4 ms·
But toolbars are essentially the same thing except they don't waste space, are moveable, resizable, typically customizable, and can be hidden.
by grawprog 7y ago
But toolbars are essentially the same thing except they don't waste space, are moveable, resizable, typically customizable, and can be hidden.
- mavhc 7y agoPretty sure having every toolbar open at once would use more space. Ribbon is dynamic to your current task, using a table? Table tab is available.
- catalogia 7y ago> Ribbon is dynamic to your current task, using a table? Table tab is available. So were toolbars in Microsoft Office were similarly dynamic.
- akho 7y agoToolbars were not keyboard accessible, and usually unlabeled. The ribbon is a huge improvement.
- eitland 7y agoToolbars came with explanations that popped up if you hovered. They also were primarily shortcuts as everything could be reached using the menus anyway.
- omegabravo 7y agoRibbon has explanations that popup if you hover Ribbon contains everything that is available in the menus, and is collapsible. Ribbon also supports keyboard accelerators
- eitland 7y agoThey also swosh around. They also aren't predictable.
- criddell 7y agoThere's no reason toolbars couldn't also be dynamic.
- mavhc 7y agoRibbon is just that. Do you have examples of other apps with dynamic toolbars that work better?
- cjblomqvist 7y agoShould be noted that the ribbon can be customized (in most apps I've seen it anyway) and hidden. Many toolbars are not very resizable (for good reasons). The big difference is fewer clicks to do what you most often do (with ribbons). The cost is using more space and possibly cluttering the UI. You can also argue easier discoverability, but I'd guess that's up for debate (seems to for my old parents, but that's a quite small sample size).
- TeMPOraL 7y agoRibbon gets more useful once you have a device with a touch screen. It's like a toolbar, except the buttons are bigger and it has tabs. I started to appreciate it (particularly in Windows Explorer) when I got my first 2-in-1 device. That said, with a stylus, regular toolbars work OK too.
- zozbot234 7y agoIME, ribbons are way too fiddly to work well as a pure touch interface. Toolbars with "large" buttons (as first seen, IIRC, in Win98) are a lot better.
- ihuman 7y agoIn Microsoft office, I often found it hard to find the button I was looking for because the buttons weren't group with similar buttons in the toolbar, and were distributed randomly. I prefer the tabbed+grouped layout of the ribbon because it fixes that organization problem. All the basics are in "Home", if I need to adjust the layout I go to layout, etc. Then within those tabs, common actions/properties are grouped together. I never want to go back to the old toolbar layout in Office 2003.