Yeah - But practically how often do you use an obscure function lots of times in a row as a one off. The sort of stuff I am talking about is inserting page breaks, switching windows, approving changes... All of these were one click away.
The ribbon menus are only one deep, but you still have to go to that tab first. Face it - anything that is on the "Home" tab was also on the standard toolbar and just as few clicks away.
I meant that menus are on the top left (sorry)... Menus start at the top left, and work across to the right. If you look at the path your mouse takes... For a menu, you go to the top left of the window, then straight down from the menu that you select to the item you want. With the ribbon, you go to the top left to select the tab you want, then often over to the top right to pick the item, then often back to the top left to switch back to the home tab.
Your last paragraph makes no sense - Anything true of menus is equally true of the ribbon. All it shows is that they aren't thinking all that clearly about how to structure Office. It is horribly bloated whether you look at it through menus or through a ribbon....
Another advantage of menus - You can look at the keyboard shortcut by just dropping the menu down. The ribbon requires you to hover over the control for the shortcut.
I am used to the ribbon, but after 2 years it still feels horrible compared to menus.
But then most menu-driven systems also have a toolbar with the most common functions in that... Which you can make large for the elderly.
Another problem with the ribbon is the amount of distance that you have to cover - Menus tend to cluster at the top right, whereas the ribbon means that you travel all over the top of the window - Top left to select the tab the top right to grab what you are after wheras the menu item is almost always straight underneath the menu you just selected.
As for manual dexterity - That would be true if the ribbon was all icons, but it isn't. Its icons with menus under them... Often with several km of mouse movement between them.
And yes, most of the time I use the context menu or keyboard shortcuts, but then given that is the case, why not keep the menu system. That is the problem that I have with the ribbon - It is just different, and often worse. If it is not markedly better, why change it. Why not try and simplify Office, rather than hiding the problem behind a GUI that looks like an airline cockpit.
Outside of Slashdot, the most positive thing I have heard about the ribbon is "Well, I am used to it now" - Talk about damning by faint praise.
*yawn* The point is that the menu system lets you click on an operation, and then it drops back automatially to the default view. The ribbon sits there in the tab where you left it until you switch back... Extra click, which means it has moved backwards since Office 2003.
The original comment applies just as much to "Insert Page Break", "Insert Symbol"...
Sure most people can learn to use the ribbon... It is just that it is that little bit worse in so many ways, without being able to think of anything that got easier with it.
OK then - Here goes.
Most of the time I sit looking at the "Home" tab. Then I want to go an add a column to a table, so click on "Layout", add the column. But now I am still in the layout tab, and have to click back to "Home" again. 3 clicks instead of 2.
And all that "Everything is visible once you are in the tab" isn't true anyway... There are heaps of sub-menus on the tabs anyway, so you still have the problem that you always had with menus.
It can be a tricky balancing act... Sometimes, allowing people to log in through a home computer can blur the distinction between work and home (which is great if you want to eke that much more work out of people). If you lock it down, people may just leave work at work - An example - You probably wouldn't take a work laptop on holiday, but if you are at a computer anyway you might check your work email.
We had a totally slack policy before, and now they have locked it down (company laptops only). Now I don't work from home at all - Its is bloody awesome and wish it had happened earlier.
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I agree - Would love to have stayed with KDE3 rather than 4. But always hated Gnome and somehow Unity made Gnome seem nice.
Yeah - But practically how often do you use an obscure function lots of times in a row as a one off. The sort of stuff I am talking about is inserting page breaks, switching windows, approving changes... All of these were one click away.
The ribbon menus are only one deep, but you still have to go to that tab first. Face it - anything that is on the "Home" tab was also on the standard toolbar and just as few clicks away.
I meant that menus are on the top left (sorry)... Menus start at the top left, and work across to the right. If you look at the path your mouse takes... For a menu, you go to the top left of the window, then straight down from the menu that you select to the item you want. With the ribbon, you go to the top left to select the tab you want, then often over to the top right to pick the item, then often back to the top left to switch back to the home tab.
Your last paragraph makes no sense - Anything true of menus is equally true of the ribbon. All it shows is that they aren't thinking all that clearly about how to structure Office. It is horribly bloated whether you look at it through menus or through a ribbon....
Another advantage of menus - You can look at the keyboard shortcut by just dropping the menu down. The ribbon requires you to hover over the control for the shortcut.
I am used to the ribbon, but after 2 years it still feels horrible compared to menus.
But then most menu-driven systems also have a toolbar with the most common functions in that... Which you can make large for the elderly.
Another problem with the ribbon is the amount of distance that you have to cover - Menus tend to cluster at the top right, whereas the ribbon means that you travel all over the top of the window - Top left to select the tab the top right to grab what you are after wheras the menu item is almost always straight underneath the menu you just selected.
As for manual dexterity - That would be true if the ribbon was all icons, but it isn't. Its icons with menus under them... Often with several km of mouse movement between them.
And yes, most of the time I use the context menu or keyboard shortcuts, but then given that is the case, why not keep the menu system. That is the problem that I have with the ribbon - It is just different, and often worse. If it is not markedly better, why change it. Why not try and simplify Office, rather than hiding the problem behind a GUI that looks like an airline cockpit.
Outside of Slashdot, the most positive thing I have heard about the ribbon is "Well, I am used to it now" - Talk about damning by faint praise.
*yawn* The point is that the menu system lets you click on an operation, and then it drops back automatially to the default view. The ribbon sits there in the tab where you left it until you switch back... Extra click, which means it has moved backwards since Office 2003.
The original comment applies just as much to "Insert Page Break", "Insert Symbol"...
Sure most people can learn to use the ribbon... It is just that it is that little bit worse in so many ways, without being able to think of anything that got easier with it.
OK then - Here goes. Most of the time I sit looking at the "Home" tab. Then I want to go an add a column to a table, so click on "Layout", add the column. But now I am still in the layout tab, and have to click back to "Home" again. 3 clicks instead of 2. And all that "Everything is visible once you are in the tab" isn't true anyway... There are heaps of sub-menus on the tabs anyway, so you still have the problem that you always had with menus.
It can be a tricky balancing act... Sometimes, allowing people to log in through a home computer can blur the distinction between work and home (which is great if you want to eke that much more work out of people). If you lock it down, people may just leave work at work - An example - You probably wouldn't take a work laptop on holiday, but if you are at a computer anyway you might check your work email.
We had a totally slack policy before, and now they have locked it down (company laptops only). Now I don't work from home at all - Its is bloody awesome and wish it had happened earlier.