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Windows 7 -- ribbons for everyone!

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zridling:
I know there are good arguments on the other side, but I wish Microsoft would upgrade all these OS apps -- NotePad, Paint, WordPad -- and offer them as either a downloadable package for Windows users or within Automatic Updates if the user clicked the option. They don't have to be the greatest apps, but would a better, more feature-rich WordPad really take out other competition, since the only app competing anymore (for money) is WordPerfect?

Like mouser and others, I'd much rather see Microsoft scale "Windows" down to a core OS and let its customers decide what more they want to plugin to it.

Paul Keith:
Well Windows Live Writer is an upgraded version of Wordpad. There even used to be a joke article in Wikihow on "How to Convince Yourself Not to Blog" which included using Wordpad instead of posting an article to a blog in order to satisfy your blogging needs.

tranglos:
For me, the ribbon carries several disadvantages:


* it's too 1st grade-looking, as if I'm too stupid to use a menu;

* eats up a ridiculous amount of valuable screen space (float this thing as a sidebar since we're all using WIDEscreens now);

* it diminishes the role -- and efficiency -- of keyboard shortcuts.-zridling (September 19, 2008, 09:01 PM)
--- End quote ---

Completely agreed on points 2 & 3. Especially about the keyboard. Menus are dicoverable - you can browse them and find out the keyboard shortcuts. The ribbon has accelerators overlaid on its icons, so that the labels obscure the icons they are meant to describe, how silly is that?

On point 1 though - I agree too, but something like 90% users don't. Microsoft has collected a massive amount of raw data on how often which command is used and how it is accessed. Seems this is the information Office 2003 sends them when you check the option that says "Help improve Office by sending anonymous usage data" blah blah* - that data was used as a starting point when they were designing the ribbon. They know exactly how many people clicked the Save button in Word vs how many people used File->Save, or how many pressed Ctrl+S. Turns out very few people press Ctrl+S, and almost nobody uses the menus. Most people just click what's available on the two standard toolbars. And only 4% of users ever customize Word, and of those most just add a button or two.

I have no idea why that is, but it seems true from my experience also that many people faced with a program will just sit there and look, and it doesn't occur to them to click a menu here or check out what a command does there. They just don't do it. So the ribbon does a better job perhaps of letting people see what's available.

* I wonder though how many people un-check that box and if that number is high enough to skew the results. I think the option is checked by default, meaning that those "unadventurous" users would be more likely to leave it on, while control freaks like myself will tend to uncheck it. As a result, the data MS collects might be biased toward less experienced users.

Paul Keith:
As a result, the data MS collects might be biased toward less experienced users.
--- End quote ---

Bingo. Less experienced users means users less likely to go look for an autosaving notepad or know about keyboard shortcuts.

4wd:
I don't use Office so the only exposure to this Ribbon thing is that Raxco decided to install it on PerfectDisk2k8 and AFAICT it's just a waste of space.....

But if anyone running Office is interested, here is a free CustomUI Editor for it and some info on how to use it.

The EULA refers to the program ceasing to function after some date in 2006 but it installed and ran OK on my machine.  Plus the info page was last updated in 2008.

And free Office 2k7 classic menu addin.

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