LibreOffice Will Have New 'MUFFIN' UI (documentfoundation.org) 173
New submitter iampiti writes: The Document Foundation has announced a new user interface concept for LibreOffice. Users will be able to choose from several toolbar configurations including the "Notebook bar" which is similar to Microsoft Office's ribbon. According to TDF, "The MUFFIN (My User Friendly -- Flexible Interface) represents a new approach to UI design, based on the respect of user needs rather than on the imposition of a single UI to all users"
Keep your MUFFIN out of my face (Score:4, Insightful)
Change is bad (Score:3, Insightful)
I share your fears. When it comes to user-interface, change is almost always bad. The new interface may be easier to use for newcomers, but the folks, who've used the program before, will need to climb the learning-curve again.
Hopefully, developers will have enough collective sense to leave some kind of "Switch to Legacy Interface" (SWILIN?) option available and sufficiently prominent for the
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...change is almost always bad.
I have to ask the question - is it easier for this round of newcomers to learn the new interface than it was for the LAST round of newcomers to learn the OLD interface? If not, then yes, the change is bad (or at least, no better than current state); if not, then it was an improvement. Change isn't bad just because things are now different.
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Equally, it isn't *good* just because things are now different.
Before changing anything you should ask what problem you're trying to solve. If you can't answer that question, maybe you should just leave it the fuck alone already.
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Before changing anything you should ask what problem you're trying to solve. If you can't answer that question, maybe you should just leave it the fuck alone already.
The problem Microsoft was trying to solve was how can theye get people to continually buy new versions of the Office suite.
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Nope, not good enough. The new interface has to be not just better, but a lot better to justify changing it.
This is generally true about other things too — a replacement of anything (well, of most things) needs to be not merely better, but substantially better than whatever is being replaced to justify the costs of replacement.
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...change is almost always bad.
I have to ask the question - is it easier for this round of newcomers to learn the new interface than it was for the LAST round of newcomers to learn the OLD interface? If not, then yes, the change is bad (or at least, no better than current state); if not, then it was an improvement. Change isn't bad just because things are now different.
A lot of change kicks ass and is great. A faster computer, better and cheaper memory, higher definition and faster printers. Higher definition screens with more colors. Programs with more capability, most things in fact.
What isn't so great, is a change that doesn't do any of that stuff. A change that is just there to make me and many others waste time learning a new way to do the exact same thing. And if Microsoft believes that their vaunted ribbon is so superior to the stuff that the ancients used, let
Re: Change is bad (Score:3)
a)RTFA you still can use the old UI style
b) if it is more clear and usable for newcomers this often implies that it IS actually more user friendly. Old users just have to relearn some parts. Yes learning is cumbersome, but if you embrace change you are better of afterwards. If you hate change you will become once a grumpy old person who hates the present.
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Yeap, I've been hearing "ooohh noooo!!!" On many other boards, pretty much because everyone keeps missing that the original UI will still be there and is the default. You literally have to opt-in for one of the new UIs. Distros will be setting which one of the UIs is the default option out the gate, lacking that, the current UI will be the default for the foreseeable future, unless there's some massive push to change it otherwise. However, I think it is disappointing that people are missing what I felt
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I share your fears. When it comes to user-interface, change is almost always bad. The new interface may be easier to use for newcomers, but the folks, who've used the program before, will need to climb the learning-curve again.
I've gone to the site to check it out, and it looks like they have learned something that Microsoft didn't. There are a number of choices, including what is there now. There's a more ribbons sot of layout if you want it, an choices of no sidebar or sidebar, and single row or double row toolbar.
I approve, for what that is worth. It gives people a choice, even if that choice is leep the way it was. We're all skittishe about Microsoft's sand in the vaseline approach - me too. But this appears to have been d
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>implying that's a bad thing
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My first thought was, "I'll be happy as long as I can maintain the Office 97 look and feel..."
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Re:Change is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
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You've got to give credit to Microsoft's UI design department.
