Preview the Office 2007 Ribbon-Like UI Floated For OpenOffice.Org 617
recoiledsnake writes "OpenOffice.org has prototyped a new UI that radically changes the current OO.o interface into something very similar to the new ribbon style menus that Office 2007 introduced and which have been extensively used throughout Windows 7. The blog shows a screenshot of the prototype in Impress (the equivalent of PowerPoint), but this UI is proposed to be used across all OO.o applications. Some commenters on the Sun blog are not happy about OO.o blindly aping Office 2007, and feel that the ribbon UI may be out of place in non-Windows operating systems."
How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Ribbon is no good even in Windows. And isn't it patented? There's no reason Open Office needs to ape Microsoft's mistakes.
Knew this was going to happen. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a bad idea to me (Score:5, Insightful)
They want to take what's probably the single most reviled "feature" of MS Office 2007 and put it into OpenOffice? When one of the big selling points of OpenOffice, among people I've talked to, is that it looks and feels more like the Office they're used to?
Please tell me they're only thinking of putting it in as an opt-in option, not as the default or only option...
Dan Aris
May I be the first to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Aww, *hell* no!
out of place in non-windows OS'es? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me be the first to assure that the interface is also out of place in Windows OS'es. I'm still at a loss to figure out exactly what functionality that new interface added to Office. It did require us to purchase all new manuals and devote a considerable amount of time to retraining our users. Perhaps that was the "goal"?
Patents? (Score:1, Insightful)
What about patents?
License? (Score:1, Insightful)
Do you think they've read the evil part of the ribbon T&Cs where it says they won't come and get you patent-style unless you *make something which competes directly with office*??
Surely MS have not given permission for this?
(Our company was about to use the ribbon for all our crap until we read that bit - some of our stuff could arguable compete with Publisher or whatever the hell they call it nowadays)
A
Underwhelming (Score:5, Insightful)
If OO.o allows me to revert to the classic UI.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:2, Insightful)
What mistake? The ribbon is fine, it takes 5 mins to pick up unless you have a learning disability or a brain dead MS hater.
Why is MS always aped and not OS X (Score:3, Insightful)
Optional or not? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the new UI is the only UI, I predict a lot of yelling and screaming. Changing an existing UI is never a pleasant thing.
Oh, dear god! (Score:4, Insightful)
I like the Office 2007 ribbon now that I'm used to it, and the simplicity from tabbed toolbars over deep hierarchies in tall menus.
BUT... That "ribbon" in the article looks horrible! They've lost like ALL functionality but the buttons in them, and the design looks like a big step backwards. Note how Office 2007 ribbons add/remove rarely used commands as you resize the window, and crams in much more features in the space than OO.o there. I hope the end result will look nothing like in the preview. There are ribbons, and there are ribbons. :-(
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Ribbon is no good even in Windows. And isn't it patented? There's no reason Open Office needs to ape Microsoft's mistakes.
As a casual user with no time or interest to do a full OOo course (or even RTFM usually) I welcome the Ribbon UI. I understand that experienced and advanced users may not like it, but assuming that the original interface is not removed then the addition of the ribbon would certainly help weekend users like myself.
Ribbon = Bypass for Menu hell (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem with Office, aside from requiring a multitude of options/features to make it Everything for Everybody, is the menu navigation hell that was introduced back in '97.
The ribbon takes the concept presented with the (brain dead) AI that brought you the shortened menu with commonly used options (and made you think all your menu items were MIA), and laid them out with slightly larger, slightly more descriptive icons and sensible grouping.
May I be the first to say (and be damned for doing so) that a 'ribbon' interface for the GIMP would do wonders.
Re:out of place in non-windows OS'es? (Score:3, Insightful)
The goal was to make the new version of Office seem "different" so that people would justify spending lots of cash on it.
Small, incremental, behind-the-scenes upgrades to a product, while truly valuable, just don't get the same "I got something for my money" reaction that a UI change does.
In short, the ribbon was a marketing ploy.
As long as they make it optional I'm ok with it. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I started rolling out Office 2007 at a company I used to work for I was asked, often, if the ribbon could be disabled. I went to the office support site (which is something Microsoft actually has right) and started watching training videos to see which ones I should suggest to users. The first thing the video said when addressing the ribbon was you were stuck with it, can't turn it off.
