Microsoft 'Ribbonizes' Windows 8 File Manager

CWmike writes "Microsoft said today it will 'ribbonize' the file manager in next year's Windows 8, adding Explorer to the short list of integrated applications that already sport the interface in Windows 7. Microsoft's Alex Simons, director of program management, released screenshots of the new ribbon interface planned for Explorer (scroll way down). 'We evaluated several different UI command affordances including expanded versions of the Vista/Windows 7 command bar, Windows 95/Windows XP style toolbars and menus, several entirely new UI approaches, and the Office style ribbon,' explained Simons. 'Of these, the ribbon approach offered benefits in line with our goals.' Plans by Microsoft and others to ribbonize applications have often met resistance. 'We knew that using a ribbon for Explorer would likely be met with skepticism by a set of power users, but there are clear benefits,' Simons said."

Comments

Paging Darth Vader

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nooooooooooooo!"

Re:Paging Darth Vader

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate the ribbon. It's been 4 years... How long is enough time to be comfortable with it?

Re:Paging Darth Vader

[next_ghost]

Now let's take that challenge just one step further and add Bash (or some other popular UNIX shell). Force yourself to use it until you know filename/command substitutions like the back of your hand and eat regexps and loops for breakfast. Then try going back to whatever clicky file manager you like most. Personaly I believe almost everyone who bitches about command line being arcane and obsolete won't believe how they could live without it.

Re:Paging Darth Vader

[nmb3000]

The ribbon wouldn't be anywhere near so bad if it had a "quick search" feature. Either a box or some kind of keyboard focus capture where you can start typing a word and it would search all possible command names and descriptions, displaying the results in the ribbon. The number of commands is small enough that such a search could be extremely fast.

For example, search for "paste" and you get a ribbon bar with the options:

Paste | Paste Special | Paste as Text | Paste as HTML | Quick Paste | Paste as New Foo

I hate searching through all the ribbon panes to find a simple command. A good example another poster mentioned is where the "create zip archive" button is. A quick search for "zip" would make that painless.

Given the focus on searching in Windows Vista and 7 I can't fathom why they haven't done this yet.

Re:Paging Darth Vader

[mcmonkey]

The ribbon is an improvement in user interface design, even if you don't personally like it.

B.S. Even after I learn where the options are on the ribbon. Even after I learn the new short cut keys. Even after I move my most used functions to the quick access toolbar.

Even after I do all those things, the ribbon still keeps me from doing the thing I'm trying to do. It leaves less room for viewing my email, or my document, or my spreadsheet.

If I were to bitch that "ctrl-f" in Word is now "ctrl-h", I suppose that could just be complaining about change in general. There's no more effort, no more keystrokes between the two. Perhaps "ctrl-f" is a little more logical because 'Find' beings with 'f', but really, what's the difference?

But to take away screen space and say I just don't like change? 100% B.S.

It's like taking a pick-up truck and replacing it with a hatchback. For the folks that need and use the pick-up truck, having issues with the hatchback is not "complaining about change in general."

I actually need and use my email. As in, I need to see the message body of my email. Having "panes" popping out from every side of the screen with a thick ribbon across the top, leaving room for a few visible lines of message is not an improvement in user interface design.

Re:Paging Darth Vader

[mmcuh]

But if you do those things so often that they need to be fast, wouldn't you just learn the keyboard shortcuts after a couple of times and do it even faster without moving your hands from the keys?

Re:Paging Darth Vader

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I'll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems.
- Jamie Zawinski

Re:Paging Darth Vader

[dgatwood]

How is haphazardly mixing multiple sizes of buttons with complex scrolling controls and text an improvement in UI design? My gosh, have you actually looked at this thing?

Putting commonly used features within easy reach is inarguably good UI. Making it customizable so that the definition of "commonly used" can be modified by the user, however, is also inarguably good UI. Doing this, by definition, necessitates something approaching standardization of icon sizes, layouts, etc. Instead, what we have here looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Let's look at what's wrong with this UI design, point by point:

• Tabbed navigation incorrectly used to select between banks of controls

  Tabbed navigation is assumed to affect the contents of the screen as a whole. It is a fundamental abuse of the metaphor to use it to choose between banks of controls.

  The need for tabs is a clear indication that you are bringing way too many controls to the forefront of the user's attention.

  Most users won't notice the tabs, and will be confused if they accidentally click on one because they won't know how to get back to the controls that they're used to. They will, in turn, file bugs or call tech support.

• Tabbed navigation shares a row with other information

  I'm guessing that the blob called "File" is not part of the navigation tabs, but it appears to be. While it might seem convenient to reduce the vertical spacing by placing unrelated information in a tab bar, it's extremely confusing. It looks to me like two different things are selected in a single tab bar, which is just plain wrong.

• Unhelpful grouping labels

  Although conceptual grouping of icons can be useful in terns of keeping related things together, it is generally not useful to label those groups. This wastes valuable vertical screen real estate and adds nothing to the user's understanding. Yes, in some way, burning a file to disc is conceptually similar to emailing it to someone, but a label called "send" doesn't add meaning, and is actually a bit confusing.

