What's wrong with the ribbon control?
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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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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.
Are you aware it's possible to customise the entries on the ribbon? Right Click > Customise Ribbon Oh, and
Member 3717204 wrote:
COMBERSUM
That would be 'cumbersome'. [/language-nit-pick] :)
Don't forget to rate my post if it helped! ;) "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." "His mother should have thrown him away, and kept the stork." "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." "He loves nature, in spite of what it did to him."
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What is there to figure out? Styles used to be relatively hidden. I don't know any novice users that discovered styles on their own before the ribbon, but with it all styles are on the home tab. If you want to change the styleset, you can just select one from the dropdown, or assign your own styles from the selection without opening another window. I really don't understand why people are so affronted by the ribbon. All it does is place commands in a more logical arrangement, and that's coming from someone who knew the big Office apps inside-out before the switch. If anything, I know them even better now. As a software developer, I can appreciate that users don't want an interface they've been using for a long time suddenly turned on its end, but seriously, the UI before the ribbon was incredibly arbitrary in its arrangement, and the ribbon is cleaner in almost every way. It's not like it takes any time at all to adapt to it. All of the keyboard shortcuts from earlier versions still work too, even the alt- menu shortcuts (although they also have new mappings). As a matter of philosophy, I consider being able to adapt to such changes (especially for the better) without a hiccup a prerequisite of working in this industry, and certainly of being an engineer/developer/creative person. I also find that the people who were most angered by the change were those who didn't really have a good working mental model of the programs to begin with. The Office ribbon is much more in-line with how they were designed to be used. That aside, I don't consider the ribbon to be much different from old fashioned toolbars. The idea of licensing Fluent is crazy and the idea that the licensing requirement would hold up in court is ludicrous. The big jump was simply Microsoft's step to making toolbars do the work of arranging themselves for you. The toolbars did some of that before, but they were also smaller, harder to see/find, and would often jump around. The ribbon sizes buttons based on their importance and arranges them based on their use. Cheers!
Z-Human wrote:
All of the keyboard shortcuts from earlier versions still work too, even the alt- menu shortcuts (although they also have new mappings).
I really got used to using Alt and the first & maybe second key shortcuts, for then you'd see the menu displayed to the point where you could easily see the next shortcut key. Now, if you don't know the final key to press, after the first or second keystroke the ribbon simply informs you that it's wating for the next keystroke. For example, in Excel, inserting a series of values requires Alt-E, I, S. Try just Alt-E, I. You get a message to type the next letter or hit Escape. So, if you don't know it (the next keystroke), you're out of luck and HAVE to use the ribbon. So, it really forces me to use the mouse much more than Office 2003 and earlier did.
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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
Don't forget the floating bead co-processor(s) :)
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I know what you mean and as a long time computer user and developer my instincts are the same as yours but it's a terrible habit I've tried hard to break over recent years. The fact is that computer interfaces have grown up tremendously in just the last few years and pc's are falling behind rapidly in that department. Your perspective is informed by knowing the inner workings of what is going on and being interested in it and understanding it from that perspective. It's absolutely not what a new or even the average computer user wants. They want to accomplish a *task* as quickly and easily as possible and they don't under any circumstances want to have to think about how the computer works internally. The only failure in the disk defrag example is that it exists in the first place. Users don't want to have to think about defragging or ever do it. Instead of changing the interface they should have eliminated the need for it entirely. Can you imagine having to defrag your cell phone or your car navigation system? You don't make great software by including endless configuration and customization opportunities, you make great software by taking the time to plan and design and test a great (as in as simple as possible) task oriented interface that takes away the need to even have all those customizations, then you enforce it strictly giving options only where there is absolutely no other way to accomplish the task at hand. Trying to appease everyone is a recipe for mediocrity every time, just look at the modern mainstream tv, music or film industry. They are doing what you advocate and churning out mountains of poor quality middle of the road shit as a result.
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
You don't make great software by including endless configuration and customization opportunities, you make great software by taking the time to plan and design and test a great (as in as simple as possible) task oriented interface that takes away the need to even have all those customizations, then you enforce it strictly giving options only where there is absolutely no other way to accomplish the task at hand.
Isn't that the iPhone? And let's face it, it works, and people love it. (yes, I know the iPhone isn't software, but iOS is and so are all those thousands of apps that follow the strict guidelines defined and enforced by Apple)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
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bob16972 wrote:
Was the concept "broke" somehow?
If it isn't broken, fix it until it is ;P
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John C wrote:
You don't make great software by including endless configuration and customization opportunities, you make great software by taking the time to plan and design and test a great (as in as simple as possible) task oriented interface that takes away the need to even have all those customizations, then you enforce it strictly giving options only where there is absolutely no other way to accomplish the task at hand.
Isn't that the iPhone? And let's face it, it works, and people love it. (yes, I know the iPhone isn't software, but iOS is and so are all those thousands of apps that follow the strict guidelines defined and enforced by Apple)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
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My problem with it is that, when the window width changes, some of the items move around, and look different. sometimes the text disappears to make room for more controls, or the controls get repositioned somehow so that more of them show up on the screen. although it seems that this would be good, because you have access to more of the controls in a smaller space, the problem is that they're harder to find. Visually, you look for certain controls on the screen because of the way they looked and where they are positions. When that changes, it's kind of like the controls in the cockpit of an airplane moving around on you. Things aren't where you'd expect to be, and it's confusing.
That is an *excellent* argument against the ribbon that I didn't know about before because I've yet to use an app that uses it heavily. I didn't know they did that. That is unforgivable from a UI perspective. Perhaps they bank on people normally working at a set resolution / size.
There is no failure only feedback
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Are you aware it's possible to customise the entries on the ribbon? Right Click > Customise Ribbon Oh, and
Member 3717204 wrote:
COMBERSUM
That would be 'cumbersome'. [/language-nit-pick] :)
Don't forget to rate my post if it helped! ;) "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." "His mother should have thrown him away, and kept the stork." "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." "He loves nature, in spite of what it did to him."
dawmail333 wrote:
Are you aware it's possible to customise the entries on the ribbon? Right Click > Customise Ribbon
- You can't customise the AddIn Ribbon Tab 2) You can't add an AddIn to an existing Ribbon. 3) I did mention they were Users not Developers.
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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?
I often used to add custom buttons to the toolbars in Office applications to make commands that are buried (or not at all) in the menus more accessible. In the old-style toolbars, you could add a button, give it an icon or copy and paste a button icon from another button in the toolbars. You could even edit your own icons. All this functionality is gone from the ribbons, and I miss it. :(
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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?
A part of the problem is the lack of layout standards. Most apps have different ribbons but do similar functions. File is gone, Home anyone? The extra File menu not on the ribbon and doing something crazy different has been disliked by many. More users and developers would accept it if MS resolved the File ribbon and gain some uniformity in organization.
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That is an *excellent* argument against the ribbon that I didn't know about before because I've yet to use an app that uses it heavily. I didn't know they did that. That is unforgivable from a UI perspective. Perhaps they bank on people normally working at a set resolution / size.
There is no failure only feedback
Yes, and for this reason, I instintively just maximize the window so things go where they're supposed to go. To make the best use of the ribbon control, stay in the same resolution / app frame width as much as possible.