Overrated softwareCOVER
FEATUREXpo Music doesn’ t look dissimilar to
the official desktop client software–
which is prob ably because it’s based on
the Spotify Progressive Web App
(PWA) – but everything about it is
better designed. Notablefeat ures
include light and dark modes, a useful
mini player that you can set to float
above other windows, the ability to pin
pagesto the Windows 10 Start menu
and integration with Cortana. What’s
more, the softwareworks with both
Spotify Free and Spotify Premium
accounts. It suppor ts a large number
of keyboar d shortcuts, too – see
bit.ly/xposc482for the full li st.
OFFICEDITCHMicrosoft Office
products.office.com
Even after all these years, Microsoft
Office remains the most popu lar office
suite and is used by pretty much every
business aroundthe world. However, it’s
pricey (£120 for the Office Home &
Student 2019 edition, or £8 0 a year for
Office 365 Home), and bloated. For
years, Office has been packed with
feat ures no onereally need s, and the
ribboninterface isn’t particularly easy to
work with either, forcing users to hunt
through the various tabbed sections tofind the tools they want. The latest
version, Office 2019, isn’t all that
differen t from its predecessor, Office
2016, either – which is a bit of a
disappointment after thre e years.SWITCHLibreOffice
http://www.libreoffice.org
LibreOffice is an entirely free open-
source alternativ e to Microsoft Office.
It’s available for Windows, macOS and
Linux (there’s also a LibreOffice Viewer
for Andr oid) and offers six comparable
applications: Writer (word proc essor),
Calc (spreadsheet), Impress
(presentat ion and slid eshow creator),
Draw (a vector dr awing program for
creating diagrams and flowcharts), Base
(database) and Math (a mathematical
equations editor). The program started
life as a successor to OpenOffice.org
and is fully compatible with Office’s own
file formats. You can open fi les created
in Microsoft’s suite without any trouble,
and save new documents in any of th ose
formats, too, so your Office-owning
friends and colleagueswill be nonethe
wiser. LibreOffice also has its own
OpenDocument formats that you can
save your documents in if you prefer.To the surprise of many,
Microsoft – a company
that built its entire
busines s on proprietary
software – has been
embracing open-source
for the pastfew years. It
even joined the Open-
Sour ce Initiative (OSI) as
a Premium Sponsor in 2017. The
software giant has released a growing
numberof tools under the open-
source licence, includingBosque, a
TypeScript-inspired programming
lang uage (bit.ly/bosq482), Windows
Calcul ator (aka.ms/calc) and the
original File Manager(WinFile)
(bit.ly/winfile482).
If you’ve been using Windows
since the days of Windows 95 and
XP, you may remember PowerToys.These we re a selection of
essential Microsoft utilitie s
for the operating system,
which includedTweak UI,
SyncToy, Power Calcul ator
and BackgroundSwitcher,
to namea few. In May this
year, Microsoft announced
at its BUILD developers
conference that it would bring back
PowerToys for Windows 10, but this
time asa co llection of open-source
tools. The first two utilities in
development are ‘Maxim ize to new
desk top’ (MTND)
and ‘Windows key
shortcut guide’.
MTND shows a new
pop-up button
whenever you
hover your mousepointer over the maximise/restore
button onany window. Clicking this
creates a new desk top and sends the
app strai ght to it. The shortcut guide
appears when you hold down the
Windows key for longer than a
second, and shows you every shortcut
that’s currently applicable.
Microsoft also has a co uple of
interns working on three more
PowerToys – ‘Process terminate
tool’, ‘Batch file renamer’ and
‘Animated gif screen recorder’. You
can follow the project and download
the free tools as
they become
availablefrom
the official
PowerToys
GitHub page at
bit.ly/mspt482.TRY MICROSOFT’S NEW OPEN-SOURCE TOOLSXpo Music was released in April and made open-source two months later
Proving thatbigger isn’t alwaysbetter,
Microsoft Office is now seriously overrated21 Aug - 3 Sept 2019 45