I personally prefer OpenOffice.org. I have a copy of Office 2008 for my Mac that I was given, I don't even have it installed now that I don't have that job anymore, I prefer using Neo Office on my Mac, and OpenOffice.org on my Linux machines.
That being said - the interface is fine, as long as it's optional, I'm all about customization and user preference.
Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why the interface should be distinct from the core. They should just focus on writing a good word processing engine, and let others design user interfaces for it.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Insightful)
The ribbon is nigh-incomprehensible to first time users.
And yet, myself and other people where I work have had little to no issue picking up the ribbon when we had the opportunity to upgrade to Office 2007. Don't try to lump everyone in your claims just because you were too incompetent to learn it.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Knew this was going to happen. (Score:2, Insightful)
How is that flamebait? It's the truth and only someone who was either blind or absolutely in denial wouldn't see that.
Yeah, Microsoft didn't come up with the ribbon interface and OpenOffice didn't copy it just now... This story is a big lie and none of this ever happened... Deny, deny, deny. Maybe it will come true.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Ribbon is no good even in Windows. And isn't it patented? There's no reason Open Office needs to ape Microsoft's mistakes.
What mistakes?
Microsoft invested an incredible amount of time (and money) into usability research for the Ribbon, conducted with vast thousands of people (close to 10k, I believe) with various levels of computer literacy. The Ribbon is a result of that, and it's - objectively speaking - a massive improvement over standard Office menu hell.
Calling that a mistake is, well, a mistake.
If you have a problem with the Ribbon, it's YOUR problem, and it's statistically insignificant.
OSS Criticism (Score:4, Insightful)
If Windows 7 is going to implement the ribbon system-wide, it makes sense that OO.org would minimally make this an option, if not the default on the Windows release, even though I am amongst those who are not fans of the ribbon.
Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm extrapolating from what I hear on Slashdot, what I hear on other online sites, and what I see and hear in my own workplace and personal life.
So basically you have little to no basis to make such a sweeping claim.
I don't know of any scientific studies that have investigated the matter, but if you know of some proving that the ribbon is the best thing since sliced bread, please feel free to share them with us.
No one said that the ribbon is the best thing since sliced bread, but to claim make a claim that the ribbon is "the single most reviled "feature"" requires some actual evidence beyond what a few tech sites say. If one were to listen to what Slashdot users and other tech sites say, people were supposed to have dropped Microsoft and anything closed-source years ago and we're all supposed to be running Linux on our desktops.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
*Actions* however are orders of magnitude more numerous. When you have to memorize an icon for every single action, it gets unwieldy. Icon graphics can only be so detailed before they are just blurs. *words* (little w) represent pretty specific ways to describe things and have done pretty well through the years me thinks.
Given Word's penchant for "everything including 5 kitchen sinks" in available functionality, it doesn't scale well to the icon/ribbon concept.
Most of this would be completely moot if MS has simply made the ribbon AN OPTION...but they force fed it to everybody. I don't want OO doing the same thing.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:1, Insightful)
The fact that absolutely none of those issues have anything to do with UIs. You can hate a company in general for whatever reason you like, but hating EVERYTHING about the company, even the things that are actually good, is what makes you "brain dead".
Re:Knew this was going to happen. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:4, Insightful)
Erm... What about disliking unfair practices and monopolistic tendencies makes you "braindead" exactly.
You mean besides parroting a meme, operating from a simplistic generalization, and showing resistance to important details relating to the context?
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, those are multiple toolbars placed along multiple lines. Ordinary toolbars don't span many lines... they just hide their elements and offer a drop down menu to access the rest.
Re:Here come the haters (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder how much money was spent by Microsoft on usability studies to come up with this interface.
About the same amount for the usability studies that proved Microsoft Bob was soooo beneficial. We all know where that went!
Re:Here come the haters (Score:1, Insightful)
Just because it came from Microsoft doesn't make it a good idea. Microsoft has had plenty of bad ideas.
Just because users are non-tech does not mean they are too stupid to use anything that doesn't look like Microsoft. Non-tech employees were using word processors and spreadsheets long before Microsoft invented GUI... Oh, wait...
Just because a lot of people hate something doesn't mean it came from Microsoft. Sometimes a lot of people actually hate something because it is a bad effing idea; it just happened to come from Microsoft (see #1 above).
