News - Microsoft bringing ribbon interface to Windows 8 Explorer

[TheAnimus]

I think they did really drop the ball not having user customisation in there from day one thou.

The 'legitimate' complaints, such as not having the Union/Intersection buttons in Visio in a sane place (developer?!) are easily fixed by this.

A lot of the other one is just band wagon jumping, I bet if MS had kept it until 2010, when everyone was having a Windows 7 love fest in the press, they would have had better feedback.

Those who really use office for a huge amount of the time that I've worked with all like the ribbon, mostly kept in closed mode, acting just like an enhanced menu, the only toolbar needed is the contextual popup one. However I can't fathom why they didn't overhaul the dialogues too.

What someone might find odd thou, given what I've just written, I'm ripping a ribbon out of an App I've taken over for a client, its just not an appropriate UI. I'll be copying Opera's one a bit, tabs in title bar, with indicators on the Tab, then the toolbar at the top.

If the users don't like it in UAT, well I'm planning on being some 3,000+ miles away, that would be a BA issue.

[dangel]

I think they did really drop the ball not having user customisation in there from day one thou.

That's just a version 1 thing - it happens will all software when there's a major upheaval and even with MS vast resources they're not immune. One could view Vista as V1 of 'new era' Windows - as much of it laid the foundation for 7.

[TheAnimus]

I must admit I use the Intel thing of Tick Tock. No not some silly whore singraping.

Only thing is rather than being a die shrink, its the big new features, the new architecture, then its a refinement that is able to utilise that previous investment.

A lot of business types who know nothing about software find it easier to understand. Failing that just say sure as every even numbered star treck films are crap, so are our releases

[Phage]

I think they did really drop the ball not having user customisation in there from day one thou..

This.
I haven't used the menus in excel for years, but I heavily customise which icons are shown so that I can just click once to do some tasks. I cannot find anything in the new version and I can't afford the time to go hunting for where they've put the pivot table stuff, or the formula auditing.

[scaryjim]

... If the users don't like it in UAT, well I'm planning on being some 3,000+ miles away, that would be a BA issue.

Well played sir, well played

I have to say I have mixed feelings about the ribbon, but if that's the way Microsoft choose to go I'm sure that I'll get used to it and in ten years' time we'll all be cursing them for getting rid of the ribbon

[OilSheikh]

I never liked it, looks too kiddy. Even icons of Networkconnection next to the clock looks cartoony compared to XP!

[usxhe190]

I tried both ribbon and non-ribbon for work.

I am pretty proficient in both and they have their good and bad.

Non-ribbon is great if you want to use lots of functions which I do - there are more clicks to go to the same thing with Ribbon style.

However, there are some stuff that is good with ribbon like things you usually see in the function menus that are already on the ribbon which is good.

For me, I like the old button way but update the functions so that they are as good as the new ribbon functions but without taking so much space

[Funkstar]

I much prefer the ribbon interface, but I'm also a sucker for things looking good, and XP with older office versions just make my wince they look so bad.

Mmm I don't like the idea personally - the ribbon has always seemed to be more illogical to me in office/wordpad etc, and I really don't like how much of the screen it takes up..it's huge!

Not nearly as huge as when people somehow manage to have ever icon bar enabled, one under the other taking half a screen, but with half of that tot the right as blank grey space. The ribbon avoids this problem.

[smithy1158]

What I don't get is the fact that 80% of those buttons are well-known keyboard shortcuts anyway.. I mean c'mon, who uses the alt-menu entry for copy and paste or select all??

The only people this benefits are touch screen users. I think Microsoft should definately make that an option rather than default and enable it when a touch monitor is detected.

Saying all that I'm glad Microsoft are adding these features for touch devices, I'd much rather the future of computing use a full operating system like Windows rather than being dumbed down like an iPad...

[Funkstar]

What I don't get is the fact that 80% of those buttons are well-known keyboard shortcuts anyway.. I mean c'mon, who uses the alt-menu entry for copy and paste or select all??

Probably the vast majority of users.

[smithy1158]

Probably the vast majority of users.

Rubbish. Everyone knows their Ctrl-C and V's... Maybe use the ribbon by default and have keyboard shortcut as tool-tips - but an option to hide should definately be there.

What would be good on the ribbon is batch re-naming or attributing or re-sizing.. Advanced features.

[badass]

Rubbish. Everyone knows their Ctrl-C and V's... Maybe use the ribbon by default and have keyboard shortcut as tool-tips - but an option to hide should definately be there.

I talk from a position of authority when I say "everyone" certainly doesn't know their ctrl-c's and ctrl-v's.
In fact, about 1/2 of our 400 odd users cannot understand how to use the shift key.
These people are adults between the ages of 25 and 55......

[Agent]

Rubbish. Everyone knows their Ctrl-C and V's...

You've been very lucky in life then...

[aidanjt]

I talk from a position of authority when I say "everyone" certainly doesn't know their ctrl-c's and ctrl-v's.
In fact, about 1/2 of our 400 odd users cannot understand how to use the shift key.
These people are adults between the ages of 25 and 55......

This.

I, myself, can safely say I don't know half of the standard keyboard hotkeys. I've only bothered memorising the ones which I'd have use for more than 0.1% of the time. And that's even true of my Vim usage. And I consider myself quite a proficient power user.

I've tried explaining the virtues of Ctrl+'X' to my ole man for things like copying/moving files and text, but it doesn't stick, he always reverts to mouse/gui interaction, and that's true of most users I deal with.

[smithy1158]

I talk from a position of authority when I say "everyone" certainly doesn't know their ctrl-c's and ctrl-v's.
In fact, about 1/2 of our 400 odd users cannot understand how to use the shift key.
These people are adults between the ages of 25 and 55......

Thats pretty shocking. I guess OS's need to be more intuitive and having one click access to a big button saying COPY does help some people.. But still OS's should be flexible enough so they can cater for professionals too.

[aidanjt]

That's why the hotkeys are still there.