[thelist] Why smart tags are no big deal...

[Joel D Canfield]

<snip>
It is my understanding that smart tags come bundled with the next
version of Office for Windows XP.
</snip>

I have IE6 and Office XP beta on my Win2K laptop. I can't find any smart
tags in IE.

Office smart tags, on the other hand, are 100% different from what's been
described here. I believe it's another case of Microsoft liking a phrase so
much they feel compelled to use it twice (I spend ALL DAY telling users "No,
I'm sorry; I don't mean INTERNET Explorer, I mean WINDOWS Explorer.")

Office smart tags are merely context senstive menus which appear
automatically when you're performing 'many common tasks' (no legal
definition available at this time.) They are ON by default, but can be
turned OFF. They are not hyperlinks; they are menu items from the regular
ol' menus, they just pop up next to the cursor. I have so far found them
extremely useful.

I've read a minimal amount of marketing fluff about IE smart tags, and they
seem to be fundamentally different from Office smart tags.

Maybe they should just name everything 'bill' and be done with it.

spinhead