What's wrong with the ribbon control?
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bob16972 wrote:
standard ones they provide in the MFC Feature Pack directories for Open, Cut, Copy, Paste, etc...
Are you aware of the image library that comes with VS2008 and VS2010? It's installed in the folder ...\Common7\VS2010ImageLibrary (or ...\Common7\VS2008ImageLibrary).
Best wishes, Hans
If that's the same one I've inspected, it would cover maybe 70% of the icons I would need. I was acknowledging that they provide a ton of premixed icons, but inserting one of my crayola creations in the middle of all those ribbon quality professional graphics designer created beauties looks rather odd. Remember, in order to be able to utilize the Microsoft supplied icons, you must adhere to the original usage scenarios that they intended for those icons which limits the ability to substitute them when you need one in a pinch. Hacking an icon that has gradients and alpha channels is proving to be much more difficult than it was previously. I've messed a little with the Axialis IconWorkshop Addin but icon development/management so there is some hope but it all takes time that I'm not used to spending on foo-foo stuff like icons.
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Can you image the maintenance headaches involved in maintaining all versions of the interface X|
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
yes, I can. We have commands through main menu items, through context menu items, through keyboard shortcuts, and now also through the ribbon. It ain't hard to do it right, just make a Command class, and give it several views. I trust that is what they have done for years, so all it takes is add the graphics of the ribbon, and add the one view. Don't you tell me MS doesn't know how to handle it technically, or doesn't have the means to get it done. IMO they do these things on purpose: all press coverage, all the talking, all the complaints, they are all considered good news. The worst that can happen is people generally dislike it, and then they can "improve" it in the next version (i.e. make it look more like the previous one). :)
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I get the impression that quite a few developers here are not impressed with the ribbon concept. If so, what's the main gripe with it? We use the DevExpress ribbon in our apps and it's relatively painless to use and easy to write code for. Perhaps there is a serious flaw with ribbon concepts but out-of-the-box it works, it looks quite nice so why are some folk upset with it?
- It's different 1) We're not given a choice (other than not to updowngrade) 2) I, for one, prefer words to icons
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What's wrong with the abacus?!!!
Helllooo! Splinters!
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:) It is not about coming to a standstill - people were coping with command-line interfaces before GUI became prevalent. It is about the amount of effort and frustration involved in the process.
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
It is about the amount of effort and frustration involved in the process.
I don't recall any effort and frustration involved in using toolbars that I could configure to contain the commands I wanted. Quite the opposite, in fact. Let's not get into the wasted effort and frustration (and screen space) involved in using the ribbon, shall we?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I think people dislike it because it's different and/or because of the screen space it takes up. As a user (Office '07), I really disliked it at first because it seemed to make things harder to find, but as I got used to it I liked it more and more because it put more things within easy reach. At home I use a widescreen laptop with limited vertical screen space. The ribbon occasionally gets in the way in that environment, but I can just temporarily hide it (again, in Office '07) when it becomes a problem.
I know that after a while you get used with it. I mean kind of, can you afford not to? Is there an alternative? Humans get used with almost anything given a slow enough transition; so we got used with corruption in bloated governments. It still looks like some manager's idea (very influential one I must say) was forced into the product. I would like to know who, to put a face on that ribbon. I may see the utility of the ribbon for users that are starting to use Office, or previous light users that are still able to find all their functions in the ribbon. However, for me ... I'm still looking for almost 10 commands that previously I could find easy in the menus or toolbars (as somebody else mentioned). For example working with styles in Word became hell for me, ... anybody else? Why not keep both options menus + toolbars along ribbon and allow switching? Cheers.
giuchici
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I get the impression that quite a few developers here are not impressed with the ribbon concept. If so, what's the main gripe with it? We use the DevExpress ribbon in our apps and it's relatively painless to use and easy to write code for. Perhaps there is a serious flaw with ribbon concepts but out-of-the-box it works, it looks quite nice so why are some folk upset with it?