They've done what nobody thought was possible: getting me and the Mayor of Galt's Gulch to agree on something.
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I've been using word processors since the 80s and I like the ribbon. Much easier to find stuff than the old menu system with sub menus and trying to remember what some rarely used feature is called rather than just looking for a picture of the result.
The other great thing about the ribbon is that for a lot of stuff if guy just hover over it then it gets temporarily applied so you can preview the charge.
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I've been using word processors since the 80s and I like the ribbon. Much easier to find stuff than the old menu system with sub menus and trying to remember what some rarely used feature is called rather than just looking for a picture of the result.
The other great thing about the ribbon is that for a lot of stuff if guy just hover over it then it gets temporarily applied so you can preview the charge.
The ribbon method is the way to go, just as the GUI interface left the command line interface behind.
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I've been using word processors since the 80s and I like the ribbon. Much easier to find stuff than the old menu system with sub menus and trying to remember what some rarely used feature is called rather than just looking for a picture of the result.
The other great thing about the ribbon is that for a lot of stuff if guy just hover over it then it gets temporarily applied so you can preview the charge.
The ribbon method is the way to go, just as the GUI interface left the command line interface behind.
Choice is apparently bad for you.
Choices are good. When Microsoft brought out the ribbon, I had to learn yet another way to interface with a stupid damn office suite. The ribbon didn't make me more productive, didn't do anything but be different for the sake of being different. I had work to do, not get a boner over the interface.
So sure, so wrong (Score:3)
Right. Just like the hammer has left the screwdriver behind.
You must be an MCSE.
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I've been using word processors since the 80s and I like the ribbon. Much easier to find stuff than the old menu system with sub menus and trying to remember what some rarely used feature is called rather than just looking for a picture of the result.
The other great thing about the ribbon is that for a lot of stuff if guy just hover over it then it gets temporarily applied so you can preview the charge.
And if the Ribbon works well for you, then you should have that option.
But for most of us, it truly sucks. Why on earth the likely most bloated software program on earth couldn't provide an interface that most of it's users liked is one of those great mysteries. Apparently lowly AO has managed to do this.
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Why? Is "looks like windows 2000" something bad? Does it not function? Why the fuck does it need to change just for the sake of change?
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I don't use, like some other people, don't use Libre office because it doesn't offer a clean UI like ribbon. Maybe that's why?
You can use anything you want. And from a UI design, "clean" is not remotely what the ribbon is. But if you like it, use it, and then you are stuck on one platform that no one else emulates the UI - which might tell you something.
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Anybody arguing for a UI update of an application, must be forced to teach his own elderly parents to use the new interface — and provide them with a satisfactory explanation on why the change from what they were already used to was necessary.
Even if we stipulate, for sake of argument, that being "like Windows 2000" is bad, is it bad enough to justify forcing users to relearn?
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Anybody arguing for a UI update of an application, must be forced to teach his own elderly parents to use the new interface — and provide them with a satisfactory explanation on why the change from what they were already used to was necessary.
Jeebuz on a waffle iron - THIS! I remember when my sister bought my 85 year old father a Vista basic computer to replace the Windows XP computer that I gave him and he worked it like a boss. Just that interface change threw him off, and he almost never used the thing. And of course, she lived a couple hundred miles away, so I was saddled with supporting one of the world's worst computers.
Even if we stipulate, for sake of argument, that being "like Windows 2000" is bad, is it bad enough to justify forcing users to relearn?
If I might draw a comparison, at some point in the 90's, the mouse "needed improvement". So we had trackballs, joystick
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If you like your current user interface, you can keep your current user interface. Right?
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It's nothing new. This exact same sentiment has come up every time the GNOME UI vs. KDE has come up for discussion. Basically, the anti-KDE people *hate* configurability and options, because they want it to be set to their preference by default, and somehow everyone is supposed to know their personal preference and agree to this. So they like stuff like Gnome because it forces them into one way of doing things and doesn't give them a choice (which they then mentally turn around so they think it does foll
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I tend to care about how things work, not how they look.
