7 ms·

I hated the Ribbons. Nothing was categorized where I expected and none of the icons or sizes match their use or frequency of use. Drop down menus are so much q

by gibolt 5y ago

I hated the Ribbons. Nothing was categorized where I expected and none of the icons or sizes match their use or frequency of use. Drop down menus are so much quicker to scan

megablast 5y ago
But drop down menus were still there. I thought the ribbon was great, but obviously you had to get used to it.
zentr1c 5y ago
Ranting in Gibbons:) Still i wonder how much it effects my productivity decline in Office since i still search sometimes for functionality. In anyway it made me hate office and made Switch to open Office wherever i can. However I attribute it to having kicked of my quest for a plaintext workflow because beeing f*ked over by feature bloat and Designer circle jerking once to many times. Simplicity is king. Maybe its just the age that makes me realize that there are just to many layers of complexity. I feel for the young learners that get thrown into this world and dont even understand the concept of a file system tree anymore. It has been abstracted away. it's not in the cloud! It's in the app with 3 klicks reachable or doesn't exist.
- stevesimmons 5y ago
  I can't figure out how to reach my files in Windows 11. There are around 6 Documents folders/libraries/whatever in File Explorer, going to a combination of my work OneDrive, my personal OneDrive and my local user folder. There's one weird Documents that goes to the Documents in both OneDrives. There's a My Documents that give an error. I've a work Sharepoint folder that was also named Documents. I tried renaming them, which didn't work, and has just left me even more confused how to find things. If I go to the command line and do "dir C:\Users\<me>\Documents" which of this do I find? And how do I get to the others? And which ones get backed up where? It's a complete mess. I sympathise now with the people who keep every file on the desktop. Every time I go back to Linux, I feel a wave of relief: I see my files in a single dir tree under /home, searching works predictably. How did Microsoft get to this?
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    > It's a complete mess. I sympathise now with the people who keep every file on the desktop. The UI in regards to navigating files in Windows is indeed a mess. A personal gripe that i have with it, that's even worse than some of what you named is the file open/save dialog - there's not just one (that would let you write the file path in the bar and thus allow you to copy paths from Explorer to it), but many different ones for different programs! This essentially makes it so that using some software like GIMP and navigating around the filesystem with it is needlessly annoying! Add on small annoyances like Windows search by default trying to look into the contents of many files, thus making search needlessly slow and also things like it not supporting mounting remote directories over SFTP (which should get at least a bit of attention) instead of always having to use SMB or whatever, and you have a somewhat problematic daily experience. Of course, there are also things that it does better than some other systems/configurations, like having the whole recycle bin concept, with ctrl+Z allowing you to undo file deletions, file moves or even renaming files, which makes dealing with user error on your part more easy! Just checked on Linux Mint - the recycle bin works as you'd expect, but there is no ctrl+z to restore the last deleted file automatically. > Every time I go back to Linux, I feel a wave of relief: I see my files in a single dir tree under /home, searching works predictably. About this, i'm also somewhat torn. The filesystem structure on most Linux distros also just feels weird, although it's for historical compatibility reasons (not quite as bad as Windows having two oddly named Program Files directories, but still). I doubt that we couldn't structure things in a more reasonable manner, than having all of the following for just executables, for example: /bin/ /sbin/ /usr/bin/ /usr/local/bin/ /usr/local/sbin/ In case anyone wants to learn more about these, here's the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard