Evolution of the User interface
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Once upon a time, everything was like vi and edlin: you had to remember keyboard shortcuts (which you could list on the screen -- if you could remember the keyboard shortcut to list keyboard shortcuts). No-one was particularly happy with this, but it worked, so we used it. To open programs, we had to type addresses and program names in little black boxes, which could be a pain, because after a while you have lots of programs and batch files, and you have to remember where they are and what they're called -- so programs like FIND soon became the most-used programs. No-one was particularly happy with that, either, but it worked. Then, someone brilliant thought of putting permanent bars at the top of program screens, with brackets around or underlines under the letters you had to press in combination with other keys -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs. And everyone cheered! Soon, an absolute genius thought: "Hey, we can turn that into a menu, so that instead of holding Alt and pressing letters, you just press Alt, then press the bracketed or underlined letter, and that drops down another list, where all you have to do is again press the bracketed or underlined letter!" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs. And everyone cheered! Then a bunch of bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing, came up with the Graphical user interface, or GUI, and the words at the top of the program screens became buttons, which you could click with a mouse, as well as typing the bracketed or underlined letters -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and made windows. And everyone cheered! The bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing also came up with the idea of using graphical shortcuts, little 64x64px borderless buttons, which you could double-click to open programs -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows. And everyone cheered Loudly! Then someone thought: "Hey, why do we have to use words, which take up a lot of space, at the top of program screens, when we can use little 32x32px buttons with pictures on them for each tool, rather than have to click through menus to get to them?" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows. A
Devolution*
Read my (free) ebook Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly. Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need. Or read my articles here on CodeProject.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. — Edsger W. Dijkstra
Regards, Sander
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Devolution*
Read my (free) ebook Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly. Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need. Or read my articles here on CodeProject.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. — Edsger W. Dijkstra
Regards, Sander
Ah, but has it become worth less, or worthless?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Ah, but has it become worth less, or worthless?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
User rant: - What's worst? Ignorance or Indifference? M$ Answer: I don't know and I don't give a sh..
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Once upon a time, everything was like vi and edlin: you had to remember keyboard shortcuts (which you could list on the screen -- if you could remember the keyboard shortcut to list keyboard shortcuts). No-one was particularly happy with this, but it worked, so we used it. To open programs, we had to type addresses and program names in little black boxes, which could be a pain, because after a while you have lots of programs and batch files, and you have to remember where they are and what they're called -- so programs like FIND soon became the most-used programs. No-one was particularly happy with that, either, but it worked. Then, someone brilliant thought of putting permanent bars at the top of program screens, with brackets around or underlines under the letters you had to press in combination with other keys -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs. And everyone cheered! Soon, an absolute genius thought: "Hey, we can turn that into a menu, so that instead of holding Alt and pressing letters, you just press Alt, then press the bracketed or underlined letter, and that drops down another list, where all you have to do is again press the bracketed or underlined letter!" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs. And everyone cheered! Then a bunch of bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing, came up with the Graphical user interface, or GUI, and the words at the top of the program screens became buttons, which you could click with a mouse, as well as typing the bracketed or underlined letters -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and made windows. And everyone cheered! The bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing also came up with the idea of using graphical shortcuts, little 64x64px borderless buttons, which you could double-click to open programs -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows. And everyone cheered Loudly! Then someone thought: "Hey, why do we have to use words, which take up a lot of space, at the top of program screens, when we can use little 32x32px buttons with pictures on them for each tool, rather than have to click through menus to get to them?" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows. A
I gave you an upvote purely for the amount of time this took you to write; providing you did write it. :-D
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I gave you an upvote purely for the amount of time this took you to write; providing you did write it. :-D
Slacker007 wrote:
providing you did write it
Ha! People tend to quote me, rather than the other way around. Now that you've mentioned that, though, I might do a web search, in a week or so, for one or two specific phrases from it.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Once upon a time, everything was like vi and edlin: you had to remember keyboard shortcuts (which you could list on the screen -- if you could remember the keyboard shortcut to list keyboard shortcuts). No-one was particularly happy with this, but it worked, so we used it. To open programs, we had to type addresses and program names in little black boxes, which could be a pain, because after a while you have lots of programs and batch files, and you have to remember where they are and what they're called -- so programs like FIND soon became the most-used programs. No-one was particularly happy with that, either, but it worked. Then, someone brilliant thought of putting permanent bars at the top of program screens, with brackets around or underlines under the letters you had to press in combination with other keys -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs. And everyone cheered! Soon, an absolute genius thought: "Hey, we can turn that into a menu, so that instead of holding Alt and pressing letters, you just press Alt, then press the bracketed or underlined letter, and that drops down another list, where all you have to do is again press the bracketed or underlined letter!" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs. And everyone cheered! Then a bunch of bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing, came up with the Graphical user interface, or GUI, and the words at the top of the program screens became buttons, which you could click with a mouse, as well as typing the bracketed or underlined letters -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and made windows. And everyone cheered! The bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing also came up with the idea of using graphical shortcuts, little 64x64px borderless buttons, which you could double-click to open programs -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows. And everyone cheered Loudly! Then someone thought: "Hey, why do we have to use words, which take up a lot of space, at the top of program screens, when we can use little 32x32px buttons with pictures on them for each tool, rather than have to click through menus to get to them?" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows. A
In Office and in File Explorer, it works quite well. Often, you select the desired tab for the task you are doing and all useful tools are one-click accessible. And if you need to change the tab, you have 2 clicks as with older menu system. And usually, you can collapse the ribbon if you don't use it much! In File explorer, I really like that the show/hide extension is far more reachable than it used to be. But it does not works well with programs that should be minimalist (a single toolbar would do) or program that are too complex like an IDE...