You might feel the same once you grow some pubes.
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You might feel the same once you grow some pubes.
Not sure that will help that much. ;^)
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Obligatory Slashdot car metaphor in 3...2...1:
We should update the UI in our cars. That steering wheel is soooo 1903.
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Actually I don't think it was standard until the 1910s....
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Actually I don't think it was standard until the 1910s....
You are right. But since then, it's been pretty standard. Fortunately Microsoft isn't in automobile design.
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Not windows 2000, but windows 3.1
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Not until I can compile (or, at least, download) FreeBSD binaries of it.
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I was about to remark about how their used to be UNIX versions of Word Perfect (I have it installed on my Octane running IRIX 6.5.29 and of course there was the Linux version that shipped with Corel Linux), but I do not recall ever seeing it on FreeBSD.
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The link to see it is the very first like in the summary, the 'announced' link: https://blog.documentfoundatio... [documentfoundation.org]
There are 4 screenshots of what MUFFIN is, and it appears to basically be 4 types of toolbars, one of which is essentially a ribbon. This isn't really anything revolutionary, they just made up a stupid word to describe maintaining 4 types of UIs for people.
Honest, this is why Linux can't have nice things. Yea I know many people hate the MS ribbon-style stuff, or the OSX menus, but at least it's
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It doesn't look that bad. The underlying code that does the work will be the same, and I can see that different screen layouts might find different versions of the menu layout preferable. And the menu layout itself should be pretty simple as code.
It's a whole lot better than those that try to optimize everything to fit on a small phone screen. Those are basically unusable.
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Honest, this is why Linux can't have nice things. Yea I know many people hate the MS ribbon-style stuff, or the OSX menus, but at least it's consistent (for the apps made by the same developers following the rules) and easy to maintain. I can guarantee that this MUFFIN approach will just result in 4 quasi-usable scenarios, each with bugs, rather than 1 well tested scenario that 80% of people like.
Office was not remotely consistent. When I was working with the suits, and someone brought over a presentation, everything would be all over the place, depending on how they had things set up on the computer they designed for.
And why on earth are you bitching about AO putting in a ribbonish interface being an example of how Linus stinks but it emulates the great Microsoft Ribbon so that's an example of it. That makes no sense. Strange nho many people hate choice.
Considering that the Ribbon was one of m
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I haven't seen this new UI, but it is safe to assume "usability experts" were hard at work at making trendy and user un-friendly changes to it.
No... I'm sure it's "really important stuff", like rounded tabs (that display slightly less information, but look trendy) rather than square tabs -- I'm looking at you Firefox (thank God for Classic Theme Restorer)
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Amen. Been using Classic Theme Restorer for so long I no longer recognize screenshots of Firefox when they come up in the inevitable twice-yearly "Firefox to get UI overhaul!" Slashdot article.
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As long as it defaults to the old style, I don't really care if they add some newfangled optional experiment that keeps the designers motivated in terms of playing with eye-candy and giving them bragging rights.
OSS coders are usually not paid well or at all, so they deserve fringe benefits, such as a UI playpen.
It's kind of like Twitter keeping certain politicians occupied so they don't break something i
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But without MUFFIN, how are we supposed to load 13 sector disks on our Apple ][?
Uhm, I think I just dated myself.
Badly.
Err, get off my lawn!
hawk
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That was my immediate response as well. It seems like it's a pre-announcement that they've now also succumbed to the monumental brain-rot that is flat UIs, with the ugly, unusable new look to land presently.
Your immediate response was wrong. You don't actually have to change anything But you have the option. I use the spreadsheet program a lot, so maybe the standard UI with a sidebar option will be worth checking out.
Other options are the traditional two row toolbar, or a one row toolbar, or a ribbonish gastraphagus. All is well, even if I know which interface I'll never use - someone might like it.
