Flare 8 Ribbon debate

[i-tietz]

...and in Office 2010...

Albeit the ability to create and customise tabs.

True, but that has become far more complicated, e.g.:
- I cannot delete icons I don't need, all I can do is switch off the whole group and then insert the icons I DO need into a new group/ribbon.
- And I cannot add icons to existing groups (tried to insert the "hyphenation" into the group of "spell check" - to no avail).
- And I have to switch between the ribbons - they're not all there all the time as the toolbars were before.
- And in the QAT I cannot insert separators to build groups, apart from that the icons are tiny (or was that in Flare?).
- And the ribbons I create all need one key more than all the others if I don't want to use the mouse (Y1, Y2, etc) ... and the shortcuts are not customizable

That and more is in the MS forums since Office 2007 came out. I don't understand how somebody can implement a function and not solve all the problems other people had for years ... but I suppose learning from other people's mistakes is not cool ...

[crdmerge]

[Update on my earlier discussion about the problems I was having with the Alt shortcut key.]

Since this keyboard function is actually an accessibility issue, I tried opening Control Panel > Accessibility Options (d'Oh!). Lo and behold, the first panel is entitled StickyKeys, which reads: "Use StickyKeys if you want to use SHIFT, CTRL, ALT, or Windows logo key by pressing one key at a time." Enabling this checkbox seems to have cleared up the issue (although I'm not sure what other thing it might have broken ).


Good luck,
Leon

[Centauri27]

My intention was not to be rude and I apologize especially to LKupka if it was received that way.

Thank you, friend.

I was trying to start a healthy (rabid) debate about the ribbon with this thread and I can see that some people hold very strong opinions on this matter. Still, it's not helpful to slam someone who happens to feel the darned contraption is actually easier to use! Now we can go back to playing nice with each other...

Since getting incensed by the arrival of the ribbon, I thought back to the old menus and realized that I wasn't too keen on those either--there were way too many options for my liking and it was tough to find many features there as well. So perhaps having the ribbon/menu is the best of both worlds.

[rheinlander]

So:
- Mouse jostlers CAN be better off with the ribbons, but not necessarily, since there are toolbars in the menu GUI.
- Keyboard pushers are better off with the menues.

Oh, well, I surely am a Keyboard pusher. And when I monitor my way to call a command, I never pay attention to the menu/ribbon. The keyboard pusher uses hotkeys (Strg+Shift+S = 'Save All' is a great one in Flare).
I took Flare 8 like it was, continued working and everything does well until today.

I think that ribbons have one major advantage about classic menus: they are touchable. And when I look at Windows Mobile 7.5 and Windows 8 prototypes, touchability seems to be the future. So maybe those ribbons Microsoft introduced years ago were just a first hint of a small revolution in computer usability, nowadays widely known from smartphones.

Michael

[i-tietz]

I think that ribbons have one major advantage about classic menus: they are touchable. And when I look at Windows Mobile 7.5 and Windows 8 prototypes, touchability seems to be the future. So maybe those ribbons Microsoft introduced years ago were just a first hint of a small revolution in computer usability, nowadays widely known from smartphones.

Advantage?
I can only touch something that is there, and before I can touch it I have to move my hand or mouse towards it - using the keyboard is A LOT faster: I can trigger menu items faster by using the ALT key or even shortcuts than somebody could do that with the mouse or a touchWhatever ...
That "technology" (together with the focus problems of .NET) is making work slower ... that's very far from "advantage" ...

[Phlawm53]

Well, I don't hate the Flare 8 ribbon, but I can't say that it has increased usability or productivity.

For a start, if the Quick Start Toolbar (QST) is offered as a circumvention to the Ribbon U.I.'s inefficiencies, then for Heaven's sake, please allow me to drag its icons to any desired order. (Yes, I've already submitted this as an Enhancement Request.) As it is, one needs to delete all icons from the QST, then sequentially re-add them in the desired order — ugh! And if later one wishes to add another icon, one can currently choose to position its icon as rightmost or rightmost. Ugh! again.

