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."
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Good Lord, I agree wholeheartedly. The ribbon is nigh-incomprehensible to first time users. I just had to use a version of Office with the ribbon for the first time a few weeks ago, and I had a hard time with it.
Now, I don't know what it's like once you're used to it, but it didn't seem like a step forward in intuitiveness compared to the old Office menus. I don't think that I can chock that up just to me getting older and being used to the old ways.
Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, you beat me to it.
Let's face it, most companies out there use MS Office. And most users of MS Office got used to the setup that hadn't changed in quite a while. When Office 2k7 came out, my CEO wanted it on his computer so he could test it out. As CEO, he reads/edits/writes a lot of documents.
Because of the god-awful changes, it took him quite a while to get up-to-speed. So much time, in fact, that he requested we A) not upgrade anyone else and B) remove it from his machine and put Office 2k3 back on it.
Now, he's not the most technically proficient person out there, but he's better than most (compared to average users I mean) and for him to say it was pretty eye-opening.
I can't comprehend why OOo did this. Not a good idea.
Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember that UI style (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll say.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Ya think? The Ribbon UI is out of place in Windows. With Outlook 2007 running on one of my screens, you couldn't come up to me and tell whether or not that window was in focus. It doesn't match anything else in windows, it doesn't look cool, and its a huge, huge step backward in usability. I finally gave up Office 97 for Open Office about a year ago, and now I just do my best to not have to use either because they're both complete garbage.
What's the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:out of place in non-windows OS'es? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
My theory is that it's another step in the bizarre UI design model that MS seems to have come up with, where the Windows UI is the same across every type of device (desktops, servers, tablets, handheld PCs, cellphones, etc.).
It began with them putting the Start menu on handhelds and cellphones, which IMO was a stupid idea. Something like the Start menu is useful on desktops because you have a mouse to navigate with *and* you are very likely to end up with a ton of software installed that requires a navigation hierarchy instead of a flat list. On a mobile device it slows the user down and adds unnecessary complexity.
The ribbon is the next step. IMO the ribbon UI would make a lot of sense for a device with a touchscreen, because it's much more friendly to fingers than a traditional menu. But on a desktop? It's a huge waste of screen real-estate, and it shows because so many of the functions I use in Office don't fit into the ribbon and I have to get to them in some new and stupid way now.
They're working on something similar with their current/next wave of server applications. The management consoles for them all use a model that would work very well for a simple touchscreen app but is infuriating as a server GUI because it doesn't take advantage of e.g. having a mouse.
Basically it seems like they're going for a lowest-common-denominator approach that's not going to make anyone happy. UIs that are tailored to take advantage of a platform's strengths are much better, and exceptions (like crazy people who want to manage their servers from a tablet on a regular basis) can be dealt with as such instead of making everyone else pay the price.
Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me (Score:4, Interesting)
They want to take what's probably the single most reviled "feature" of MS Office 2007 and put it into OpenOffice?
Do you have any evidence that the ribbon is actually reviled in mass among the majority of users or are you just wrongly extrapolating to all users based on what people on sites like Slashdot say? Plenty of people where I work absolutely love the new ribbon interface and mention how they don't want to have to go back to any previous version once they get really used to it.
Here come the haters (Score:5, Interesting)
I know there will be a lot of "haters" regarding this. However, if the hopes of smoothly transitioning users from MS Office to OpenOffice it will need to give an option to have a similar look and feel.
To transition non-tech employees to Linux, I used an XP theme on Ubuntu. http://ubuntu.online02.com/node/14 [online02.com]
The transition was flawless.
Besides, I wonder how much money was spent by Microsoft on usability studies to come up with this interface. How much money has been spent on usability studies for OpenOffice? Might turn out to be a better way to work in the long run. Just because it is MS does not necessarily mean it is sh*t. That just seems to be the default.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Interesting)
I resisted my organization's upgrade to Office 2007 tooth and nail... I complained several times...
The IT department installed Office 2007 anyway.
And I hated the ribbon, with passion... for about two weeks, until I grudgingly admitted that, once you get used to it, it is quite easy to use and it puts the similar functions together in a intelligent way.
So yeah, I like it now
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok, I'll bite. First, it doesn't take five minutes to learn, unless you really don't know woh to use Office advanced features, it takes a complete relearning of the interface. That usualy takes a few mounts of practice.
Second, name a single advantaje of the ribon. Even if it did take five minutes to learn, what return there is in spending those five minutes?
