Fill color palette remain on screen

[Bod]

In XL 2003, I can drag the fill color palette (and any of the other drop
downs, like shapes, etc.) to stay on screen so that I can choose one color
after another without having to click the drop down first.
How do I do this in XL 2007?
Also, in XL 2007, instead of standard, different colours, the defaults are a
new palette of colors and many shades of those few colors.
How do I get the old palette back that for most of my tasks would be much
more useful, as I usually want to use the colors to show differences as
opposed to try to reflect subtle nuances within one hue.

 

[Jon Peltier]

They made major changes to the color system in Excel 2007. Removing the
ability to drag the various palettes off the toolbars and leave them
floating above the work area was a very unfortunate error in design. The
new color system replaces the old, allowing the use of many colors but
only allowing the definition of eight theme colors, on which the other
theme colors are based. It's nice to have more colors, I guess, but it's
another unfortunate design feature to give us less control over the
theme colors.

- Jon

 

[Bod]

Hi, John. Thanks for your reply. That's sad.

Today I noticed that cell comments still use the old palette.
I wonder if there's a way to call up that palette - most people I've spoken
to at my work would prefer to be able to use the old 40 colour palette rather
than the new palette which as far as I can tell has 20 colours (plus shades
of 10 of those) (plus recent, but that changes), and of those some seem to be
intende for text and hyperlinks.
If there were a bit of vb that would bring up the old palette I would be so
happy.
Also any guidance around how to see the new palette as a good idea would be
a relief.
- James