[Bob-san]

oh my....reverse compatibility...

but wait, they're still doing that, Win7 has that emulator thingy right?

on topic: congrats for the new job!

Win7 Pro+ has a WinXP virtual machine available.

Anyways, why is M$ pushing for the "ribbon" interface on everything? Wouldn't it be rather trivial to program a "classic" style that makes use of gigantic trees of menus?

[achtung]

oh my....reverse compatibility...

but wait, they're still doing that, Win7 has that emulator thingy right?

on topic: congrats for the new job!

Win7 Pro+ has a WinXP virtual machine available.

Anyways, why is M$ pushing for the "ribbon" interface on everything? Wouldn't it be rather trivial to program a "classic" style that makes use of gigantic trees of menus?

I always thought it decreased the learning curve for new users, and made them feel like they were doing something edgy.

[General Battuta]

Ribbon is awesome. I was a Word power user starting in kindergarten (lol macros at age 6) and I could never go back now.

[Bob-san]

Ribbon is awesome. I was a Word power user starting in kindergarten (lol macros at age 6) and I could never go back now.

I've found Ribbon to be very frustrating, even having used it for the past 2._ years. I find Office 03 to be much easier to use, partially because I'm familiar with it and partially because I have descriptive words describing the function (instead of a flashy icon that's too small OR a large icon that takes up 6x the space) that I'm trying to use--instead of some icon or it being buried in menus or takes up an ungodly amount of resources.

[General Battuta]

How peculiar, two people having different experiences!

[IceFire]

Oi... I hope they don't take away ribbon. I think it's fantastic! Unfortunately some people are stuck using file menus

I still agree... options are good. If you HAVE to use menus then maybe there should be an option for it.

[Delta_V]

Anyways, why is M$ pushing for the "ribbon" interface on everything?

  I read this as I finished installing an update for Windows Live.  When I opened Mail, guess what? It now has a ribbon!

Overall, I like the ribbon.  It just seems easier than searching through trees of menus looking for what you want.

[Bobboau]

I just don't get why they call it a ribbon, why isn't calling it what it is, a tabbed interface, good enough.

[MR_T3D]

Anyways, why is M$ pushing for the "ribbon" interface on everything?

  I read this as I finished installing an update for Windows Live.  When I opened Mail, guess what? It now has a ribbon!

Overall, I like the ribbon.  It just seems easier than searching through trees of menus looking for what you want.

Windos 7's PAINT has the ribbon.
I kindof think it's pretty neat, the ribbon, little odd the first time you see it, but poke around, and its more intuitive, which is nice.

but I use openoffice, so it's still old-style menus with me, ironically.

[spyderrock48]

go away ribbon, i hate you

[Mika]

Windos 7's PAINT has the ribbon.
I kindof think it's pretty neat, the ribbon, little odd the first time you see it, but poke around, and its more intuitive, which is nice.

but I use openoffice, so it's still old-style menus with me, ironically.

In Win7 Paint I find the ribbon to be less annoying and I can live with it, though overall Win7 Paint is considerably better than Win XP paint. Added functionality of arrows and other stuff that I can quickly put in my presentations, and other nice updates. But I still think that the ribbon slightly slows it down when compared to old system. And Paint is about as simple program as you can get. I forced the computer support to install Office 2003 because of the lack of Ribbon. Kazan, say my regards for the people who forced it there!

But the most boneheaded decision was to try and put the ribbon in CAD software! I still don't know anyone who uses it there, I recall from the company that the ribbon intake was at best around 10 %... And Optical software companies already ensuring us that the ribbon stays away.

Mika

[asyikarea51]

At school they simply used the ribbon in CAD lessons.

For all my distaste of the ribboning everywhere it felt better with the ribbon... somewhat. I tried the old way and struggled to find an option everyone else in the class took 2 seconds to find on the ribbon. But then again I could simply argue "I started with the ribbon first so obviously the ribbon would feel better in the long run" and stuff.

I guess showing the menu options at the stop is one step to me wanting to go back to an old way I didn't learn, if I could even call that a step...

