News - Microsoft bringing ribbon interface to Windows 8 Explorer

[HEXUS]

Screenshots of an early Windows 8 build hint at tighter integration of the ribbon user experience.

Read more.

[spoon_]

Oh dear...

"Ribbon user experience" or rather "If you look for something it won't be on the bloody ribbon so sod off" is pretty bad implementation what I'd call user experience.

[TheAnimus]

a load more shots here:
http://windows8news.com/2011/04/03/w...n-ui-revealed/

But ultimately I think these are either very work in progress or fake, they are using terms that are different to the API or current names for the same functions. So either its been done by some skunkworks esk team that have yet to be beaten up by some usability testing, or these are just faked up by someone based on the roomer that the ribbon will be in explorer.

Myself I'd quite like it there, but collapsed by default, It does work very well in the Windows Live Photo gallery thing.

[Fatboy40]

This seems a bit fishy to me, possibly fake.

If not though then it's a huge mistake, as a whole tab of the ribbon is just replicating a 'right click'. Why create a reduction in the viewable area of a window when a right click suffices ?.

[cameronlite]

The ribbon tool bar makes it easier and faster to use and to find new items. The old menu system (regarding office in particular) was very illogical.

I suppose they are just trying to make the user experience accross different platforms/programs the same.

[Spud1]

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!

It's a fair point that for novice users the traditional file/edit/view menus can seem overly complicated and technical, but they still work really well, and I use them on a regular basis in explorer through the magic of the alt key.

I suspect that these shots are just mockups/early UX designs..we're a long way off yet and so much will change between now and release. They *could* be from the recent Milestone 3 release, but i'm not sure that the partners involved would really want to risk their contracts like this..and as far as I know that build has not yet been leaked. Plus it would be very unlikely for any new UI bits to appear in that early build.

We'll see though - to be honest I was hoping for something a bit more revolutionary than just sticking an ill conceived "ribbon" UI into explorer.

[spoon_]

The ribbon tool bar makes it easier and faster to use and to find new items. The old menu system (regarding office in particular) was very illogical.

Absolutely, if you're looking to change the page orientation or margins then you've got yourself a winner [I presume you know how to do this already]

For a good reason programs were created or whole huge spreadsheets to show people how to do things in Office 2007 using the very "illogical" menu systems from 2003 because users could not find the damn options!

Ribbon is not logical and hides a lot of functions that you're usually looking for. For new users that have very little knowledge/experience its great but if you're a little bit experience and used to its very quickly becoming a pain.

This is purely based on Office suite experience while moving from 2k3 to 2k7.

Other apps out there might be brilliant with ribbon like TheAnimus said but Office it terrible.

[TheAnimus]

I wouldn't call the ribbon ill conceieved my mum can use it just fine.

And if you go into collapsed mode, it takes less space than the previous solution, the downside being you have to customise the quick launch area at the top to get tool bar functionality back.

A lot of the ribbon hate really does come from the kind of people who just don't like any change.

There are complaints to be had about the ribbon, why in Visio did the ******* remove useful buttons, you have to stand on your head to figure out how to enable dev mode to get em back.... retarded!

[Agent]

As long as you can customise it, I'm happy. I like the ribbon in general for the times I'm not using keyboard shortcuts.

[aidanjt]

I'm happy enough with the ribbon, I generally never use the menu bar anyway, so hiding both will do me fine. A tabbed Windows explorer is more vital from a usability aspect IMHO. Manually heckling with multiple windows when doing heavy file management is a serious PITA. A split view wouldn't hurt, either.

[TheAnimus]

A split view wouldn't hurt, either.

I didn't understand the demise of the split view.

Everyone in DOS days used a split view window manager!

Thing is, office 2010 made the ribbon customisable, if they are kind to us they will make it in 8, if not hopefully it will be sensibly coded so a 3rd party can make a tool for it without too much hassle.

Also, am I alone in this, I actually really like the Ribbon interface (and I spend most of my time in Excel) the only App I don't, is Visio 2010.......

[keithwalton]

Am I the only one that is a little suspicious over the date / time in both screen shots being before noon on april the 1st. Smells like an april fools to me

[cameronlite]

Also, am I alone in this, I actually really like the Ribbon interface (and I spend most of my time in Excel) the only App I don't, is Visio 2010.......

Nooooo! You are most definately not! I too use excel heavily and I'm glad to see the back of the old interface. It is FAR easier to find new things (i haven't used office help is a long time).

Most people that I've talked to about it, don't like it - but they can never put a good reason to why they don't like it.

[aidanjt]

Also, am I alone in this, I actually really like the Ribbon interface (and I spend most of my time in Excel) the only App I don't, is Visio 2010.......

Actually, I like it as well, it's much saner than rows of icon toolbar spam, and more obvious than the menu bar.

[crossy]

Nooooo! You are most definately not! I too use excel heavily and I'm glad to see the back of the old interface. It is FAR easier to find new things (i haven't used office help is a long time).

Most people that I've talked to about it, don't like it - but they can never put a good reason to why they don't like it.

And the answer to that second paragraph is neatly summed up by:

ribbon is not logical and hides a lot of functions that you're usually looking for. For new users that have very little knowledge/experience its great but if you're a little bit experience and used to its very quickly becoming a pain. This is purely based on Office suite experience while moving from 2k3 to 2k7. Other apps out there might be brilliant with ribbon like TheAnimus said but Office it terrible.

A colleague of mine said "Office 2007's UI is the best argument I can see for moving to OpenOffice" and to be honest it gets me so frustrated sometimes that I daydream about flying to Redmond; finding the person responsible and bashing their head into their keyboard until the key cap lettering is tattooed into their forehead; then repeating the same treatment to their family, pets, etc. God, it makes me soooo maaadddddd.
Classic example - I like to set the file properties (doc author, title, etc because it makes finding the doc easier) and enable file preview. In Office 2003 this was "File->Properties" (very logical and easy to get to), in the "improved" Office 2007 it's "Button -> Prepare -> Properties -> Document Properties -> Advanced Properties -> Summary" (illogical and downright obtuse). And I can come up with quite a few other examples. But, hey, my daughters manage to flick around it with aplomb, so maybe I'm just too old to "get it".

Getting back on topic, although I initially slagged off Windows 7's UI, I've got to say that it's grown on me. To the extent that the one on my Ubuntu system now looks/feels pretty "legacy". Heck, I'm even prepared to give MS a "pass" on the ribbon in the file-management if they're clever in how they do it - so make it context sensitive, e.g. click a video file and get "open this with Media Player", "open with PowerDVD", etc. That said, I hope they learn from the Office 2007 "experience" and allow us fogies to have the old (ribbon-less) interface as an alternative. Failing that - give me the ability to switch it off and just use good ole right-click.

I'll reserve judgement until I've had a chance to play with a Review Candidate.

[dangel]

A lot of the ribbon hate really does come from the kind of people who just don't like any change.

This. And welcome to my life as an engineer!

MS spent a small fortune on developing it and I love it - sod menus frankly. I've yet to see a credible or as flexible alternative and the mire of menus in office was a nightmare.

We all like it in the office here - it's just when you like something you don't go posting about it so people assume that the majority can't abide it.