Re:Optional or not? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'll say.. (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not talking about the Ribbon interface though. He's talking about the custom window decorations that all apps (including Outlook) have in Office 2007. And he's right. None of them fit with windows XP at all and you can't easily tell which windows are active and focused because of the color.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
Any toolbar that needs a SEARCH to find SEARCH is broken.
That flippin' Find and Replace moves all over the place, from application to application. And if the Ribbon moves items based on usage (which it seems to), then it's a nightmare for support personnel:
"See the little icon next to Sort & Filter? You don't have Sort and Filter? OK what Icons do you have?"
Not to mention that Microsoft's categorization is just plain bad. Want to Insert a Powerpoint Slide? Don't press the Insert tab. Want to insert a row in Excel? Surely that's on the insert tab (nope).
Want to find out the Properties of a document in Word? Let's see, would Properties be under Home, Insert, Page Layout, Mailings, Review, View, or Add-Ins. I could make a case for several of those, but View seems to make the most sense... as in View Properties. But noooooooooooo .... it's under the "Click the unnamed icon with multi-colored squares on it, and press Prepare". WTF???
I've griped about this before... I'm sure the Ribbon has potential, IF IMPLEMENTED WELL, but it wasn't. Maybe Open Office will get it right.
Re:Ribbon = Bypass for Menu hell (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:0, Insightful)
"...it puts the similar functions together in a intelligent way."
Uh, sorta like the "File, Edit..." drop down menus have been doing for years?
My experience with the ribbons is that they add no benefit, solve no problems with the previous menu structures, and seem to just be change for change's sake. I now spend a lot of time hunting around trying to find the options I'm looking for, becuse what I'm looking for rarely falls into the "Home. Insert..." ribbon categories.
For instance, if I am looking for Style options, how would I know to select the "Home" ribbon? If I want to use a Macro option, how in god's name would I know it was on the "View" ribbon?
In the end, people will hunt and peck long enough that they'll eventually remember where things are, and it will feel "intuitive".
Another thing needs to be done (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst thing you can possibly do in a UI is hide stuff inconsistently (ie, outside of user control) or move stuff around.
For example, hiding menu options based on use patterns. What purpose does this serve? To save screen space? The user remembers the option they want (if they donot use the hotkey) by placement (almost at the top, just below the middle, etc). Hiding options screws this up. These experts seem to believe users actually READ all the options (or look at icons or something). They don't. They just remember that the recycler was somewhere bottom right, the file menu with open option is top left, tools is somewhere on the right side next to help, etc..
The same thing goes for moving options around, it doesn't matter for what reason. Moving them around means that the option that was in the right corner last week is suddenly somewhere in the middle this week -- mega fail.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:4, Insightful)
Insightful??
Do you prefer a UI that hides the actual contentbased on window size? If a windows getting smaller, something's getting hidden, y'know..
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well I'm on week 8 of using it and it is still driving me bat shit insane. Just yesterday it took me ages (several minutes) of clicking through every 'tab' to find the 'insert file' button (which ironically is hidden in a DROP DOWN MENU)
What possible reason is there for not making it an option switch between the 'old fashioned' menus and the new ribbon is beyond me.
If OO.o is adding a ribbon, i really really really hope they make it optional.
Sigh. Someone else who complains without using it (Score:3, Insightful)
Any toolbar that needs a SEARCH to find SEARCH is broken.
That flippin' Find and Replace moves all over the place, from application to application.
Why was this marked Insightful?
Let's see... I fire up Word, I go to the Home tab ... there's Find/Replace/Select, on the far right. Open up Excel, open the Home tab of the Ribbon ... there it is again, Find&Select, on the far right. Let's try PowerPoint... open up the Home tab, lo and behold, it's on the far right, looking exactly like it did in Word. Even Access puts the Find/Select/etc. box on the far right of the Home tab of the Ribbon.
So which applications were you talking about that do it differently? The ones that don't use the Ribbon? Well I have great news for you: All of the Office apps will have the Ribbon in Office 2010, so everything will be just as consistent as it is in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access now. You might want to wait to upgrade until then.
P.S. Psssst... but between you and me, I use Ctrl-F.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:1, Insightful)
Do they know that that button in the bottom left of the taskbar, labeled "start" (or just orb looking in Vista), is click-able?
Or have they been functioning since 1995 with just desktop icons and quicklaunch?
