Bob -
Where to begin.... I'll start with some severely limiting changes to the new
dialogs, changes that greatly reduce one's productivity.
In the Format Axis dialog, Old Excel uses option buttons to show the choices
for tick marks and labels, so you can see them all before selecting, and it
takes one click to select. New Excel uses dropdowns, so it takes one click
to see the choices and another to select. We all know what the choices are,
but there aren't that many, so why hide them, especially since the dialogs
have so much blank space?
In the same dialog, in Old Excel if I want to change from an Auto scale
parameter to a Fixed one, I could just click on the number and edit it. In
New Excel I have to click on the Fixed option first, just to enable the text
box. In Old Excel if I click on Auto, the text box is highlighted, so all I
have to do is type the new value, but in New Excel it's not even activated.
I can't add error bars from the Format Series dialog, I have to go to the
ribbon, and this adds two sets at once (X and Y), and I still have to visit
the dialog to format them and select values.
In Old Excel, I could double click an object (a series, an axis, whatever),
make many changes in the dialog, then when I leave the dialog, I could
Ctrl+Z to undo all changes, or select another object and Ctrl+Y or F4 to
apply all the changes to the selection. In New Excel, double clicking no
longer pops up the Format Object dialog, and if you're lucky, Ctrl+Z and
Ctrl+Y remember just the last single formatting change you made; sometimes
they don't even remember that little.
So far, no bugs, just poor UI design choices. The source data dialog is
among the most confusing in 2007. I'm working on a charting UI add-in to
alleviate some of these issues.
Bugs, there are a few. If you specify custom error bar values, the syntax
is:
Function ErrorBar(Direction As XlErrorBarDirection, Include As
XlErrorBarInclude, Type As XlErrorBarType, [Amount], [MinusValues])
In Old Excel (i.e., in tons of existing code, even based on the macro
recorder), [Amount] and [MinusValues] are truly optional (note the
brackets), so you need not specify them. In New Excel, these are listed as
optional, but functionally they are NOT optional, so existing code falls
over unless you insert "0" for the optional arguments.
(Also the macro recorder has lost much of its functionality in 2007,
especially involving shapes and charts. But that's a rant for another day.)
I have a custom chart that has primary and secondary vertical axes. The
primary vertical axis has no labels or ticks, just the line, and I set it to
appear at zero. If the primary horizontal axis goes from negative to
positive, the axis is a nice indicator of zero, like a special gridline. If
the minimum is = zero, the axis merely appears on top of the secondary
axis, and doesn't bother anyone. Except in 2007, it doesn't appear on top of
the other axis, but actually to the left of the tick labels of the other
axis. It took me an hour to figure out what the vertical line was just
inside the left edge of the chart area. This is probably a feature, because
it means coincident axes do not obscure each other; but a feature that
changes functionality also breaks previous solutions.
Autosizing of textboxes doesn't work as it used to. I don't recall the
details, but one of my first Excel 2007 projects was designing a workaround
for a client.
There are more workarounds I've designed for clients and for myself, but
it's still early, and they are not coming to mind. I still got in a pretty
good rant, though, didn't I?
- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. -
http://PeltierTech.com
_______
"Bob Flanagan" wrote in message
...
Jon, could you expand on what you have found? I have a page at my site I
am updating and would like to list some of those problems.
Bob Flanagan
"Jon Peltier" wrote in message
...
I have found dozens of little stupid things like this that don't work the
way they used to. Not exactly bugs, I guess, but not exactly working
right. I think they were rushed into releasing Excel 12 with a
beta-quality charting system. I'm hoping they have a chance to fix it in
Excel 14.
- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______
"John" wrote in message
...
disapointing... thx. Brings in a number of problems if worksheet is
locked... etc
"Andy Pope" wrote:
The chart needs to be selected, as Jon stated.
But for me the tooltip appears without the actual series being
selected.
Cheers
Andy
John wrote:
I have both those options checked. Strange... I actually have to
select the
series and then hover... which I don't want to have to do
"Andy Pope" wrote:
Hi,
Check the options,
Show chart element names on hover
Show data point values on hover
Office button Excel Options Advanced Display section.
Cheers
Andy
John wrote:
In 2003 I used to be able to hover over a data point on a chart and
it would
give me the value... in 2007 it seems I am not able to do that... is
that
correct? how can I see the data point value on my chart without
double
clicking on it... want to just hover over it
--
Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel
http://www.andypope.info
--
Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel
http://www.andypope.info