Far from being a managers idea foisted on the product it was a very conscious effort to overcome the user interface bloat that Microsoft Office products had been suffering over the years. Watch and learn...... http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX09.wmv[^]
www.it-workplace.com
"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?" -
I know that after a while you get used with it. I mean kind of, can you afford not to? Is there an alternative? Humans get used with almost anything given a slow enough transition; so we got used with corruption in bloated governments. It still looks like some manager's idea (very influential one I must say) was forced into the product. I would like to know who, to put a face on that ribbon. I may see the utility of the ribbon for users that are starting to use Office, or previous light users that are still able to find all their functions in the ribbon. However, for me ... I'm still looking for almost 10 commands that previously I could find easy in the menus or toolbars (as somebody else mentioned). For example working with styles in Word became hell for me, ... anybody else? Why not keep both options menus + toolbars along ribbon and allow switching? Cheers.
giuchici
I used to use Styles all the time because they were so easy to use and absolutely consistent. For the most part I've gone back to simply formatting things myself because I haven't taken the time to figure them out.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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I like to instead ask, what was wrong with using toolbars? Was the concept "broke" somehow? Also, I don't need a special "Fluent UI" license to use toolbars. BTW, you did obtain a license for those 3rd party ribbon products your using...right? ;) Office Fluent UI licensing[^]
bob16972 wrote:
I like to instead ask, what was wrong with using toolbars? Was the concept "broke" somehow?
Concur. I prefer a customizable toolbar to a ribbon any day. The ribbon style GUI just takes up too much real-estate in my opinion and isn't really customizable to the user (that I've seen). To me the toolbar was becoming a standard then they decided to just rip the guts out of that idea and re-implement. -Max
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I know that after a while you get used with it. I mean kind of, can you afford not to? Is there an alternative? Humans get used with almost anything given a slow enough transition; so we got used with corruption in bloated governments. It still looks like some manager's idea (very influential one I must say) was forced into the product. I would like to know who, to put a face on that ribbon. I may see the utility of the ribbon for users that are starting to use Office, or previous light users that are still able to find all their functions in the ribbon. However, for me ... I'm still looking for almost 10 commands that previously I could find easy in the menus or toolbars (as somebody else mentioned). For example working with styles in Word became hell for me, ... anybody else? Why not keep both options menus + toolbars along ribbon and allow switching? Cheers.
giuchici
>> Why not keep both options menus + toolbars along ribbon and allow switching? :thumbsup: I assume you meant one or the other... gawd not both at the same time :thumbsdown:. But yeah, allowing the *user* to choose what they want, what they find most productive would be the way to go. What a concept! Prior to the missus going back to school, we both had Office 2003 installed on our laptops. I still do and I *refuse* to "upgrade", and I use that word quite loosely. Her homework assignments where downloaded off the MTSU website and were in .docx format. The first time she tried open one of those files, she went into a panic. Realizing what the problem was, I uninstalled Office 2003 and installed Office 2007. Now, every few minutes I minutes I'm being asked, "Where is the fill_in_the_blank icon?". She's slowly coming up to speed w/ the interface, but it's not been easy. Whoever came up this ribbon idea should have tied it around their dangles and hung :omg:
modified on Monday, May 30, 2011 10:35 AM
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>> Why not keep both options menus + toolbars along ribbon and allow switching? :thumbsup: I assume you meant one or the other... gawd not both at the same time :thumbsdown:. But yeah, allowing the *user* to choose what they want, what they find most productive would be the way to go. What a concept! Prior to the missus going back to school, we both had Office 2003 installed on our laptops. I still do and I *refuse* to "upgrade", and I use that word quite loosely. Her homework assignments where downloaded off the MTSU website and were in .docx format. The first time she tried open one of those files, she went into a panic. Realizing what the problem was, I uninstalled Office 2003 and installed Office 2007. Now, every few minutes I minutes I'm being asked, "Where is the fill_in_the_blank icon?". She's slowly coming up to speed w/ the interface, but it's not been easy. Whoever came up this ribbon idea should have tied it around their dangles and hung :omg:
modified on Monday, May 30, 2011 10:35 AM
:D, and yes that's what I meant (keep them both as options). To have menu pads, toolbars and the ribbon would be a bit of an overkill. The only things missing would have been a preview panel as in Outlook and and action panel as in MMC so you're left to edit your document in a 1 sq inch area.