document, which is actually pretty well written: https://www.pathname.com/fhs/ https://www.pathname.com/fhs/ Throw in /opt and /usr/share and whatnot and it's a recipe for different bits of software out there using different configurations because of differing opinions about what would be suitable for their use cases. The same mess actually extends to what's in the /home directory - sure, in most cases you can back it up and restore it, but once again every piece of software will have its own opinions about how to structure its data, be it in a visible/hidden config file, a visible/hidden folder for the application itself, or something else. Of course, Windows also has a similar mess going on with Program Data and AppData folders, as well as Documents and whatnot, so Linux isn't the only problematic system here. In short, i think that all have their advantages and shortcomings, here's hoping that things improve in the following decade!
- teekert 5y ago
  I'd certainly try LibreOffice which is much better supported and modern than the sort of abandoned OpenOffice.
- garaetjjte 5y ago
  >I feel for the young learners that get thrown into this world and dont even understand the concept of a file system tree anymore. Linking to my previous rant on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28994133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28994133
KronisLV 5y ago
> Drop down menus are so much quicker to scan Another commenter mentioned OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/ http://www.openoffice.org/) but i'd also like to suggest LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/ https://www.libreoffice.org/) as a capable and reasonably compatible alternative to MS Office, which retain the old look of dropdown menus. If you don't have the need to support very particular features of Office, then it might just be suitable to retain your preferred way of navigating the UI of an office suite app - on my personal computers i have just LibreOffice (with which i finished my bachelor's and master's thesis), whereas on my work computer i have both LibreOffice and Word, for those few exceptions when the latter is necessary. That said, i can understand why many would also find the ribbon UI to be easy to navigate, should they get used to it. That's why some Office clones, like WPS Office (https://www.wps.com/office/linux/ https://www.wps.com/office/linux/) and FreeOffice (https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ https://www.freeoffice.com/en/) seem to copy it with varying degrees of success. That said, personally i like the open source nature of LibreOffice too and the file format itself not being proprietary.
- jgtrosh 5y ago
  Libre Office also offers an optional ribbon style interface
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    Oh yeah, totally forgot about it! In case anyone would like to try it out, it's under: View > User Interface > (pick one of the Tabbed options, there are quite a few) Now there's one more argument for open software - the developers caring enough to giving us that many options to support the preferences of many people without needlessly deprecating anything!
- tpxl 5y ago
  If I understand correctly, LibreOffice is a fork/successor of OpenOffice. Here's a comparison on the LibreOffice website: https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice-vs-openoffice/ https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice-vs-openoffi.... It's a bit disingenuous though since it makes it seem OpenOffice hasn't had a release since 2014, even though last release was October 2021.
raxxorrax 5y ago
I agree that the grouping doesn't make much sense at all in most programs. It would have been nice to at least be able to reorder things like in classical UIs, which I also find superior from a usability perspective.
savrajsingh 5y ago
Windows 11 also got rid of the ribbon in windows file explorer
addicted 5y ago
I miss the ribbon every time I use LO. I do think the categorization takes a little getting used to but once you do it’s fairly trivial. It’s also important to recognize the horizontal categorizations within each ribbon, something that can easily be missed until you know about it.

