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Re:The Windows 11 taskbar is an annoying step backward by KronisLV on Friday January 21, 2022 @02:43AM (#30020407)
> Drop down menus are so much quicker to scan

Another commenter mentioned OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/) but i'd also like to suggest LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/) as a capable and reasonably compatible alternative to MS Office, which retain the old look of dropdown menus.

If you don't have the need to support very particular features of Office, then it might just be suitable to retain your preferred way of navigating the UI of an office suite app - on my personal computers i have just LibreOffice (with which i finished my bachelor's and master's thesis), whereas on my work computer i have both LibreOffice and Word, for those few exceptions when the latter is necessary.

That said, i can understand why many would also find the ribbon UI to be easy to navigate, should they get used to it. That's why some Office clones, like WPS Office (https://www.wps.com/office/linux/) and FreeOffice (https://www.freeoffice.com/en/) seem to copy it with varying degrees of success. That said, personally i like the open source nature of LibreOffice too and the file format itself not being proprietary.

Re:The Windows 11 taskbar is an annoying step backward by tpxl on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:49AM (#30020889)
If I understand correctly, LibreOffice is a fork/successor of OpenOffice. Here's a comparison on the LibreOffice website: https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice-vs-openoffi.... It's a bit disingenuous though since it makes it seem OpenOffice hasn't had a release since 2014, even though last release was October 2021.
Re:The Windows 11 taskbar is an annoying step backward by SkeuomorphicBee on Friday January 21, 2022 @07:00AM (#30022289)
I found it quite accurate, not disingenuous at all. OpenOffice has been a maintenance-only project since 2014, they do release minor versions once in a while (like 4.1.11 in October 2021) with security fixes, some small bug fixes, plus whatever free-update they get from upstream libraries (e.g. updates to Unicode), but they don't have any plans to keep developing the software further, no new features. OpenOffice is a extraordinarily well maintained "legacy" software, and on that note, it is really cool that Apache stepped up to maintain it.
Re:The Windows 11 taskbar is an annoying step backward by jgtrosh on Friday January 21, 2022 @02:52AM (#30020470)
Libre Office also offers an optional ribbon style interface
Re:The Windows 11 taskbar is an annoying step backward by KronisLV on Friday January 21, 2022 @03:04AM (#30020556)
Oh yeah, totally forgot about it!

In case anyone would like to try it out, it's under:

  View > User Interface > (pick one of the Tabbed options, there are quite a few)
Now there's one more argument for open software - the developers caring enough to giving us that many options to support the preferences of many people without needlessly deprecating anything!