slightly off-topic

Post by **ElizabethD** » Sat May 18, 2019 2:25 pm

I'm here because I forgot how to do a ton of things, am out of date,...
anyway, I stumbled on this page, and just have 2 comments for now

Vicky,
Re https://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/viewt ... 980#p134980
about excel ribbon which I hate also.
UBitMenu addon adds old style menu, works great for me in Office 2007. If I can't find something on that stupid ribbon in 1 second, I click Menu and quickly navigate as I always do in Excel 2003 on XP.
https://www.techsupportalert.com/conten ... -menus.htm
https://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-to ... Menu.shtml
Developer's site:
http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/
It's free. No UAC issues. Just works.

Rob,
Ever thought of setting dual boot for windows 7 plus 10?

Need advice:
Shold I start a separate thread for these dumb questions?
1. On XP I have RM/RMIR 2.03 alpha28. Should I upgrade it or download the whole newest version?
2. Am I correct that I use Delcom cable for 7800, 8910, 6131 - it's a thin ribbon cable for USB port, and that for Atlas 1056B01 and RCA RCRP05B I use a FTDI cable from Tommy for usb1.2/3?
3. If I wanted to transfer all JPstuff to windows7 or 10, will all that work, if not, any suggestions? I dual boot, so don't care where it goes, but prefer to win7.

Post by **ElizabethD** » Mon May 20, 2019 12:33 pm

Ignore point 2 above. I got the cables sorted out.

Post by **vickyg2003** » Mon May 20, 2019 3:12 pm

Liz, I'll give that a try, now that I've got genuine excel. I've been using Open Office for the past 6 years, except for JP1 stuff. I don't think I'll use the Microsoft product for anything but JP1 stuff, they turned me off. Now Windows 10 is littered with those crummy ribbons. I have a strong aversion to them.

1. On XP I have RM/RMIR 2.03 alpha28. Should I upgrade it or download the whole newest version?

RMIR runs on Java 7 or higher. Java is unsupported on XP but it looks like it still works. It was drummed into me hard when I first started that you want to always use the latest and greatest tools, so the developer doesn't have to deal with bugs that have already been fixed.

2. Am I correct that I use Delcom cable for 7800, 8910, 6131 - it's a thin ribbon cable for USB port, and that for Atlas 1056B01 and RCA RCRP05B I use a FTDI cable from Tommy for usb1.2/3?

John S. Fine told me to label all my cables, and mark pin 1 on all connectors and on any remote that didn't already have a marking on them, hence my cables say JP1 Delcom and JP1.2/3 Prolific on the housing. Of all the wonder advice he used to give, that's the one piece that has helped me the most.

3. If I wanted to transfer all JPstuff to windows7 or 10, will all that work, if not, any suggestions? I dual boot, so don't care where it goes, but prefer to win7.

Everything works with Windows 7, the legacy cables don't work with Windows 10. The FTDI cables are easy to make, but the little adapter you need for JP1 cables is like looking for one leggo. Its itty bitty and I think my grandson may have swallowed it.. oops.

Post by **The Robman** » Mon May 20, 2019 4:53 pm

vickyg2003 wrote:Liz, I'll give that a try, now that I've got genuine excel. I've been using Open Office for the past 6 years, except for JP1 stuff. I don't think I'll use the Microsoft product for anything but JP1 stuff, they turned me off. Now Windows 10 is littered with those crummy ribbons. I have a strong aversion to them.

You can still use Excel 2000, which doesn't have the ribbons, on the newer versions of Windows. Just FYI, if you are using a version of Excel or Word that has the ribbons at the top, you can easily get rid of them by using CNTL+F1, and it's a toggle so you can bring them back the same way.

Post by **vickyg2003** » Tue May 21, 2019 5:12 am

The Robman wrote:
vickyg2003 wrote:Liz, I'll give that a try, now that I've got genuine excel. I've been using Open Office for the past 6 years, except for JP1 stuff. I don't think I'll use the Microsoft product for anything but JP1 stuff, they turned me off. Now Windows 10 is littered with those crummy ribbons. I have a strong aversion to them.
You can still use Excel 2000, which doesn't have the ribbons, on the newer versions of Windows. Just FYI, if you are using a version of Excel or Word that has the ribbons at the top, you can easily get rid of them by using CNTL+F1, and it's a toggle so you can bring them back the same way.

The problem with Ribbons isn't the amount of real estate they take up on the screen, its the difficulty of using them with poor vision. Everytime you change the shape of your window the icons move. Before I had surgery I couldn't even see the little symbol indicating more. For me the shapes convey absolutely nothing. At least in Windows 7 they had color that I could memorize, the new ones seem to be mostly monochrome and I need to hover over them to see what they are. I've shortened the time it takes before the words appear, but I haven't found a way to keep the words up long enough to read the words. I just don't have the patience to deal with the interface.

Its almost as bad as IOS 6 when I woke up one morning and EVERY ICON was gone on every app I used. I went to the apple store to see if it could be rolled back to 5 they said tough luck, learn to use the controls for the visually impaired.

It seems like nobody represents the aged in the computer world, but heck I used to work in the computer world, I know that if you showed your age you were out. I had the lovely position of controlling the reports that went to senior management, making sure that nothing went out in Point 6 font that the programmers wanted to use to get all the numbers on the page.

There doesn't seem to be anyone in that position at Microsoft or Apple.

They love to make the fonts extremely slender, and go with subtle colors like gray on gray. I'd like to dress or decorate that way, but I want my interface to be legible and easy to use.

Post by **ElizabethD** » Tue May 21, 2019 2:00 pm

The Robman wrote:You can still use Excel 2000, which doesn't have the ribbons, on the newer versions of Windows. Just FYI, if you are using a version of Excel or Word that has the ribbons at the top, you can easily get rid of them by using CNTL+F1, and it's a toggle so you can bring them back the same way.

Hiding the ribbon was not a good solution for me. The problem is navigating through it for the simplest activities took me forever, and often I did not find what I needed. uBitMenu solved it by giving me the standard menu.

I use Office 2007 on Windows 10, got it from my kid. That's where I use uBitMenu.
On Windows7 partition I use WPS, Kingsoft software, with all outbounds blocked since it's a pest wanting facebook connections. Its menus are just like the old excel. I would love to put here my Office 2003 that I use on XP 32bit.
- can I do it on Windows7pro-64bit? Will install in ProgramFiles(x86)?
- if yes, can I use the same software key as on XP? I kinda doubt it since it's licenced for 1 computer, but who knows?

Post by **ElizabethD** » Tue May 21, 2019 2:10 pm

vickyg2003 wrote:John S. Fine told me to label all my cables, and mark pin 1 on all connectors and on any remote that didn't already have a marking on them, hence my cables say JP1 Delcom and JP1.2/3 Prolific on the housing

I have all remotes marked with pin 1. No issues here.
I labelled the cables ages ago. The one on the Delcom cable faded - it hangs in the air and sunlight. So the list of remotes vanished. I do have one piece of paper attached to it and it say the 2nd cable I had I gave to 3fg

so that told me which remotes it was for. Funny, eh?

The jp1.2/3 is definitely FTDI. And I do have and extension, Lego-like thingie. I thought it was for remotes with deep sockets. Didn't think to ask what it was for. But yesterday I tried it on 6131, the old eeprom remote, and it worked in RMIR using jp1.X serial settings, both up and down. Amazing.

Post by **The Robman** » Tue May 21, 2019 5:04 pm

I use Office 2000 on a 64-bit Win7 laptop, I have an old install CD that I just keep re-using.