Better yet, let me create my own ribbonettes. So where I can currently choose from the File, Home, Insert, … , Help ribbonetes, allow me to create one, or better yet more than one, customized ribbonette that contains the specific tools I want it to contain. Imagine, fellow Ribbon'ers, being able to right-click a favorite tool in one of the default ribbonettes, then choosing Add to [My Ribbonette Name 01, 02, …]. Implement this idea, Madcap, then sit back and watch the Quick Start Toolbar disappear from most users' customized Flare workspaces; then watch as the use of one, or at the most two user-configured ribbonettes containing a focused subset of user-selected tools becomes the norm.

Then, too, I wouldn't at all mind be able to select "Small Icons" somewhere. The current icons are lovely but consume more space than I feel is necessary.

Finally, Dear Madcap, while you're in the figurative kitchen why not user test the Flare 8 U.I. a bit more? I suspect that after you've watched a parade of actual users constantly compelled to interrupt their productive work to re-set / re-position / re-configure / re-size tools that the once configured, close and then re-opened, you'll figure out that the Flare 8 interface leaves the strong impression that it was rushed to market before being adequately use-tested…

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley
SFO

[kwshaw1]

My view of the Ribbon design concept from Microsoft is that it's a terrible mistake which is inherently less efficient than pull-down menus, and so far I'm not seeing a reason to think otherwise for Flare. With menus you can quickly scroll through every feature in the application in a way that is visually and physically consistent, whereas ribbons force you to stop and hunt for every item and your eyes have to pick from a mish-mash variety of items arranged haphazardly on the screen.

I'm glad Madcap has seen fit to give users a choice (as Microsoft should do), and strongly encourage them not to drop menus as an option. Thanks.

[wbrisett]

I switched to the ribbon and initially spent a lot of time going back-and-forth between the two interfaces. With the quick access menu though, I find myself sticking to the ribbon. It helps a bit, but I certainly see where the arguments against the ribbon being less efficient are very valid. It's in those situations that I create my own quick access item. There are many other ways Madcap could help make things more efficient (like keeping the conditional window available at all times, so you only had to highlight what you wanted conditionalized and then selecting the proper condition).

Anyhow, I don't feel it's horrible not he level that Ramon does, but I also don't think it's going to sell the product more as Madcap does.

Wayne

[kwshaw1]

I just switched back to ribbons temporarily so I could document for other users how to turn them off, and heaven help me I can't find the command how to turn them off. See, this is why I hate the ribbon concept!!!

Update: after a morning of searching and waiting on hold for tech support, I finally found the "Options" button in the insane location that Microsoft set as a standard, down at the lower right corner of the "File" ribbon. That's just so hopelessly incompetent it defies imagination, and I'd encourage Madcap to consider modifying their ribbons to be more intutive than Microsoft's effort.

Die, Ribbons, Die!!!!!!!

[RossF]

... I finally found the "Options" button in the insane location that Microsoft set as a standard, down at the lower right corner of the "File" ribbon.

You're not alone... Support asked me to change it a day or so after I upgraded... they used the words "select Options in the File menu". I spotted it only after staring at my screen for a few minutes. Little things like that certainly do add to the blood boiling factor.

[i-tietz]

I just switched back to ribbons temporarily so I could document for other users how to turn them off, and heaven help me I can't find the command how to turn them off.

RTFM!
Didn't RamonS state some time this week that the best thing is if opening the help isn't necessary? Agreed.
BUT:
If I cannot find the info in the software itself, I really DO open the help ...
The information you were searching for is in the What's New Guide right where MC wrote that the default now is ribbons, but you can switch them off again ...

[i-tietz]

Die, Ribbons, Die!!!!!!!

Hear, hear!!

[LTinker68]

Die, Ribbons, Die!!!!!!!

Hear, hear!!

Well, now, see, that's tricky. If the ribbon dies, does the Quick Access Bar go with it?

