about the much talked about Office 12 “ribbon”. If you are interested in Office 12, usability or reasoning behind the ribbon, check out his blog. Plus he is funny to boot.

Some recent posts:

What programs get the new Office UI?
A number of programs and services make up what is now called the Microsoft Office System. Not all of them will include the new user interface I've been blogging about in Office 12....

The Why of the New UI (Part 1)
This is the first in a series of Monday entries I'm going to publish over the upcoming weeks in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 12....

Ye Olde Museum Of Office Past (Why the UI, Part 2)
Today, I want to take you on a journey. A journey that starts back into the cold recesses of the mid-1980s, back into the days of EGA and serial port mice and the MS-DOS Executive......

Thrown For a Loop
The Ribbon is an example of what's called in academic circles "modal" design. Broadly, this means a design which is split into "modes", only one of which is active at a time. In the Ribbon's case, this means that the features are grouped together into tabs, and only one tab is shown at a time....

Be Willing To Be Wrong
Early in our work designing Ribbon content, we had little data to go on in terms of how different content layouts within the Ribbon would affect the usability of the features being laid out....

Angus and Workflow - Bolding going where no man has gone before

Heather Solomon — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 23:33:00 GMT

Via Angus:

** WAY COOL ** Making Windows Workflow Foundation History with Office Applications
Mick and I just made history (I think). He was doing a lab and some R&D at the BPI+WF conference in the labs around WWF and embedding that in custom .NET applications

I came over and we talked about "why don't we embed this in the Office Client applications using VSTO. He quickly fired up Visual Studio 2005 (Whidbey) and re-worked his code into a Word Project.

Firstly - Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) rocks hard! Infact It Rocks the Most! and being able to combine that with the awesomely unknown power of Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF, Smackdown) was great.

So what we did was embedded the designer into the Task Pane so you can actually design workflows from within word (ie. drag on shapes and modify code etc.)

Inital thoughts we had was that you could be working in WORD/EXCEL/etc. and then define the workflow for the document whilst working on the document and then kick off that workflow.

Another great idea was if your document was saved in a Windows SharePoint Services Document Library you could then redesign the workflow on the document library from within the Office applications (instead of designing Front Page). CHECK OUT POST FOR MORE

That is way cool. Think about all the business analysts/admins/support staff types who could whip up a workflow in an app they are comfortable with and then it actually be used.

I fell in love today... I met Master Pages

Heather Solomon — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 23:25:00 GMT

Dear Master Pages,

While our time was brief today and not very complicated or involved, I was touched by your ease of use and integration in VS05. It was my first time with you, Master Pages, and you left me longing for more. I felt that stir deep in my gut that some would call “geeking out”. I am smitten. I am sold. I will convert with open arms and happy singing. I love you Master Pages, please come and make my life easier.

Yours truly, a Designer in a Developer World

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