Looks Useful (Score:5, Interesting)
Blasphemy you say!! Well I'm an Office 2007 user so I know what the damn ribbon looks like. From what I can see is that they took the idea behind the ribbon of grouping commonly used features into clusters and unlike MS they went with large enough Icons with decent contrast to be easily visable on a high rez monitor (1280x1024+) like what I use.
So before everyone goes apeshit about this proposed change, take the damn time and actually compare the stinking ribbon with this and you'll see that the change doesn't resemble the ribbon. What I'd like to see is this being offered as an optional customization for those who appreciate its usefulness.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Damn, you are old.
It wasn't that hard to get used to. More than five minutes, but now I can get to a ton of features a lot faster than I used to. The first week was a pain in the butt for sure. After that, I have a hard time going back to Office 03 menus.
Good for PPT, Horrible for the rest (Score:5, Interesting)
When I finally upgraded my work computer to have Office 2007, I was having a hard time at first, but soon I came to like the new PowerPoint a lot. At this time I was doing a lot of work in PowerPoint, so it's where I got the most exposure. The main reasons I liked it were the improvements in functionality of the tools themselves and some of the new tools. Smart Art is convenient, positioning objects is much smoother, auto-formatting of slides is smarter. I can whip up a very nice looking presentation without a lot of thought about formatting. Things are pleasing to the eye without having to study color theory first, because MS did the color theory part for you with their pre-defined color schemes that have consistent values, densities and complimentary colors. Word and Excel improved on their "intelligence" too. For instance, bullets and numbering just happens instead of it being an explicit instruction. However, when it comes to ribbon, I am torn.
In PowerPoint, the ribbon works. The reason for this is that the tools you use are very task specific. If I am inserting a picture, there is a certain set of tools that I always will use with a picture, but will rarely ever use with any other task. That way, the tools I need are right in front of me, and the tools I don't are hidden. However, in Word and Excel, the tools are not as task specific and the definition of what task I'm working on is very unclear. Furthermore, the tools used are not always perfectly described by an icon, which means it becomes very hard to find what you're looking for. This is especially the case in Excel, where ther are just so many tools available to you that turning everything into an icon on a ribbon just makes it impossible to find what you're looking for.
But the more I think about it, every time I switch back to older versions of Office, I don't miss the ribbon, I miss the other improvements. I can find may way around just as fast, if not faster in the old style than with the ribbon, and I've gotten pretty used to the ribbon now. While the new UI is completely bad, it really does not improve things overall the way it claims. Like I said, PowerPoint seems to be a good fit, but even still, I get by just fine with the old style.
Re:Keep this thing off my netbook (Score:1, Interesting)
I lot of talk here from people who don't know what they're talking about. If you spent 30 seconds, you could have figured out that you can hide the ribbon by double clicking on the tab name. Then the menu system is the same size as any other app (1 row below the window frame.) If your screen real estate is being wasted, its your fault, not MS's. Of course, those 30 seconds could clearly be spent more effectively blindly bashing MS.
The fact is, pre-2007 era Office had a nightmare of spaghetti menu dropdowns. The ribbon is better than that convoluted scheme. OO.o's menus aren't that bad, but, if that screenshot is any indication, its proposed ribbon is dreadful.
Just because it is good in the MS product doesn't mean it makes OO.o better. The fact is, for the vast majority of us, switching from, say, MS Word(which is a relatively cheap program, and we almost all have an old version already installed - no need to upgrade to 2007 if you still like 97), will only happen if the other program is better. (Disclaimer: I understand that for some of you, dropping 100 bucks on a program every few years is a big deal, but for those of us who use it every day as part of our jobs, we care what works, so long as the price is within reason). OO.o should concentrate on being better than MS Office, not trying to copy it.
(Disclosure: Uses Office 2007 at work, thinks its better than earlier versions. Uses OO.o on home system, thinks it still has a way to go before it is ready for critical use.)
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
The ribbon is supposed to show the average user immediate-to-advanced options for their software use and allow them to discover feature they would never even think of using. For them, it takes only 5 minutes, as the features they commonly use, it doesn't take long to show them where they are.
Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me (Score:3, Interesting)
and meetings, holy hell does he go to a metric shit-ton of meetings. Amazing fact, more than half are meetings he didn't actually set up. Weird, that. Only CEO I've ever worked for who goes to most meetings as a participant rather than the chair.