giuchici
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I like to instead ask, what was wrong with using toolbars? Was the concept "broke" somehow? Also, I don't need a special "Fluent UI" license to use toolbars. BTW, you did obtain a license for those 3rd party ribbon products your using...right? ;) Office Fluent UI licensing[^]
"I like to instead ask, what was wrong with using toolbars? Was the concept "broke" somehow?" Couldn't you ask that about almost ANY old technology? What was wrong with LP's? What was wrong with video? What was wrong with audio tapes? What was wrong with cd's? What was wrong with dvd's? What was wrong with the track pad? What was wrong with the mouse? What was wrong with DOS commands? What was wrong with the non-transparant, non-animated, static windows 95 taskbar? The answer, imo, is essentially "nothing" to all of these questions. Some of the new solutions are "better" (more capacity/faster in case of media, more intuitive in case of trackpad/mouse/touch) and some of the new solutions are "cooler" (like more 'fancy' and 'flashy' in case of the taskbar...) Imo, the ribbon interface is actually quite nice for LOB applications. I for one love to work with it. It centralises all commands and presents them to the user in a modern "flashy" way. I don't think anybody here will deny that a nice app using a ribbon kinda screams "2010" while the classic toolbar/menu app is sooooo 1995. My customers prefer an app that screams 2010. Does it give you any real, 'measurable' surplus in terms of functionality over the classic toolbar/menu combo? Perhaps not (although I could make a case for it, but I admit it's somewhat neglectable). But the opposite most certainly isn't true either. There isn't anything I can do with toolbars/menu's that I can't do with a ribbon. I guess it would also largely depend on the nature of the app you are writing. I for one definatly see good use for the ribbon in most of the apps I make.
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bob16972 wrote:
I like to instead ask, what was wrong with using toolbars?
IMHO, nothing at all :)
See if you can crack this: b749f6c269a746243debc6488046e33f
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Ultimately, it comes down to personal taste. You like it or you don't. The reasons you give (one way or the other) can't be argued, because, well, it's about taste. I can tell you that of all the clients that I do UI work for, only 1 (out of about 20) somewhat likes it. All the rest vary from mildly not liking it to really hating it. The reasons? Well, it's about taste. How could Microsoft ship such a hated UI? The same way they could ship Vista. Their UI testing boils down to asking people with their heads up their asses. They did it with Vista, they did it with the ribbon, and they're about to do it with Windows 8. Why do they do this? Two words: Bill Gates. He ain't there anymore.
Best wishes, Hans
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"I like to instead ask, what was wrong with using toolbars? Was the concept "broke" somehow?" Couldn't you ask that about almost ANY old technology? What was wrong with LP's? What was wrong with video? What was wrong with audio tapes? What was wrong with cd's? What was wrong with dvd's? What was wrong with the track pad? What was wrong with the mouse? What was wrong with DOS commands? What was wrong with the non-transparant, non-animated, static windows 95 taskbar? The answer, imo, is essentially "nothing" to all of these questions. Some of the new solutions are "better" (more capacity/faster in case of media, more intuitive in case of trackpad/mouse/touch) and some of the new solutions are "cooler" (like more 'fancy' and 'flashy' in case of the taskbar...) Imo, the ribbon interface is actually quite nice for LOB applications. I for one love to work with it. It centralises all commands and presents them to the user in a modern "flashy" way. I don't think anybody here will deny that a nice app using a ribbon kinda screams "2010" while the classic toolbar/menu app is sooooo 1995. My customers prefer an app that screams 2010. Does it give you any real, 'measurable' surplus in terms of functionality over the classic toolbar/menu combo? Perhaps not (although I could make a case for it, but I admit it's somewhat neglectable). But the opposite most certainly isn't true either. There isn't anything I can do with toolbars/menu's that I can't do with a ribbon. I guess it would also largely depend on the nature of the app you are writing. I for one definatly see good use for the ribbon in most of the apps I make.
