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LibreOffice Will Have New 'MUFFIN' UI (documentfoundation.org)

Posted by msmash on from the new-updates dept.

New submitter iampiti writes: The Document Foundation has announced a new user interface concept for LibreOffice. Users will be able to choose from several toolbar configurations including the "Notebook bar" which is similar to Microsoft Office's ribbon. According to TDF, "The MUFFIN (My User Friendly -- Flexible Interface) represents a new approach to UI design, based on the respect of user needs rather than on the imposition of a single UI to all users"

1 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. I like what they're proposing by iampiti · · Score: 4, Informative
    Submitter here. What they're doing is just giving the users some predefined options for configurations of the toolbar or something with equivalent functionality.
    The proposed options are:
    • Classic toolbar
    • Simplified toolbar (just the most common options
    • Sidebar
    • Notebook bar /aka the Ribbon clone

    I find great that, differently to current trends in UI design, they're giving the users options. Everyone can choose whatever they like best.
    Yeah, it may be confusing to some users that there're several options (although I guess that that kind of users will probably never even stumble upon the option to change the default), it does add a bit of extra code (but not much, since it's just a bit of UI code that ends up calling the same logic code) but I think it's positive overall.
    This also touches me personally since I don't like some current trends in UI design (e.g. Win 10's mobile UI elements for every form factor, very limited theming, latest Gnome ...) and usually they give you no choice.