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The whole point of the Office ribbon was to consolidate controls, because they were at the point where most of their feature requests were for things that alrea

The whole point of the Office ribbon was to consolidate controls, because they were at the point where most of their feature requests were for things that already existed but people were completely unaware of on account of every menu and toolbar having 80 million items.

SoftTalker 1y ago
So instead they moved every feature into 80 million ribbon items, most which are not visible.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  At least the ribbon makes the most common features one or two clicks. I have nostalgia for the old menus, and wish they were at least an option. But they often required a lot of dexterity and persistence to discover and use when options expanded beyond a depth of two
- 1oooqooq 1y ago
  it was already hidden. the ribbon didn't fix it. the ribbon just replaced an invisible right mouse button click on the general toolbar region with an unavoidable huge eyesore.
einpoklum 1y ago
Part of the problem they had just before the switch to ribbons (i.e. with Office 2003) is how they were semi-hiding not-commonly-used menu items by default, so that you had to click an arrow-button on the bottom of the menu to get the full set if items. I have to say that from my experience, ribbons make it harder for people to remember where buttons/functionality is located, and harder to remember that it even exists, relative to full menus + toolbars. And yet - newbies used to MS Office keep clamoring for ribbons, ribbons, ribbons (e.g. in LibreOffice).
- senkora 1y ago
  There is now a toggle to switch LibreOffice to a ribbon UI: https://itsfoss.com/libreoffice-ribbon-interface/ https://itsfoss.com/libreoffice-ribbon-interface/
  - einpoklum 1y ago
    In LibreOffice, on the menus, you can choose View > User Interface... and choose one of several UI modes, including the classic menu+toolbar and a ribbon-like "tabbed" UI. That's been available for a few years already. For the upcoming 25.8 release of LibreOffice, we have decided to make the UI mode selection part of a welcome dialog on the first run - as a compromise between the majority opinion, which is that the MSO ribbon is undesirable, and the desire to make the transition easier for MSO users who expect a ribbon-like UI since that's what they're used it. The default choice will remain menus+toolbars. Also, the LO tabbed UI is not "fully-baked", and still has quite a few issues : https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107237 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107237 and more generally: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102062 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102062
    - mcswell 1y ago
      And Microsoft said it would be too hard to maintain both the Ribbon and the traditional menus. Somehow LibreOffice does what Microsoft said was too hard.
mcswell 1y ago
"The whole point of the Office ribbon was to consolidate controls..." And now the controls have become un-consolidated, having been scattered to all margins of the Office window.

SoftTalker 1y ago

So instead they moved every feature into 80 million ribbon items, most which are not visible.

paulryanrogers 1y ago
At least the ribbon makes the most common features one or two clicks. I have nostalgia for the old menus, and wish they were at least an option. But they often required a lot of dexterity and persistence to discover and use when options expanded beyond a depth of two
1oooqooq 1y ago
it was already hidden. the ribbon didn't fix it. the ribbon just replaced an invisible right mouse button click on the general toolbar region with an unavoidable huge eyesore.

einpoklum 1y ago

Part of the problem they had just before the switch to ribbons (i.e. with Office 2003) is how they were semi-hiding not-commonly-used menu items by default, so that you had to click an arrow-button on the bottom of the menu to get the full set if items. I have to say that from my experience, ribbons make it harder for people to remember where buttons/functionality is located, and harder to remember that it even exists, relative to full menus + toolbars. And yet - newbies used to MS Office keep clamoring for ribbons, ribbons, ribbons (e.g. in LibreOffice).

senkora 1y ago
There is now a toggle to switch LibreOffice to a ribbon UI: https://itsfoss.com/libreoffice-ribbon-interface/ https://itsfoss.com/libreoffice-ribbon-interface/
- einpoklum 1y ago
  In LibreOffice, on the menus, you can choose View > User Interface... and choose one of several UI modes, including the classic menu+toolbar and a ribbon-like "tabbed" UI. That's been available for a few years already. For the upcoming 25.8 release of LibreOffice, we have decided to make the UI mode selection part of a welcome dialog on the first run - as a compromise between the majority opinion, which is that the MSO ribbon is undesirable, and the desire to make the transition easier for MSO users who expect a ribbon-like UI since that's what they're used it. The default choice will remain menus+toolbars. Also, the LO tabbed UI is not "fully-baked", and still has quite a few issues : https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107237 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107237 and more generally: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102062 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102062
  - mcswell 1y ago
    And Microsoft said it would be too hard to maintain both the Ribbon and the traditional menus. Somehow LibreOffice does what Microsoft said was too hard.

mcswell 1y ago

"The whole point of the Office ribbon was to consolidate controls..." And now the controls have become un-consolidated, having been scattered to all margins of the Office window.