Flare 8 Ribbon debate

[RamonS]

Not disagreeing at all, but wasn't sure if you knew about the kill switch. I think there are much more pressing needs in Flare than adding a dysfunctional UI component just because Microsoft said so. At least the Flare implementation is not as moronic as in MS Office.

[trent the thief]

Not disagreeing at all, but wasn't sure if you knew about the kill switch. I think there are much more pressing needs in Flare than adding a dysfunctional UI component just because Microsoft said so. At least the Flare implementation is not as moronic as in MS Office.

Oh, yeah. The switch was the first thing I looked for after opening V8 for the first time. Saying I was upset would be an understatement.

[trent the thief]

Gotta love that Quick Access toolbar! It's like a Super Tab, tailored to my workflow. Woo-hoo!

Now, has anyone tried the Ribbon shortcuts (press Alt and then select the letters and numbers that appear in little grey boxes on the Ribbon)? I'm arguing with Flare support (Case 34302) about their lack of consistency (the Quick Access "numbers" rarely work, you can't get the tab "letters" in the active tab, only on tabs you navigate to, you occasionally have to click with the mouse to nudge the process along, etc.).

Love it? Why? I spent twenty years learning the old interface and as crappy as Word happens to be, I still need to use it on occasion. The ribbon is a layer of crap smeared over a bulky, overweight tool that's tries to do everything.

Bells and whistles? Sure thing. Speed? Not so much. Bloat? You betcha. Ask someone who used Word 1 how it compares to Word 10. Sure, you can do anything with it, but do you want to? Mail merge? Really? I can't recall a situation in the last 20 years that's required me to use mail merge on a doc. Same goes for cutesy clip art.

The reason Word still exists is because MS could afford to subsidize it. If the financing had been equal, Word Perfect would have killed Word.

[RamonS]

The reason Word still exists is because MS could afford to subsidize it. If the financing had been equal, Word Perfect would have killed Word.

I agree to some extent, but WordPerfect was very late to market with a Windows version that made little use of the new UI capabilities initially. That changed and WP was a great product...until Corel got its paws on it and managed it down the toilet like all the other excellent products they bought and then destroyed.
As far as MSO is concerned, all that an office suite needs to do it does. So how to get people spend money on new versions other than jamming tons of cutesy crap into it? And with corporate hardware refresh cycles being between 3 to 4 years business is guaranteed.
And as far as the ribbon goes...couldn't have expressed it better. It is nothing else than an ugly productivity killer.

[Phlawm53]

My apologies for being slow on the update, but is not one of the reasons, perhaps the key reason, that Flare was given the ribbon interface was that the Ribbon is a .NET thing?

Flare is obviously very heavily dependent on the .NET framework; perhaps too much so. The point being if Microsoft via .NET dictates a certain sort of user interface, then "subscriber" products are to some extent going to follow that diktat.

Assuming I've interpreted the situation correctly, the last thing I would want to determine the look and feel and usability of a technical writing product is Microsoft's design criteria. Especially since that criteria was shaped in large measure by a crappy product — Word — that is a virtual synonym for UN-usability.

Cheers,
Riley
SFO

[RamonS]

DotNet surely makes it easier to add a ribbon to apps, but it does not dictate that....as can be seen in Flare.

[svt-user]

Well,

I wasn't very nice about the ribbon in feedback to Madcap. However, I'm back in a FrameMaker/Robohelp shop after four years using only Flare.

Barely two months using FM 10, and I'll take that ribbon menu in a heartbeat....

(Edited)

[i-tietz]

Barely two months using FM 10, and I'll take that ribbon menu in a heartbeat....

Ah, well, ... yes ... that's FM ... one of my all time top favorite software packages ... ... Flare just cannot compete with that excellence ... SAP R/3 surely can and sometimes Lotus Notes ... ... to produce something brilliant like that you simply need decades of training of not giving a damn on what users want or even need ...

[Feebeegeebee]

Hi,
I'm currently evaluating Flare 8 and have used RoboHelp for many years and before that Doc-To-Help.
I dislike the Ribbon intensely, and was searching here to see if I could switch to normal menus. I also dislike it in the Office versions that have it.
For one thing, in a product like Flare that has a lot of pods/windows open it takes up far too much vital space on screen, when you are not using most of the options. I don't need all the options visible all of the time. It's quite intimidating and "in your face" when you are new to the product.
Menus are great, they appear when you need them and disappear when you don't. And I find it easier to go through menus looking for something.
Just my initial impressions...
Regards,
Feebeegeebee

[wclass]

... and was searching here to see if I could switch to normal menus.

You can switch using:
File > Options > Interface tab ...

and change back using:
Tools menu > Options > Interface tab ...