Oh, Lord... (Score:2)
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Filthiest. Sketch. Ever.
Even more than the Schweddy balls.
Might be good? (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope they are not filing the serial numbers off the M$ office interface and bolting it to Libreoffice. The current interact that libreoffice has is one of the reasons I like it.
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TFA only shows some icons on a toolbar, and lots of UX bullshit.
Oh God... (Score:4, Insightful)
This never ends well. In my former life I spent many happy months ripping out (more) senior developers' pet-project UI templating features (e.g., "pick your GUI colorz"), key remapping (e.g., "now you can pick if the arrow keys are reversed") and other UI customization features. The result? Every time? My customers loved the "cleaner UI" and especially loved the fact that once you documented how to do something with my product, it didn't change in the next release, or on the next-guy-over's screen. (Remember corporate, er, office users, just want to do their job and GO HOME.)
What they really need to do is learn why Microsoft Office still has the best UI (it optimizes what people do most frequently, and puts most functions where people expect them) and build something about as good (without infringing on Microsoft's ribbon patent of course). But they won't, because it's the same lesson OpenOffice never learned. (e.g., Ever pick a color in OpenOffice? Have you ever seen THAT interface anywhere else, ever?)
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What they really need to do is learn why Microsoft Office still has the best UI (it optimizes what people do most frequently, and puts most functions where people expect them)
I recently was asked to set up an "out-of-office autoreply" on a friend's Outlook 2007 installation. Couldn't even find WHERE to do that on the Ribbon (although I did use it way back when it was new, too). Had to google for instructions...
OK, so this is just one example among many.
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I recently was asked to set up an "out-of-office autoreply" on a friend's Outlook 2007 installation. Couldn't even find WHERE to do that on the Ribbon (although I did use it way back when it was new, too). Had to google for instructions...
Well, Outlook 2007 didn't have the ribbon interface in the main UI, so no wonder you couldn't find it there. ;)
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Well, Outlook 2007 didn't have the ribbon interface in the main UI, so no wonder you couldn't find it there. ;)
Let's just say I also couldn't find the About box containing the version number :-) (2007 was my guess.)
Dear Developers... (Score:3, Insightful)
QUIT FUCKING AROUND WITH THE UI!
There are thousands of other things that need to be worked on but no, instead we fuck around with the UI and make it worse than before. very VERY rarely has a major UI change made something better.
Re:Dear Developers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Developers: Do whatever the fuck you want with your own time. Don't worry about bugs and features unless they are important to YOU. Do what you love—that's what developing open source software is all about. Until the whiners get off their ass and pay you to work on their token issue, ignore them. Most importantly: THANK YOU!
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Except when the devs want to screw with UIs, and then I'm not so sure. And on the demands from users... I tend to be wary when users clamor for a thousand new conflicting features, but I'd listen carefully when they ask not to lose an existing feature.
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Agreed. The only instance I can think of where a major UI change was definitively for the better was when GIMP tossed that horrible multi-window idiocy for the unified window presentation. That was a clear win (and one that users were clamouring for extensively). Other than that, though, it's all been for-the-worse. The basic menu is a great structure, but what makes it super-duper is having a help system that allows you to search for functionality without having to resort to Google.
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The UI is one of the few pieces of low hanging fruit on these large projects. Sure, on these big projects there are big glaring bugs that are a decade old, true barriers to usability, missing functionality, etc. But, all those things are genuinely hard. The UI? Easy-peasy. The bug is, "Doesn't look modern to me", and you know it's fixed when, "Now it looks modern to me". All that shit was already wired up for the UI that everyone was already familiar with so, it's just a matter of massaging and stroki
Don't make the UI too tasty (Score:2)
I just don't know what could go wrong... 6_9
Yay sidebar! (Score:5, Insightful)
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It sounds like a great idea, but when there are a lot of windows-with-sidebars on screen, there's a lot of horizontal waste (and I like narrowish windows for the same reason that newspaper columns are narrow: it's easier for the eyes to focus and read that way).
