Xara-like infobar used in Office 2007

[Xhris]

It seems that the newest version of MS Office uses a Xara-like info bar. The toolbar changes to show you just the functionality of the tool you have selected. I wonder if Xara copyrighted this idea, or even whether Xara got it from elsewhere.

They've also introduced Xara 3D-like 3D-rendering.

[gwpriester]

The context sensitive toolbar is not really unique to Xara. Most of the Adobe Creative Suite now use it and it seems to me that the old PageMaker had something similar. And of course, CorelDRAW has had their version since they ripped off Xara back in version 7.

Gary

[Charles Moir]

We introduced the context sensitive Infobar at the end of 1991 / early '92 when we introduced Artworks, the founding ancestor of Xara Xtreme.

Over the last 15 years we've slowly, slowly seen others 'get' the concept and move towards this approach, including Corel, Adobe and now Microsoft. The benefit over the floating palettes, dialogs, control panels that plague other software is that it's a very compact way of providing the controls for the selected tool, leaving maximum work area for your drawing.

Whether we were the first I can't say.

(It's taken just about as long for them support our other innovations such as vector transparency and graduated transparency)