Actually that makes sense since every program I install insists on a quicklaunch and desktop icon.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:1, Insightful)
"For example, hiding menu options based on use patterns. What purpose does this serve? To save screen space? The user remembers the option they want (if they donot use the hotkey) by placement (almost at the top, just below the middle, etc). Hiding options screws this up. These experts seem to believe users actually READ all the options (or look at icons or something). They don't. They just remember that the recycler was somewhere bottom right, the file menu with open option is top left, tools is somewhere on the right side next to help, etc.."
Very true, one of the best things ever written on Slashdot!
The designers of these stupid 'improvements' are merely trying to justify their existence, as simple as that.
The 'Ribbon' is a load of rubbish and is fine for three year olds who can't actually READ - for everybody else, it slows down how you work, and increase mouse induced RSI - and god help anybody who can't use a mouse. I guess Microsoft didn't think about them, too busy dumbing down their software for illiterate cretins who can't read.
If they can't read, why do they need to use a word processor!!!
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, pull-down menus are pretty confusing to first-time users, too.
But they are not "in your face". People can work Word just fine without ever using the menu bar. Standard toolbars have everything for a common man. And those toolbars don't flicker on their own, so once you learn where the "Open File" button is, it's always there and the mouse movement is automatic. With ribbon you always need to look and comprehend why you see something else where another button was just a moment ago. That "feature" requires learning the whole palette of ribbons just to figure out where you are each time you need something.
Also, menus are structured far better. Everything insertable is generally under "Insert", everything about tables is in "Table" etc. In ribbons of MS Office some functions are duplicated, some are bound to the right-click event, and some are simply impossible to find. I remember looking for a footnote for 10 minutes; I did find it somewhere, but if I need to do that again I have no clue how that ribbon/button looks like.
Also, not everyone is image-oriented. There is a reason why most languages on Earth use limited character set, and why Chinese and Japanese and Korean scripts (CJK) [plus a couple more] are so hard to learn. Humans do better with fewer characters and longer words because our ability to distinguish shapes is not as good as our ability to form one complex object out of several simple ones.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, y'know, a softly throbbing brand logo is far more likely to suggest that this is where I open and close files than, oh I don't konw, a maybe a funny little bar with text on it that says "File"! ;-)
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
with no obvious reading order
Absolutely bang on. You've hit the nail on the head with that.
The menu has a simple structure which can be understood instantly and extrapolates indefinitely. Go to the word that seems most relevant -> then to a more relevant word -> ... -> reach the exact word you were looking for. Once a user flips through a menu or two, finding any option - no matter how deep - only depends on whether the authors have made sensible organizational and linguistic choices.
The ribbon, as a wide rectangular region of varyingly sized/shaped/functional widgets - rather than a consistent tree of words - is a UI nightmare.
Stop, stop stop stop STOP! (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been developing and supporting hundreds of Open Source projects and packages for close to 20 years now... and I "get it". But can we please stop imitating, and get back to innovating? Nobody likes the "ribbon", and it just confuses users. Ask them. Ask Windows users what they prefer.
Stop imitating, start innovating. Again.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Insightful)
I though the ribbon was much more about differentiating the M$ version from it's competitors and to create the impression that is was a new version and you were actually paying for something of value rather than throwing money away on a pointless upgrade. Added to that, I got the feeling 'IT'S A Trap' for any other company that copied it, patents and copyright etc.
So incorporate the features, for users who start out with M$ Office and want to swap but, please make it a plugin only. Big changes in UI really do kill productivity and it take months until you finally shift focus away from how you are using software back to what you are doing with it.
Re:Sigh. Someone else who complains without using (Score:5, Insightful)
Word and Excel have SOME consistency (except that they sometimes call it Find, sometimes Find and Replace. Sometimes it's an icon, sometimes it's not.) Sometimes it's a big icon, sometimes it's small. Now, let's go to Outlook:
Let's try to follow your instructions, when creating a new message in Outlook. Home tab? there isn't one. Maybe you mean the Message Tab which is located where the Home tab is in Word: Far Right? That's Spelling. No, Find is under "Format Text". How intuitive.
Next try to find "Find" when you are reading someone's message to you. Where's Find?
Now let's say you want to find a message in your Inbox. Where's find? OK let's try to find a message in a file folder. Where's find.
OK, let's go to Internet Explorer. Where's Find?
See? So much for consistency.
And using Ctrl-F proves my point. OK, so we're supposed to tell our users what? "I know the Ribbon sucks - just memorize this control sequence."