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>"I wish more applications would use a sidebar - with monitors spreading horizontally for video display reasons, there is an awful lot of whitespace that isn't used by most word documents, webpages etc. Vertical space is getting to be a premium now."
Or, maybe you are a user like me that doesn't want every freaking window to be maximized. I really wish more applications (and web sites) would stop trying to FORCE me to use up more horizontal space when what I ACTUALLY want to do is have more than one thin
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Love it! (Score:3)
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It is a total and complete replacement for Microsoft.
Ha haha. Sadly not. (And I have been an Open|LibreOffice advocate for years...) Sadly, Writer does not do nearly the same amount of "DTP-lite" that Word (even 2007) is capable of. On my last 3-page document (which included diagrams) after trying to cope with intermittent shift-arounds of content and crashes for a morning, I capitulated and fired Word up (nicer-looking result too). Writer is only a replacement if you used Word like some slightly glorified typewriter. (Calc seems to be much more capable thoug
I like what they're proposing (Score:5, Informative)
The proposed options are:
I find great that, differently to current trends in UI design, they're giving the users options. Everyone can choose whatever they like best. ...) and usually they give you no choice.
Yeah, it may be confusing to some users that there're several options (although I guess that that kind of users will probably never even stumble upon the option to change the default), it does add a bit of extra code (but not much, since it's just a bit of UI code that ends up calling the same logic code) but I think it's positive overall.
This also touches me personally since I don't like some current trends in UI design (e.g. Win 10's mobile UI elements for every form factor, very limited theming, latest Gnome
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The problem with what they are doing is that it makes documentation and support a huge mess.
The more customizable and adaptable the UI becomes the less you are able to walk someone through any series of steps; or describe how to get something done. OR even show them via youtube... because what they see on their screen doesn't line up with the instructions / demo you are giving them.
I don't object to it in principle, I like giving the user control over their UI... but it comes with a real cost. Especially f
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>"The problem with what they are doing is that it makes documentation and support a huge mess."
+1
And I say that as one who administers HUNDREDS of LibreOffice users. Trying to document something or train people for something that have a constantly CHANGING UI is a disaster on a plate.
I understand the need for customizing, but the ribbon concept was, IMHO, a failure. Emulating it might make it easier for some people to point to LO as looking "modern" but I really believe it would just lower everyone's
Fix the bugs first (Score:2)
Instead of adding new features (probably nobody wanted anyway), fix the bugs / features that you have. For years now, when typing a text document, the blinking icon where you are vanishes for no reason, it makes selecting text more difficult when you need to go back and add / delete / edit a word, or select chunks of text. If you're scrolling, then good luck finding where you are on the page without the missing blinker.
Secondly, Why does the page layout in writer STILL not show a dotted border for the bound
But is it safe to copy the Ribbon interface? (Score:2)
Apple has already proven that "look and feel" is something you can litigate over.
Hah, Muffin (Score:2)
MUFFIN (My User Friendly -- Flexible Interface)
Hah. My ex called hers that as well.
Out of sorts on Mac (Score:2)
Although I run Linux on the server, I use a Mac for the desktop. And LibreOffice really looks it of sorts there. I hope they took the opportunity to make it look nice as well as functional.
Fuck no (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally they're getting a ribbon (Score:2)
The MUFFIN (My User Friendly -- Flexible Interface) represents a new approach to UI design, based on the respect of user needs rather than on the imposition of a single UI to all users
Where have I heard this before? Oh that's right, that was the same justification that brought us the ribbon design. Hide the elements not used by a user from the user until they need it and then have it pop up context sensitive.
Oh and this new design is DA BOMB so we should impose this new UI that respects the user on all users.