by gibolt 5y ago

I hated the Ribbons. Nothing was categorized where I expected and none of the icons or sizes match their use or frequency of use. Drop down menus are so much quicker to scan

megablast 5y ago

But drop down menus were still there. I thought the ribbon was great, but obviously you had to get used to it.

zentr1c 5y ago

Ranting in Gibbons:) Still i wonder how much it effects my productivity decline in Office since i still search sometimes for functionality. In anyway it made me hate office and made Switch to open Office wherever i can. However I attribute it to having kicked of my quest for a plaintext workflow because beeing f*ked over by feature bloat and Designer circle jerking once to many times. Simplicity is king. Maybe its just the age that makes me realize that there are just to many layers of complexity. I feel for the young learners that get thrown into this world and dont even understand the concept of a file system tree anymore. It has been abstracted away. it's not in the cloud! It's in the app with 3 klicks reachable or doesn't exist.

stevesimmons 5y ago
I can't figure out how to reach my files in Windows 11. There are around 6 Documents folders/libraries/whatever in File Explorer, going to a combination of my work OneDrive, my personal OneDrive and my local user folder. There's one weird Documents that goes to the Documents in both OneDrives. There's a My Documents that give an error. I've a work Sharepoint folder that was also named Documents. I tried renaming them, which didn't work, and has just left me even more confused how to find things. If I go to the command line and do "dir C:\Users\<me>\Documents" which of this do I find? And how do I get to the others? And which ones get backed up where? It's a complete mess. I sympathise now with the people who keep every file on the desktop. Every time I go back to Linux, I feel a wave of relief: I see my files in a single dir tree under /home, searching works predictably. How did Microsoft get to this?
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > It's a complete mess. I sympathise now with the people who keep every file on the desktop. The UI in regards to navigating files in Windows is indeed a mess. A personal gripe that i have with it, that's even worse than some of what you named is the file open/save dialog - there's not just one (that would let you write the file path in the bar and thus allow you to copy paths from Explorer to it), but many different ones for different programs! This essentially makes it so that using some software like GIMP and navigating around the filesystem with it is needlessly annoying! Add on small annoyances like Windows search by default trying to look into the contents of many files, thus making search needlessly slow and also things like it not supporting mounting remote directories over SFTP (which should get at least a bit of attention) instead of always having to use SMB or whatever, and you have a somewhat problematic daily experience. Of course, there are also things that it does better than some other systems/configurations, like having the whole recycle bin concept, with ctrl+Z allowing you to undo file deletions, file moves or even renaming files, which makes dealing with user error on your part more easy! Just checked on Linux Mint - the recycle bin works as you'd expect, but there is no ctrl+z to restore the last deleted file automatically. > Every time I go back to Linux, I feel a wave of relief: I see my files in a single dir tree under /home, searching works predictably. About this, i'm also somewhat torn. The filesystem structure on most Linux distros also just feels weird, although it's for historical compatibility reasons (not quite as bad as Windows having two oddly named Program Files directories, but still). I doubt that we couldn't structure things in a more reasonable manner, than having all of the following for just executables, for example: /bin/ /sbin/ /usr/bin/ /usr/local/bin/ /usr/local/sbin/ In case anyone wants to learn more about these, here's the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard document, which is actually pretty well written: https://www.pathname.com/fhs/ https://www.pathname.com/fhs/ Throw in /opt and /usr/share and whatnot and it's a recipe for different bits of software out there using different configurations because of differing opinions about what would be suitable for their use cases. The same mess actually extends to what's in the /home directory - sure, in most cases you can back it up and restore it, but once again every piece of software will have its own opinions about how to structure its data, be it in a visible/hidden config file, a visible/hidden folder for the application itself, or something else. Of course, Windows also has a similar mess going on with Program Data and AppData folders, as well as Documents and whatnot, so Linux isn't the only problematic system here. In short, i think that all have their advantages and shortcomings, here's hoping that things improve in the following decade!
teekert 5y ago
I'd certainly try LibreOffice which is much better supported and modern than the sort of abandoned OpenOffice.
garaetjjte 5y ago
>I feel for the young learners that get thrown into this world and dont even understand the concept of a file system tree anymore. Linking to my previous rant on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28994133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28994133

KronisLV 5y ago

> Drop down menus are so much quicker to scan Another commenter mentioned OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/ http://www.openoffice.org/) but i'd also like to suggest LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/ https://www.libreoffice.org/) as a capable and reasonably compatible alternative to MS Office, which retain the old look of dropdown menus. If you don't have the need to support very particular features of Office, then it might just be suitable to retain your preferred way of navigating the UI of an office suite app - on my personal computers i have just LibreOffice (with which i finished my bachelor's and master's thesis), whereas on my work computer i have both LibreOffice and Word, for those few exceptions when the latter is necessary. That said, i can understand why many would also find the ribbon UI to be easy to navigate, should they get used to it. That's why some Office clones, like WPS Office (https://www.wps.com/office/linux/ https://www.wps.com/office/linux/) and FreeOffice (https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ https://www.freeoffice.com/en/) seem to copy it with varying degrees of success. That said, personally i like the open source nature of LibreOffice too and the file format itself not being proprietary.

jgtrosh 5y ago
Libre Office also offers an optional ribbon style interface
- KronisLV 5y ago
  Oh yeah, totally forgot about it! In case anyone would like to try it out, it's under: View > User Interface > (pick one of the Tabbed options, there are quite a few) Now there's one more argument for open software - the developers caring enough to giving us that many options to support the preferences of many people without needlessly deprecating anything!
tpxl 5y ago
If I understand correctly, LibreOffice is a fork/successor of OpenOffice. Here's a comparison on the LibreOffice website: https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice-vs-openoffice/ https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice-vs-openoffi.... It's a bit disingenuous though since it makes it seem OpenOffice hasn't had a release since 2014, even though last release was October 2021.

raxxorrax 5y ago

I agree that the grouping doesn't make much sense at all in most programs. It would have been nice to at least be able to reorder things like in classical UIs, which I also find superior from a usability perspective.

savrajsingh 5y ago

Windows 11 also got rid of the ribbon in windows file explorer

addicted 5y ago

I miss the ribbon every time I use LO. I do think the categorization takes a little getting used to but once you do it’s fairly trivial. It’s also important to recognize the horizontal categorizations within each ribbon, something that can easily be missed until you know about it.