Hates them, we does! Nasty Bloated Ribbonses! (Score:3, Interesting)
I just got a new laptop at work, and it has Office 2007, replacing the 2003 that was on the old one. The only thing that makes it at all tolerable is that my new screen is 900 pixels high instead of 768, so most of the space that the ribbon's burning up is new pixels, but it takes me longer to get to many of the features I use often, and I haven't yet dug around to find all the features I'd like to have, plus it'll take me a while to memorize where it's hiding everything that I considered to be reasonably obvious in 2003.
Re:Knew this was going to happen. (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Several global-use toolbars.
2. One specific-use adaptable toolbar.
3. Dockable dialogs (see Inkscape path/fill properties), for complex and repetitive tasks.
4. Menus for the following reasons: backup of tool-bar options, hierarchical organization, optimal space use, easy keyboard navigation and keyboard shortcuts reminder.
(Inkscape just fails a bit since some dialogs are not dockable yet, but does scroll-docking, side-by-side docking and tabbed docking).
I've never used ribbon thing but, correct me if I'm wrong, they are placed on the top zone, which is not a god thing nowadays monitors tend to be landscape proportions, specially for text-editing. Dockable dialogs are nice in this sense.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ehh, double-click it like always...
Ok, done with my asshole moment. Took me about the same amount of time to realize the circle was a menu, not just a stupid logo/marketing thing.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft's goal with the ribbon was to make an interface that better encompassed the large amount of bloat (*cough*) features that have been added to MS Office over the years. I've never used the ribbon, as I'm on Office 2003 at work and OOo at home, but I have to admit to admiring its appearance. It definitely looks like it was designed by someone who cares about user interfaces, rather than by someone from Microsoft.
Still, I really don't see the point of duplicating it in OOo. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that in the wake of the ribbon, having a classic Office interface might be a feature of OOo, rather than a flaw. As in, OOo might pick up users specifically because it doesn't have the ribbon. And I haven't even brought up the fact that it gobbles up screen real estate that would be better used on your sci-fi novel. (Oh look, I mentioned it.) I hope this gets scuttled, and fast.
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
right where it logically and intuitively should be
I'm glad I'm not your analyst ;-)
Seriously though - navigation begins at the top of it to select the correct "tab" (?) then jumps to the bottom to find the right "group" (?) - assuming I picked the right tab anyway - then back up into the middle and across potentially the full width of the screen through an irregular morass of varyingly sized, shaped and colored controls some of which are buttons, some of which look like buttons but are menus, some are icons that look just decorative until you mouse over... ooo me head's spinning just thinking about it.
So, "right where it logically and intuitively should be" eh?
Ok, here's an Excel 2007 one that infuriates me. I've hurled some data onto a spreadsheets, the columns don't automatically resize so I actually can't read much. In any sane and ordered universe I'd right click the column heading and there'd be something on the context menu to say "make column width go now!".
Column width is obviously part of how I view my data so it'll be on the "View tab" I guess? Nope. Hmm. Okay, well maybe it's about how the page, the view, is laid out - so it'll be on the "Page layout tab" won't it? Err... nope. Turns out it's actually at the far right end of the "Home tab" in a group called "Cells". What I'm apparently looking for is a button in that group labelled "Format". It's not really a button, but an icon with a menu attached.
I know I'm nitpicking, and I'm sure there are plenty of good examples of bad menu-making but - jeez - I just cannot accept "logically and intuitively" as a description of the bizarre, scattershot UI grab-bag MS call "Ribbon".
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, that was me. I opened Excel, but couldn't figure out how to open a document. So, I double clicked the Excel document, and watched another instance of Excel open up, with that document in it. Read the thing, managed to diddle around with the document a little bit, then stared at the screen wondering "How the hell do I close this thing?" FINALLY, I just started clicking all over the place, and when I clicked the logo, I got a menu. I hadn't yet exhausted my supply of invective, fortunately. When I run out, I tend to throw things out the door.
(Wife says, "Why is my phone out in the yard?" I answered, "I couldn't hear a damned thing on it, and got tired of it ringing!" She says, "Did you turn it on?" "I guess so, I pushed every button on the damned thing!" "The GREEN button!" "You forget I'm fucking COLOR BLIND and all the print is to damned small to see???"
Re:How about some nice menus instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then I came to work one morning, no coffee, databases were down, and I was on 2.5 hours of sleep. Opened Word to work on a requirements/solution document... and it made sense. Not just sense, but blinded-by-science-this-is-stupidly-simple kind of sense.
Once I got the fact that everything I was used to was still there, albeit not in the same format, but actually grouped logically and intuitively, my productivity went up about 70% over when I was using O2K3.
The Ribbon actually makes sense, and perhaps the smartest thing MS every did to the Office suite. MY two cents, YMMV