[Bob-san]

The Ribbon is probably fine for your average user, especially new software users. I've used Office for a decade before I touched the Ribbon and naturally find the menus and similar to be far easier than the ribbon. Likewise, I was using Adobe CS_ and AutoCAD years before the Ribbon interface arrived and again find the old interface easier to use. What pisses me off more than anything about Ribbon is that it's hard-coded into Microsoft software. I would suspect that programming a "classic" UI would be an easy task--so easy that it'd be done for the sake of older users and the various power-users. It's the same arrogance (in my opinion) that caused so many Microsoft problems in the past.

[Mongoose]

I know my dad hates the hell out of the Ribbon in whatever newer version of Office we have on the family PC.  He's not exactly what you'd call a patient person, and he doesn't pick technology-related tricks up as quickly as, say, most of us here would, so I've had to deal with quite a bit of frustration on his part. I'm still all the way back on Office 2003 on this machine, so I've never had much experience with the thing.

[General Battuta]

The Ribbon is probably fine for your average user, especially new software users. I've used Office for a decade before I touched the Ribbon and naturally find the menus and similar to be far easier than the ribbon.

Interesting, I used Office for longer than you and fell well into 'power user' territory and I like the Ribbon much better.

I can understand it's hard to retrain, but in the end you don't want to support an obsolete standard just because you're used to it.

[The E]

Just as long as they keep the ribbon out of Visual Studio....

[Iss Mneur]

Just as long as they keep the ribbon out of Visual Studio....

As long as they don't change the hotkeys, a ribbon in VS probably wouldn't bother me much.  That being said, its not like VS has screen space to waste on a ribbon as it is.

[Bob-san]

The Ribbon is probably fine for your average user, especially new software users. I've used Office for a decade before I touched the Ribbon and naturally find the menus and similar to be far easier than the ribbon.

Interesting, I used Office for longer than you and fell well into 'power user' territory and I like the Ribbon much better.

I can understand it's hard to retrain, but in the end you don't want to support an obsolete standard just because you're used to it.

Everyone has different preferences; I found the menus et cetera to be more intuitive. With the old GUI (c. Office 2003), I found that I used the majority of the basic options and appreciated the ability to remove those that I didn't use and add those that I did. Things that I didn't do often were hidden a few clicks away but didn't clutter my workpace. Other parts, like Ruler On not being the default setting in 07, annoyed me daily when in the computer lab. Besides, when I zoom out a tiny bit or move the window to my primary screen, I can see two pages up-front with minimal scrolling. The Ribbon takes up twice the space on a good day and thrice or more on a bad day.

[Mika]

I can understand it's hard to retrain, but in the end you don't want to support an obsolete standard just because you're used to it.

Obsolete by how exactly?

"Or are you just afraid of the change?" was something what my colleague asked me when I complained about the Ribbon (and that you can't configure it!) and Microsoft breaking some of the other compatibility things. I had to remind him that I could as easily break his elbow and after seeing his protests I asked if he was "just afraid of change" to get the point across.

The thing is, CAD program interfaces should not change quickly. Trust me on this, it is not only asking, but begging for trouble. The same stuff applies for other engineering programs. Seeing that the uptake on Ribbon on that field is around 10 % or less; well that gives you an idea how intuitive it is. Optical Design software houses have already promised they aren't going to try in any time soon.

I guess in the end it all goes down to whether the user wants a modeless UI or not. Ribbon goes for the modal UI, while menus are modeless and all options are accessible at the same time. Former research said - I read about this on internet and I don't care enough to find the reference, I'm simply not interested enough - that modeless UI is better. Due to the amount of clutter in nowadays Offices it seems that Microsoft has reconsidered their position.

My question is that why did they replace the text with icons that just take space? Graphical icons are a lot slower to interpret, while the meaning of a text is immediately evident. I'm yet to see a icon that could describe e.g. modulation transfer function as well as a button with a text "MTF" does.

[Kazan]

from your average end-luser standpoint context-sensitive (aka Modal) UIs are easier to use, and the technical reason to not support the old interface is that you're maintaining two interfaces - a guaranteed way to generate bugs.