Just wondering what you guys think of the ribbon UI in Microsoft Office 2007/2010. A number of people I know have complained about it but I can't see anything particularly wrong with it. People are just disgusted that they have to learn where the stuff has been moved to. I am considering using the ribbon in a personal project of mine. What do you think of it?
Office's ribbon isn't so bad (in fact, I like it), but Live Movie Maker's and Paint's ribbons are the greatest abominations Microsoft has ever cooked up.
I rather like the new ribbons because they have a clean consistency across the operating system now. I hated the ribbon at first though.
I will tell you what I do hate though, is whenever people try to duplicate the ribbon and fail completely because it was either completely unnecessary, cluttered, or just doesn't function or look right, down to the subtle detail. So I would advise not using it.
I've gotten used to the ribbon in Office 2007/2010. It actually is easier to find the more obscure features. My problem at first was mostly that it wasn't used consistently in Office 2007, but 2010 fixed that.
I don't like the ribbon in most other programs though, because it's usually poorly designed, or the program just doesn't have enough different buttons.
So unless you have more than 25-ish options in your program, I'd say you shouldn't use a ribbon.
Originally Posted by X_Sheep I've gotten used to the ribbon in Office 2007/2010. It actually is easier to find the more obscure features. My problem at first was mostly that it wasn't used consistently in Office 2007, but 2010 fixed that.
I don't like the ribbon in most other programs though, because it's usually poorly designed, or the program just doesn't have enough different buttons.
So unless you have more than 25-ish options in your program, I'd say you shouldn't use a ribbon.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
They did fix that up with Paint by adding in a lot more features which is nice, I just feel like the Ribbon, a part from the benefit of consistency across the operating system, hurts Paint because it's actually more disorderly than orderly. I mean in Office, what do you have? A tab for pretty much any first word to any phrase you might want to do. I want to Insert a picture. I want to Format my smart graphic. I mean they did a good job with that. These other programs with the ribbon seemed to have been built under the philosophy of "Okay well people obviously don't hate it and a lot of people like it, so lets put it everything without actually considering why people liked it..."
I hate it, why change something that everyone has got used to. Sure I can do basic things quicker, but less used features I used to use for acadmic documents I find a PITA to find.
I hardly use Office anymore anyway. LaTeX for the win!
Open Office is almost usable (the text based equation editor is quite nice actually) then when you try to do a drawing or a diagram and its like you have gone back to Windows 3.11 (well its drawing capability is actually worse than Word 6).
Sure you can use Inkscape or something I guess, but it should have at least some decent drawing tools inbuilt.
Originally Posted by PhizzyPhan69 Microsoft Office? You mean the software you have to pay for to do the same stuff that OpenOffice does for free?
I paid $20 for my copy of Microsoft Office because I'm a university student, but I had OpenOffice before and completely hated it. I used Google Docs instead of OpenOffice because I disliked it that much despite the limited features of Google Docs (although it had cloud convenience.) OpenOffice, to me, always seemed very slow and clumsy, and whether I saved a file in .doc or .odt (or whatever that filetype is) it never seemed to be properly formatted when I loaded it up on a school computer or reloaded the saved .doc. I just hated it so much.
The ribbon is okay if you get used to it. Although I'd personally prefer the drop-down menus as its a nice simple vertical list and is consistently used across non-Microsoft products.
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