Philippe Mori
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In Office and in File Explorer, it works quite well. Often, you select the desired tab for the task you are doing and all useful tools are one-click accessible. And if you need to change the tab, you have 2 clicks as with older menu system. And usually, you can collapse the ribbon if you don't use it much! In File explorer, I really like that the show/hide extension is far more reachable than it used to be. But it does not works well with programs that should be minimalist (a single toolbar would do) or program that are too complex like an IDE...
Philippe Mori
In office, I used to have three toolbars: the basic toolbar, and two custom ones. Between them, they took up less than half the space of the ribbon -- and they always fit properly within the window. With only three toolbars, almost every tool I ever used was opened/activated with only one click -- and I use a lot of tools, a number of which aren't even on the ribbon. With the ribbon, I am continually changing tab (usually having to move the caret from one end of the screen to the other to open the tab, then back to the other end to click the tool), then changing back, then changing again, because I was so foolish as to put my cursor somewhere that ms has decided means that I have to use a different tab. I only ever used the menu for "occasional" tools -- and it was easy to find them (even though they kept moving menu items with each new version). I won't even bother going into how bloody insanely impossible it is to find all the dialogs and sub-windows that are absolutely essential, when setting up a project/template/whatever (if I didn't remember a lot of the keyboard shortcuts, it would drive me batty). Or that the Most Used Visio tools -- the various alignment ones -- are no longer available as single buttons; you have to use a drop-down to get to them (but you're never on the tab where the drop-down is, obviously). Just p1ssing about with the ribbon costs me a fortune in time when I should be being productive. And that's not to mention that it breaks my train of thought, every time I have to hunt a function down, which costs a lot more than just a few clicks' worth of time. Professional-level use of word-processors, spreadsheets, slideshow apps, and diagramming tools is every bit as complicated, if not more so, than professional use of an IDE. I vote the ribbon be implemented for VS -- it's only used to edit a bunch of plain-text files, after all. Then we'll see how many developers approve of it.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Once upon a time, everything was like vi and edlin: you had to remember keyboard shortcuts (which you could list on the screen -- if you could remember the keyboard shortcut to list keyboard shortcuts). No-one was particularly happy with this, but it worked, so we used it. To open programs, we had to type addresses and program names in little black boxes, which could be a pain, because after a while you have lots of programs and batch files, and you have to remember where they are and what they're called -- so programs like FIND soon became the most-used programs. No-one was particularly happy with that, either, but it worked. Then, someone brilliant thought of putting permanent bars at the top of program screens, with brackets around or underlines under the letters you had to press in combination with other keys -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs. And everyone cheered! Soon, an absolute genius thought: "Hey, we can turn that into a menu, so that instead of holding Alt and pressing letters, you just press Alt, then press the bracketed or underlined letter, and that drops down another list, where all you have to do is again press the bracketed or underlined letter!" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs. And everyone cheered! Then a bunch of bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing, came up with the Graphical user interface, or GUI, and the words at the top of the program screens became buttons, which you could click with a mouse, as well as typing the bracketed or underlined letters -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and made windows. And everyone cheered! The bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing also came up with the idea of using graphical shortcuts, little 64x64px borderless buttons, which you could double-click to open programs -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows. And everyone cheered Loudly! Then someone thought: "Hey, why do we have to use words, which take up a lot of space, at the top of program screens, when we can use little 32x32px buttons with pictures on them for each tool, rather than have to click through menus to get to them?" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows. A
I like a well done ribbon, but it must have a hide/collapse and reverse 'button'.
Follow my adventures with .NET Core at my new blog, Erisia Information Services.
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I like a well done ribbon, but it must have a hide/collapse and reverse 'button'.
Follow my adventures with .NET Core at my new blog, Erisia Information Services.
Brady Kelly wrote:
I like a well done ribbon,
... with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Same here: put really often used stuff on the taskbar, put shortcuts to the other regularly used stuff in a number of folders ( customised, organised and sorted as wanted ) and use them as "toolbars" on the same taskbar. End result: has been working really well since windows 98, one method works the same way for all versions since. Regardless of any UI changes they dream up. As long as they stick to having a taskbar/toolbar its OK :) . I would be really unhappy though if they did not :( .
I've been using a little gadget called KO Approach[^] for years, now. It shows the content of folders as a menu, if you long-click, so I have folders down the side of my desktop for Network, Media, Graphics, Work, etc, populated with shortcuts and symlinks to stuff I need. The only things certain about computer UIs are that one size does not fit all, and that baby-blocks are only fit for babies.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
