Smart(er) Tags

Microsoft Office applications allow you to control when Smart Tags are triggered by using ‘recognizers’. The list of recognizers can be altered, in most cases through the AutoCorrect options dialog. (See screenshot of Word’s AutoCorrect dialog below.)

It would be good if the list box could allow the user to drill down each recognizer item and view sample data (e.g. for ‘Dates’ the sample data would be a date, such as ‘1/1/2003’).

There are two ways in which this could be implemented, namely:

  1. Show it just underneath each item when the item is expanded.
  2. Display a ‘More…’ button underneath each item, which will open a dialog that displays the sample data.
Figure: Smart tag settings in Microsoft Word

Figure: Smart tag settings in Microsoft Word

Getting More Smart Tags

Office could be improved in how it handles extending of its smart tag functionality.

Currently adding a custom smart tag requires editing registry; this should not be necessary. It would be better to implement an “Add Smart Tag” button to the Smart Tags tab of the AutoCorrect dialog.

Also, the “More Smart Tags” button in this dialog should be implemented as a hyperlink, as it links directly to a page on the Microsoft website.

Figure: Smart tag settings in Microsoft Word

Figure: Smart tag settings in Microsoft Word

Highlight button

Users of the Google Toolbar may be familiar with the Highlight option, which highlights all occurrences of the current search keywords in the current document. This is a very handy feature and it would be good to see it in all Microsoft Office applications as well.

Figure: Google highlight option in use

Figure: Google highlight option in use

Readable Settings Files

It would be nice if Office stored all of its settings files in a readable format. For example, if the settings files were stored as XML, then the user could clearly see the settings that were applied, and also be able to import/export parts of the settings files themselves (this is different to the current system where you have an all-or-nothing approach to the import/export of settings).

Figure: Settings files are stored in binary format, they should be XML

Figure: Settings files are stored in binary format, they should be XML

But what about invalid xml?

Just give the user a message something like: “Someone has changed with the xml and now it is invalid. Reverting to default settings.”

Note: Have renamed the file to zzWord11.xml so that they can attempt to fix it if they want to.

I wish Outlook allowed you to have ‘Recurring Emails’ (like recurring appointments)

We share our calendars and one of the things that screws scheduling meetings, is because many people put in a non-appointments as appointments (people look busy when they are not). e.g. ‘Pay rent’ when they actually just need an email each Tuesday.

There is another advantage to removing appointments of this type, people get fewer reminders. So they don’t get desensitized to extra reminders that are not time critical.

  1. Do you agree we should not put in non-appointments as appointments?
  2. Does anyone else wish for recurring emails to their inbox?
  3. Is there any solution?

PS: I don’t really want to install an outlook add-in (but I’ll take anything)

Figure:'Pay Rent' just another non-appointment as an appointment - because of missing functionality in Outlook/Exchange

Figure:’Pay Rent’ just another non-appointment as an appointment – because of missing functionality in Outlook/Exchange