BubingaMan wrote:
There isn't anything I can do with toolbars/menu's that I can't do with a ribbon
The ribbon layout guidelines tend to restrict how you're allowed to logically group items in tabs and the groups within those tabs. This results in the user interface being less likely to contain the action you need on visible tab, requiring extra steps to make the action visible. So far, when playing around with the MFC Feature Pack Ribbon classes, I have not seen any way for the user to move the action groups from one ribbon tab to another but maybe I'm missing something (wouldn't be the first time). If this turns out to be a limitation of the Office Fluent UI, then it would be something you can do with toolbars that you can't with the ribbon. However, I'll entertain the idea that the functionality is in there and I just have not found it yet. NOTE: Adding a group to the "Quick Access Toolbar" does not seem to help as it normally requires a some dialog box popup anyway.
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I'm particularly unimpressed by Microsoft making choices for us. If they develop new technology, why not offer both and let the user choose. Some will prefer the new ribbon, some will continue to use the menus, and then some may use one or the other depending on the kind of work and/or the screen size they are currently facing. Alas, MS think they know best, and they often/sometimes/occasionally (pick one) are wrong... :)
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That's just silly. Everyone knows you have to have a dual-abacus setup for maximum developer productivity.
Best wishes, Hans
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I think people dislike it because it's different and/or because of the screen space it takes up. As a user (Office '07), I really disliked it at first because it seemed to make things harder to find, but as I got used to it I liked it more and more because it put more things within easy reach. At home I use a widescreen laptop with limited vertical screen space. The ribbon occasionally gets in the way in that environment, but I can just temporarily hide it (again, in Office '07) when it becomes a problem.
Most of my users use Word to edit pre-existing documents and use my Addin which appears as a menu item next to the "View" menu item and a small subset of the formating toolbars (Font/Bold,Centre and a few others). Under Word < 2007 all the fuctions the user ever used were available on the one screen, no addition clicks required. Now with the ribbon they must click on the AddIn ribbon to get to our feature and then they lose all their formating functions. Anytime they want to do some minor formatting they must find the right ribbon and select it and find the required function. THE RIBBON INTERFACE MIGHT BE GOOD FOR NEWIES, BUT ONCE THEY BECOME PROFICIENT IT IS COMBERSUM.
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Jesus man, Microsoft is a saint in this area compared to Apple. This is seriously the worst rebuttal to the ribbon of all the posts I saw. :)
There is no failure only feedback
:confused: I didn't say I liked or disliked the ribbon, my beef is with MS making choices for me they don't have to make, I'm the user here, I know what my preferences are. And I don't need Apple to form my own opinion about MS products; if Apple gets it wrong, that doesn't make MS stuff right.
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:confused: I didn't say I liked or disliked the ribbon, my beef is with MS making choices for me they don't have to make, I'm the user here, I know what my preferences are. And I don't need Apple to form my own opinion about MS products; if Apple gets it wrong, that doesn't make MS stuff right.
Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
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Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they improve readability.
CP Vanity has been updated to V2.3Your post just struck me as funny because if there is one fault that MS has had over the years it's constantly trying to be everything to everyone resulting in many ills not least of which are hugely bloated OS's with giant amounts of backward compatibility code all in an effort to not be like Apple all autocratic and dictatorial and telling people how they must use their software. I dislike the ribbon but I think it would be extremely difficult to provide both UI's for many reasons that go way beyond the code itself like support, marketing, training etc etc. People vent a lot about Microsoft but this seems like such a minor reason to, they are actually trying to do better with a researched UI that has been provably easier and preferred by new users. As much as we experienced users may hate it it's not a plot to piss us all off it's an attempt to do better. (I swear if Microsoft walked on water people would bitch about how they clearly don't know how to swim.) :)
There is no failure only feedback