• Inconsistent levels of detail, and non-independent controls

  There are wildly different levels of detail between different features in this UI. You have simple tasks like "Print" that presumably open their own dialog boxes, and then you have things like sharing preferences in which lots of detail is crammed into a single section of the ribbon bar for no good reason. "Sharing options" could be a single icon in a button bar that brings up a modal sheet or dialog box, and no convenience would be lost.

  In general, UI elements should be independent unless you are in a dialog box or sheet. Clicking an item in a button bar or similar should cause either an action to occur or a dialog box to appear for getting more information. Items in button bars should absolutely not depend on other items in the bar for their behavior.

• Minor variations have separate buttons instead of a pop-up menu

  If there are several UI elements that conceptually do the same thing, then they should be combined into a single menu item with a pop-up menu to choose which specific variant action should be performed.

  Example 1: "Send" button: display a pop-up for email, burning, etc. (Note: compressing a file is *not* an equivalent action, and should *not* be listed with the rest of those.)

  Example 2: "Clipboard" button: for all of the various cut, copy, and paste options, show a hierarchical menu that pops up when you click the clipboard/pasteboard button.

  By making those two changes, you've turned basically two ribbon bar tabs into two or three buttons with a couple of simple pop-up menus and a simple modal sheet.

• Rarely used UI options are artificially elevated

  Most people don't add or remove columns in their views regularly. That's the sort of thing that you pretty much do once when you first get a computer, assuming

Re:Paging Darth Vader

[cjcela]

Well, I think the issue is that they keep reinventing the wheel, and the result is that instead of people being more productive with a tool they are familiar with, the changes in the UI keeps getting in the way. After all, the thing one wants to do when using a file manager (or a word processor) has nothing to do to keep relearning the same tool every couple of years. It is 2011 - these are trivial operations we all have been doing for decades, and these things should be fairly standardised by now, unless someone comes up with a new paradigm in how we organise information (i.e. not using files/folders). These changes only happens because software companies wants to sell the same users the same product, so they need to justify the 'upgrade'. Far from helping the end users, keeping changing the UI is aggravating if one just need to get the work done and has no time to spare in the new (and useless) eye candy.

Upcoming news....

[Niomosy]

And alternative file manager downloads soar on Windows 8 launch day.

Windows professionals and consultants ready themselves for increased profits in tutoring a new array of people having difficulty simply working with their own files.

Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of s

[Nathan Campos]

Better information about Microsoft's researches: http://seldo.tumblr.com/post/9549775746/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a lol

Re:Awful

[MightyYar]

The ribbon is just awful.

The thing is, it's not a bad toolbar replacement, but it is an absolutely dreadful menu replacement. It is so much harder to find less-frequently-used functions now, and half the time when you find them, they are in a menu behind a little button!

The craziest thing is that Mac Office still has the ribbon - but RETAINS THE MENU! Why can't they do this on their flagship platform?

Re:Awful

[SpryGuy]

Um... yes, it tells you exactly what the short cut keys are.

Hold down the alt key. Now look at the ribbon. It shows you exactly what keys to hit in order to get the function you want. You can switch tabs and hit any control with a keypress, and it hand-holds you all the way through.

How can you have been using this months or years without knowing this? I'm not sure. It's right there before your eyes, and works very similarly to how the old system did it, with Alt key highlighting (via underline) the hot key to press, or activating the menu control. It's not like it's a completely foreign concept.

So, your "main complaint" is completely without merit. What's your next complaint? Perhaps I can help you out there too.

Re:Awful

[Bo'Bob'O]

I think you actually hit upon the main problem with the ribbon in your defense of it. The ribbon is in fact a great replacement for the old toolbar system and so, when you sit and spend the time to customize the bar, just like when you used to customize the toolbar, you are going to work faster.

However, as a general purpose tool for finding commands it's awful. It relies on you already not just knowing the command you are looking for, but that you know what the shortcut to it looks like. Worse, sometimes those commands are buried under other commands.

I do a lot of work in autocad, and while %90 of what i do I do on the keyboard or on the tool-bars, but there are hundreds of commands, many I simply don't use on a regular basis. All I usually need to find the command is to go to the menu of related commands, and read the short descriptions of the functions there. That's what the menu is there for, to provide some insight for the available commands and that is not what the ribbon provides.

I shudder to think of having to provide me grandmother with instructions over the phone on how to do something where I have to explain to her toolbar icons rather then just telling her the command she is looking for. Fortunately, she's still on windows XP.

Here's a thought you morons...

[johnlcallaway]

... OFFER BOTH OF THEM!!!!

Jeez .. would it really take that much more to keep the EXISTING MENUS but add an option to use a ribbon for those that like them or are new users??? I thought Windows and C++ was supposed to support some type of modular programming, it should be a piece of cake to chose one widget over another one. Just plug it in. I know it's pretty easy in Java to do it.....

Any benefit from ribbons (which I haven't seen any yet) is lost from me not being able to find stuff. Excel was just plain nasty trying to find things in. I still have a difficult time finding things that I don't use very often, but had used enough to make some sense about why they were in a specific menu.