[i-tietz]

They could follow another MS standard (old one): Have toolbars that are customizable.

[dandam]

I am a new user of Flare (<6 months) and have dabbled in both interfaces. I use the ribbon because it is the default setting. I do not think the ribbon is superior or inferior. I am still required to memorize the location of the various commands, regardless of how many PdDs developed the UI. The product itself has idiosyncrasies that cannot be solved by UI design, ribbon or otherwise, so we just have to learn where things are. Now that I know my way around the ribbon, I'll stick with it (and will complain loudly if they change the UI in version 9).

[RamonS]

The problem with the ribbon is that things just don't stay in the places they are. Depending on where you are and what you do the same command is somewhere else or not present at all.

[whunter]

The problem with the ribbon is that things just don't stay in the places they are. Depending on where you are and what you do the same command is somewhere else or not present at all.

Ramon, can you provide an example of that? I am just curious because I have not had that experience and I cannot think of an example. (I don't mean this in a challenging way at all, I am just wondering if I am not observant or if I just don't do the same things you do in the software.)

[RamonS]

I'm eating my words here. Unlike MSO Flare does NOT switch out the ribbon depending on where you are, so changing from table to text to image does not shapeshift the ribbon.

[whunter]

Unlike MSO Flare does NOT switch out the ribbon depending on where you are, so changing from table to text to image does not shapeshift the ribbon.

Oh, okay, I see what you mean. Yes, that behavior can get annoying in Microsoft apps.

[trent the thief]

I second Lisa's call to have new Flare users weigh in.

FWIW, I've been using Flare since V1.0, and I like the ribbon -- in conjunction with the Quick Access Toolbar -- a lot. It has not taken me long to adapt to it. I also commend MadCap for including an option for switching back to the "classic" toolbars, for those who don't like ribbons.

As soon as Madcap adds a decent macro capability into Flare, the very first add-on product for Flare will be something that kills the Ribbon and brings back the real interface that many people have spent years learning.

Changing to the Ribbon for the sake of being just like MS was a foolish move. Since I started using the "Classic Menu for Office" macro set at my current company, about 30 others in my location have bought it. Ribbons are just MS BS designed to make a word processor flashy. The ribbon is a jim-crack gimmick, not a useful tool.

[RamonS]

Trent - you know, you can kill that stupid ribbon right now. No need for a macro. And another big round of applause for MadCap to make that decision!

[i-tietz]

... and brings back the real interface that many people have spent years learning.

For me it's not really the fact that I'm used to something and are unwilling or unable to learn, but the fact that the same job really takes longer and needs more clicking.

But I'm really afraid that that is the way of the future - looking at Windows 8 e.g. or at an answer from MC support I recently got. In that mail I got instructions to delete a specific folder, and it looked like this:
1. Click on folder M
2. Click on folder N
3. Click on folder O
4. Click on folder P
5. Click on folder Q
6. Click on folder R
7. Delete folder S
...
Instead of :
1. Open folder M/N/O/P/Q/R
2. Delete folder S
or even
1. Delete folder M/N/O/P/Q/R/S
...
This clearly shows a change of habit and perception - either of the supporter himself or of his customers so he makes sure he goes the way even "dummy users" understand what he means ...

[RamonS]

The issue with W8 is that it is entirely geared towards touch operation - which is nothing else than going back to Apple's one button mouse. We cannot right-click with a finger, so the very efficient context menus are no longer an option. Then again, W8 is also geared towards toyblets, which are designed for content consumption, not content creation.

[i-tietz]

toyblets

gorgious term, that ...

[trent the thief]

Trent - you know, you can kill that stupid ribbon right now. No need for a macro. And another big round of applause for MadCap to make that decision!

Yep, I did. I'm against even having the ribbon present in the application. It's awkward in the same way that using Mega Blocks is awkward when you've been playing with Legos for twenty years. Sure, you could build a Millennium Falcon using Mega Blocks, but why would you?