Cautious Optimism (Score:2)
Users will be able to choose from several toolbar configurations including the "Notebook bar" which is similar to Microsoft Office's ribbon. According to TDF, "The MUFFIN (My User Friendly -- Flexible Interface) represents a new approach to UI design, based on the respect of user needs rather than on the imposition of a single UI to all users"
This is how it should be. The only correct UI choice is the choice that is most flexible[1] and user-configurable (ideally through a scripting language of some sort, though I've no idea if this is how they're doing it.) This has a nice side effect of (at least theoretically) forcing them to keep their own code as modular and clean as possible in order to easily support multiple layouts.
Stop s
Yay, innovation (Score:2)
tl;dr "Gosh. The marketing guys segment their demographics by generation, and they told us each generation needs their own UI. Here's a graph to back that up. No, we don't know what each generation's needs are, but by golly, look at these graphs! Four generations! Also, we've noticed that you wacky users actually have all sorts of different screen sizes. Who knew? So to accommodate everyone we give you two traditional toolbar layouts, one vertical layout, and our very own innovative new 'Notebook Bar'. (Any
I'd go the opposite way (Score:2)
What they're doing is the opposite of what I'd like to see. I'd simplify and unify, give it a single clean look, something with a "90s feel", a la ClarisWorks.
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Aw, beat me to it. I was subtle :) /)
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
My main issue with ribbons is how much screen real estate they require. Your document is what's important, not the UI glam.
And they don't really do anything a menu can't do. Heck, most of them even cascade into menus anyhow, because you can't fit what you need on the already oversized ribbon.
And some things in the toolbars are just broken. Example: If I use an embedded picker in the toolbar, I expect the scroll wheel to choose items in the picker, like it does for every other picker, and not change the entire toolbar on me because the picker happened to be embedded.
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Where's that screenshot of how to make Word For Windows look like Edlin by turning on all the toolbars?
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
I can never find things in Outlook, Word or Excel 2010. The old style drop-down menus make it much easier to find what I want.
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I can never find things in Outlook, Word or Excel 2010. The old style drop-down menus make it much easier to find what I want.
To be fair, they added a search box in 2016 so any commands you can't find are searchable.
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Which will be useful to me when the BigCo that I work for upgrades from MSO 2010.
Until then, not so much.
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Why some people think that they need to leave their mark on this world by ruining software that is proven to work is beyond me. Sad that LibreOffice is going to join the list.
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That's nice, but searchable and discoverable are two very different things.
Searchable is fine if you know exactly what you're looking for by name. A discoverable menu system was a big selling point to get people off command-driven interfaces in the first place.
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This obsession of consuming desktop real estate with gobs of oversized buttons/fonts, widgets, and full screen 'menus' needs to stop.
How is it 'cleaner and more consistent' to have various widgets of multiple sizes? Compare that to menus and toolbars, where all the options are the same size, making them intuitively selectible and have hotkeys associated with them. Both menus and toolbars are typically grouped by related functions, so the ribbon offers nothing new there. The oft-cited 'feature hunt' justi
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What's wrong with "It's not what I'm used to"? I'm not interested in learning a new interface, I'm interested in editing a text document. And I already know how to deal with the drop down menus. Even the young ones know, as almost every single piece of software uses drop down menus. Except of course, for Office, who decided its interface is the best thing since phonetic writing, and forces you to relearn how to do everything.
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You're quite right, I can confirm that...right now, actually.
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My girl's muffin is user friendly, flexible and inflatable, thank you very much.
FTFY
Re:My girlfriend's muffin... (Score:5, Funny)
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Did any of you actually read TFA?
Hi. Welcome to the internet. If you look around, you'll find plenty of headlines to browse. What's that? Articles? I'm sure we have a few of those around somewhere... Perhaps you can explain what you're trying to do and I can find a solution for you that doesn't require wasting so much time understanding the details. :)
I hate change as much if not more than most (I've stopped doing business with companies because of bad website or EULA modifications and we won't start on systemd... SLACKWARE FOR LIFE!)
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