Gerald Higgins
Well-known Member
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2007
- Messages
- 9,258
First of all, let me say that Lotus was NOT better than Excel.
But as someone brought up on Symphony and then Lotus, and who was forced to make the change to Excel the hard way, I still think there were a few features about Lotus that were, in isolation, better than Excel.
Please note - you don't need to list ways in which Excel is better than Lotus - there's lots of them.
I never use Lotus any more, whereas I use Excel pretty much every day, and I'm very comfortable with it.
But just for fun, here are some of the ways in which I thought Lotus was better than Excel.
If Excel adopted some of these features, it would be a better product (IMHO).
I'm referring to Excel 2003. Maybe some of these things can be done in 2007 - I haven't seen it - and maybe they can even be done in 2003, but I just don't know about them
If anyone has any more to add, or thinks these weren't actually advantages, it would be fun to hear about them.
1) Turning 2 into 2+2
If your cell contains 2, and you want to change it to 2+2 (and yes, I know, that's a really horrible way of doing it, but sometimes it's a useful quick fix), in Lotus, it was simply {f2}+2. The cell stored 2+2, and displayed 4, which could be used in further calculations. Try that in Excel, and it turns it into a text string of 2+2, which is useless in further calculations. If you want the numeric value, you have to insert an = at the beginning, in other words, {f2}{home}={end}+2
2) Macros
Lotus supported at least 2 different macro techniques. You had Lotus Script, which was similar to VBA (I never used it, so I don't know how good it was). You also had the basic keystroke macros linked to the classic menu - for example /WIR to insert a row. If you were reasonably proficient at Lotus, it was easy to pick up this method, and build powerful macros with it. And on top of that, you had the keystroke equivalent commands, such as {PGUP} which were interchangeable with the classic menu keystroke commands. I found learning this very easy - I'm still struggling with primitive VBA macros.
3) The left-right scroll bar didn't interfere with the tab names. Yes, admittedly, this left some dead screen space if you only had one tab. But how often have you been sent an Excel spreadsheet where you struggle to find the l-r scroll bar, or don't realise there's other tabs, just because someone else has almost hidden them ?
4) The colour palette was smaller / bigger.
It was bigger, because you could select from about 250 colours in Lotus, compared to Excel's 56. I really miss the larger Lotus palette.
But in other ways, Excel's palette is bigger, because you can customise it from an almost infinite spectrum. That's a powerful tool, but how many people actually use it ? And if you do try to use it, it can be difficult to find exactly the shade you want, or to replicate a shade. For me, 250 fixed colours is better than 56 choices from an infinite spectrum.
5) Data Sort
In Excel, standard Data Sort lets you choose 3 sort keys. Usually that's more than enough, and I know there are ways to get more if you really want to. But in Lotus, you could easily choose many sort keys - I don't know if there was even a limit. Admittedly choosing many sort keys would be difficult to keep track of, but needing 4 sort keys won't be that uncommon.
6) The floating properties dialog box
This was a really neat feature of Lotus. If you wanted to format something, you got a floating dialog box, which stayed on screen after you'd done your formating. If you wanted to do something else, like work with a chart, the dialog box became the chart dialog box. It was easily accessible, constantly offering ways to refine your work.
7) Creating multisheet formulas
Entering a formula like @SUM(A:A1..B:B2) was easy. I haven't found the easy way to do it in Excel.
Any more ?
But as someone brought up on Symphony and then Lotus, and who was forced to make the change to Excel the hard way, I still think there were a few features about Lotus that were, in isolation, better than Excel.
Please note - you don't need to list ways in which Excel is better than Lotus - there's lots of them.
I never use Lotus any more, whereas I use Excel pretty much every day, and I'm very comfortable with it.
But just for fun, here are some of the ways in which I thought Lotus was better than Excel.
If Excel adopted some of these features, it would be a better product (IMHO).
I'm referring to Excel 2003. Maybe some of these things can be done in 2007 - I haven't seen it - and maybe they can even be done in 2003, but I just don't know about them
If anyone has any more to add, or thinks these weren't actually advantages, it would be fun to hear about them.
1) Turning 2 into 2+2
If your cell contains 2, and you want to change it to 2+2 (and yes, I know, that's a really horrible way of doing it, but sometimes it's a useful quick fix), in Lotus, it was simply {f2}+2. The cell stored 2+2, and displayed 4, which could be used in further calculations. Try that in Excel, and it turns it into a text string of 2+2, which is useless in further calculations. If you want the numeric value, you have to insert an = at the beginning, in other words, {f2}{home}={end}+2
2) Macros
Lotus supported at least 2 different macro techniques. You had Lotus Script, which was similar to VBA (I never used it, so I don't know how good it was). You also had the basic keystroke macros linked to the classic menu - for example /WIR to insert a row. If you were reasonably proficient at Lotus, it was easy to pick up this method, and build powerful macros with it. And on top of that, you had the keystroke equivalent commands, such as {PGUP} which were interchangeable with the classic menu keystroke commands. I found learning this very easy - I'm still struggling with primitive VBA macros.
3) The left-right scroll bar didn't interfere with the tab names. Yes, admittedly, this left some dead screen space if you only had one tab. But how often have you been sent an Excel spreadsheet where you struggle to find the l-r scroll bar, or don't realise there's other tabs, just because someone else has almost hidden them ?
4) The colour palette was smaller / bigger.
It was bigger, because you could select from about 250 colours in Lotus, compared to Excel's 56. I really miss the larger Lotus palette.
But in other ways, Excel's palette is bigger, because you can customise it from an almost infinite spectrum. That's a powerful tool, but how many people actually use it ? And if you do try to use it, it can be difficult to find exactly the shade you want, or to replicate a shade. For me, 250 fixed colours is better than 56 choices from an infinite spectrum.
5) Data Sort
In Excel, standard Data Sort lets you choose 3 sort keys. Usually that's more than enough, and I know there are ways to get more if you really want to. But in Lotus, you could easily choose many sort keys - I don't know if there was even a limit. Admittedly choosing many sort keys would be difficult to keep track of, but needing 4 sort keys won't be that uncommon.
6) The floating properties dialog box
This was a really neat feature of Lotus. If you wanted to format something, you got a floating dialog box, which stayed on screen after you'd done your formating. If you wanted to do something else, like work with a chart, the dialog box became the chart dialog box. It was easily accessible, constantly offering ways to refine your work.
7) Creating multisheet formulas
Entering a formula like @SUM(A:A1..B:B2) was easy. I haven't found the easy way to do it in Excel.
Any more ?
