I am surprised
Thanks Greg for doing this review.
I agree with Carl.Lee, I hate the ribbon! I say that up front. I have ranted about it in Office for the last 4 years (and still do rant about it). It sucks, PERIOD. It is just too cluttered (70-120 hieroglyphics, I counted, in a ribbon is overwhelming) and too dynamic (the d*** things jump around (change location) like mexican jumping beans on speed, change size and look almost every time you resize the app window!) for that application. I have seen it applied in other apps where again it was in appropriate, because the app was too brain dead simple. The was no reason to waste the screen space for 4 or 5 commands, in total on a ribbon.
So imagine my surprise when after reading your review I say this implementation looks not too bad. I might even say I like it .
I agree with regulus, there should be a simple toggle to convert back to the menu. The ribbon is a pastry thin shell on top of the old menu application (equivalent to "putting lipstick on a pig"). It would be trivial to keep the menu.
My fundamental objection to the ribbon is that it completely discounts my personal time and money that I have invested in learning the menu UI. The ribbon is written explicitly for Brand new users (spending new money on new licenses). It totally ignores the needs of experienced users. In this app the shortcuts may have remained the same, but that is not always true in Office apps. Tell me why would the "Insert" tab have a "n" shortcut. And don't get me started on the new 2 letter shortcuts needed to support more than 26 hieroglyphs in a tab ...
There is also one more thing I wish they would bring back. That is the 2 window display to make file management (copying, moving) easier. It was a "crime" when they blinded File Explorer to birth the "cyclops" Windows Explorer. It showed a real lack of vision.
Greg some questions:
1. could you confirm that they at least have implemented the toggle to minimize the ribbon down to the tabs only, very similar in look to the old menu? It took me 4 years to learn about that feature.
2. are you going to write about the conditional tabs that are implemented? I would like the option to show them all the time disabled when not valid, so we are aware the features are there just waiting to be triggered. If you do write about the conditional tabs, please add a link from this article to that one, and one back to this one, to make it brain dead easy for readers to find both from either one.
3. do any of the ribbon commands still trigger the old dialog boxes, properties comes to mind? Or have the fully implemented the Ribbon Gooey in this app.
