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It feels like you jumped past something that I remember being a big deal - The Ribbon. I remember when Office introduced it, and people hated it. It goes agains

by hnick 3y ago

It feels like you jumped past something that I remember being a big deal - The Ribbon. I remember when Office introduced it, and people hated it. It goes against your comment on using words instead of icons. But it seems like a useful solution for programs as feature lists grow and menus (and even sub-menus) become unwieldy so I've made my peace. Personally, I think the Windows OS itself is one of the most problematic offenders. How can you expect better from third party developers, when MS uses at least 3 different UI paradigms for system settings? And F1 doesn't bring up help - it brings up a web browser!

mihaaly 3y ago
Since ribbons it is difficult to find what you are looking for, slows down the use of the software. To day I did not make my peace with it.
cykros 3y ago
In Excel, I love the ribbon, as someone who looks to make use of some of the more advanced data manipulation and display features it has. If all I wanted to do was handle some basic lists with perhaps a formula here or there, perhaps I'd feel differently. And this is why I DO feel differently about Word, which does take up way too much space with a ribbon full of tools that really aren't of interest. In word, I'm usually writing something, and then spending a small percentage of the time changing formatting. Quite different from Excel, where it's more often than not working with large datasets pulled either from a csv online or directly from a SQL server and the various tools and functions are central to the task at hand. I guess the point is, it really depends on use case as for whether the ribbon makes sense, and it should be left to the user to decide to use the old menu based system or the new ribbon based system based on how much time is spent composing vs. manipulating the existing data. Right tool for the job.
- hnick 3y ago
  I never thought about that Word vs Excel ribbon dichotomy before, but it makes sense and mirrors how I feel. The good news is we can hide it, at least. In whatever version I have, selecting text popups a mini toolbar up which usually has exactly what I need anyway.

by hnick 3y ago

mihaaly 3y ago

Since ribbons it is difficult to find what you are looking for, slows down the use of the software. To day I did not make my peace with it.

cykros 3y ago

In Excel, I love the ribbon, as someone who looks to make use of some of the more advanced data manipulation and display features it has. If all I wanted to do was handle some basic lists with perhaps a formula here or there, perhaps I'd feel differently. And this is why I DO feel differently about Word, which does take up way too much space with a ribbon full of tools that really aren't of interest. In word, I'm usually writing something, and then spending a small percentage of the time changing formatting. Quite different from Excel, where it's more often than not working with large datasets pulled either from a csv online or directly from a SQL server and the various tools and functions are central to the task at hand. I guess the point is, it really depends on use case as for whether the ribbon makes sense, and it should be left to the user to decide to use the old menu based system or the new ribbon based system based on how much time is spent composing vs. manipulating the existing data. Right tool for the job.

hnick 3y ago
I never thought about that Word vs Excel ribbon dichotomy before, but it makes sense and mirrors how I feel. The good news is we can hide it, at least. In whatever version I have, selecting text popups a mini toolbar up which usually has exactly what I need anyway.