http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-toolbar-and-menus.html

Since I was quite satisfied with the last modifications, I can't really criticize the new one, but it seems that it answers all users requests...

I think it is very simple and very easy to use (so instinctive). It is also very compact and fast to load. Perfect...

So, when will Google adapt the toolbar & UI of Presentation and Spreadsheet? Looking for coherence

You'll also notice that the "directory" is now like Gmail labels: you can change color!

Plus a new "more action": to change owner.

Not sure it's new, but there's also a new police available (Wingdings). I don't use it on a daily basis, but... just in case :)

I think the history table isn't so easy to manage: just browse compacted revisions and try to come back to editing (need several clicks).

I think it's also new: you can drag and drop image in a document. Cool.

Question: what is exactly the difference between "printer-friendly HTML" and "preview"? Seems that the HTML editor is dead...

Correction: the HTML editor is at the bottom of the "edit" menu.

Great that they added functionality like, change owner and recheck spelling. But the UI is again quite "old fashioned". Although I wouldn't say I liked the old interface at least it wasn't a copy of the microsoft interface.

I like the new UI. When are they going to do this to Spreadsheets? Will we see a new update to the main Google Docs file management page too?

I like it too. Once they get this sorted it would be nice to see it rolled out to other Google Apps. (namely GMail)

An explanation from Google's post on this:

<<So a while ago, our Docs User Research team worked on a "card-sort" study in which we disconnected all features in the application from the places we had put them in the UI, and asked some people what the labels and icons meant to them, and how they would group the concepts they represented. One of the things we found was that names such as File, Edit, Format, and Tools resonated as "where you might look" for certain editing features. Check spelling? Seems to fit in a "Tools" group to many people. Find and replace? People generally look for that in an "Edit" group.>>
http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-toolbar-and-menus.html

I sort of miss the tabs but I think this will be easier for people who are used to offline word processors. Anyway it can't be any worse than Office 2007 can it?

"Printer Friendly HTML" that's new isn't it? By new I mean the option is new. I know it used to be the default for Print before .pdf

Jérôme Flipo
Wingdings was added when the bar below that was updated

> "Printer Friendly HTML" that's new isn't it?

I think that's the same as what Preview > Print did before.

The Printer Friendly HTML is for me an outcome if I need to print at school, because no pdf reader is installed on the public computers, so I always copied it into word which would sometimes mess up (double spacing for example).

This is a horrible retrograde step. Office 2007 moved to tabs of icons because people recognise icons by position faster than they do long lists of text (menus). The menu UI is such an outdated concept it makes me cry to see Google resurrect it.

Frankly, after the mess that is the new docslist with it's Windows 3.1 style UI, it seems writely now is going the Word 6.0 route :(

Looking at the source code, the View menu will be added soon with a normal page / fixed width page options, as shown in this screenshot:

http://blogoscoped.com/files/tools-presentation/google-docs-2.png

From this post: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-03-12-n39.html

(They just need to set the "enable_page_view" variable to true.)

Ash, on the other hand I am confused by the 100s of icons the latest version of Word shows me when I open it up (and I miss the menu-on-top in Internet Explorer 7+)... and much prefer the "menus + some restricted icons in the toolbar (if needed)" combo. Like Firefox, or Google Docs, or older Windows apps. Also, there is no way to both fit in 100s of icons in the toolbar and also have them all labeled with text – there's just too little space. Which means you will not be able to keyword-scan, right?

The old Docs UI wasn't that great it must be said, and, while I do like Office 2007, I'll settle for menus in GDocs until a better UI is developed.

"seems to be one of the most heavily worked on Google applicatons that does not have any advertisement stuck to it"

Google Docs does have a paid version with corporate clients, so it makes sense that the app is actively worked on.

Google Docs doesn't have a paid version.

>>Google Docs doesn't have a paid version.
I guess you could justify Google Apps Premier Edition as a "paid version", although I'm not sure there are any changes for the Apps version, its still part of the selling point of Apps.

Google Apps looks like something from the 90's! what a lame company...

It's pretty silly to use a "card sorting" exercise and to expect the result to be anything other than the bland type of navigation system that every other word processor has used since the 80s. Since when did Google put so much stock into what users say. Shouldn't they be doing something better than what users suggest?

This feels like a step backward as far as product innovation.

I don't particularly like the new UI: I'm with most everyone here, this feels like a step backwards to me. I'm pretty fond of the Office 07 UI.

That being said, I know several less technically inclined people who work with Google Docs, and the number one thing I end up helping them with is finding things. For instance, recently I got the complaint that although Google Docs is great, it doesn't have spellcheck. It _does_ have spellcheck, of course, but that person couldn't find it.

Google Docs did a good thing being consistent with the the version of Office most people are used to (which is not '07). It may seem silly to us, with our above average computer expertise, but to the average user this is exactly what was needed.

There's an announce in the "new features" page of Google Docs about historical prices.

So sad to see that a new feature doesn't even exist... Without any explanation from the a Googler :(
http://groups.google.com/group/How-to-Documents/browse_thread/thread/68e92812ec20c5dc/2412aed812e21e01

The blinking caret in Firefox is a bug in Firefox 2. The caret wasn't drawn as part of the rest of the layout system – it was drawn afterwards.

A lot of work went into revamping this aspect in Firefox 3.