Hi Michel, 2010/10/15 Michel Gagnon <[email protected]>
> Hello, I wonder what is the interest of Microsoft and others, including > you, to replace menus with a ribbon-like interface. I think it brings the worst in terms of usability. Why?We have grown to use > a certain menu organization. File, Edit, Format, Tools, Windows and Help > are, in that order, fairly standard menu items in all applications, and even > the basic list of menu items is even fairly standardized. The ribbon > interface changes that to a certain extent and requires a relearning > process.There are a few menu items that are easily displayed with icons, but > most icons are either very hard to read or require a lot of real estate or > both. Look at Microsoft Word or at WordPad on System 7 and look at icons > used for page or paragraph margins, or for search and replace (very similar > to the one for spelling). Because of that, Ms Office 2010 and WordPad adds > text below many icons (more real estate) and a tool tip which is basically > the former menu item.Because of real estate requirements, there are a > limited number of buttons that may be displayed on a screen, whether it is > with a traditional set of buttonsla Office 3.2 or with a ribbonla Microsoft > Office 2007-2010. So there is a need for multiple menus that call different > ribbons like Ms Office. or buttons that need still another action like > custom margins.Using a typical menu item requires one move with the mouse: > move it to the top to select the menu and slide it toward the menu item, > then release. Sub menus require a little more dexterity.On the other hand, > using a typical ribbon "menu" item requires a move and two clicks: a first > click at the top to select the proper ribbon, then a click on the proper > icon. And because of the limited real estate, it is more likely that one > then falls onto yet another dialogue box.A traditional tool bar is always > there; so its commands may be accessed very quickly. But it works only > because of its limited number of icons.So what would be the best approach? > Probably a mix of both systems.A traditional menu system for structured > commands. In a word processor, I see comprehensive commands like Page setup, > Paragraph setup, Font setup, Style setup (with a dialog box like that of > Office 2003), Table setup, etc. Simple commands like "Align to the left" > could either be in a submenu or even forgotten altogether because they > already are accessible through the Paragraph Setup dialog box. Displaying > them in a submenu makes learning and training easier : the command is seen, > its shortcut is seen, etc.If a ribbon-like approach is used, there should be > shortcuts not only for items, but also for each of the ribbons. For > instance, I should be able to press alt-F for the File ribbon, alt-E to show > the Edit ribbon, etc... and each of these shortcuts should become as > standard as control-Z, X, C and V for the basic cut and paste > possibilities. Of course, control-C for Cut and control-shift-L (or control-L) for > Align-left should also exist for a direct access to menus.Icons are good > when the graphic is obvious to all and when clicking on it has a direct > result. One of the major pitfalls I currently see is that most are > non-configurable (same problem with Microsoft Office and OpenOffice). So for > me, the Left-Align and Bold icons work (but the keyboard shortcuts are so > quicker), but the bullet icon doesn't work because it does not use my > preferred settings: I would like it to apply my "Bullet 1" setting (usually > a hanging indent of 1 pica with no further indent, but some documents have a > different style definition). Ditto for the 5 or 6 different Page Setting > icons that are defined in Ms Word 2007: none of them have the margins I need > for my documents!How would a mixed system work?One way to do it would be to > have the menus first, followed by ribbons. For instance, the new LibreOffice > would have File-Edit-Display (maybe)-Insert-Format-Table-Tools-Window menus, > then Basic (file and edit ribbon items)-Insert-Format (document, paragraph > and text items)-Table ribbons. The menu could appear either on a single line > or on two lines if/when the window is too narrow.Finally, should a ribbon > sit on the right or at the top? Why not have it either way? The ribbon is a > glorified toolbar and traditional toolbars have worked in either position, > either docked or undocked. So why not have the "ribbon menus" call a toolbar > anyway?By the way, since we talk of a new interface, one aspect I don't like > of OpenOffice 3.x are the toolbars that appear and disappear according to > paragraph styles. For instance, when bullets are chosen (or a bullet style), > the bullet toolbar appears (by default at the top) and shifts all text down > 1 cm. Go back to a standard paragraph and it shifts up again. Why not have a > user interface made with one or two user-defined toolbars like we currently > have on OpenOffice 3.x and Ms Office 2003, plus one toolbar that would be > always there, albeit with variable content (a.k.a. the "ribbon"). Users > would decide where they want that big grey box and LibreOffice would fill in > the proper icons. That gives me a lot to respond to -- I'll try to be as concise as possible. a) Why the change in menu categorization? Because the old one wasn't good enough. "File" contained tools that applied to both the currently-opened file and to the office suite as a whole. "Edit" and "Tools" menus held miscellaneous commands. There were commands under "Table" that weren't specific to tables. It was a mess. But if anyone wants to revert back to the classic UI, there definitely should be an option to do so. b) I agree -- the Ribbon UI is less than ideal. c) The interface definitely should be as flexible as possible. d) Please read http://clickortap.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/the-citrus-menu/ : I think it might answer some of your concerns. -- E-mail to [email protected] for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
