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Microsoft is testing a ribbon interface in Windows 8
SOFTWARE FLOGGER Microsoft is planning to bring its controversial ribbon interface to Windows 8.
Microsoft's ribbon user interface made its debut in Office 2007 and has polarised user opinion ever since. Microsoft has used the ribbon interface in a growing number of applications and judging from leaked Windows 8 screenshots, it is going to integrate the ribbon motif in Internet Explorer.
Microsoft has been doling out early beta releases of Windows 8 to its employees, though a glut of screenshots have appeared on the web. A newfangled start screen that takes cues from Windows Phone 7 also tipped up, and while that is unlikely to draw much criticism, the ribbon user interface is somewhat more questionable.
It could be that Microsoft knows very well that its Marmite ribbon interface will divide opinion and is using the early builds of Windows 8 to test the waters. After all, the buttons on the screenshots are merely placeholders and Microsoft is well known for demonstrating features in Windows beta releases that disappear by the time the final product is released to manufacturing.
So far the biggest piece of news Microsoft has released about Windows 8 is that it will support the ARM architecture. This means the Vole is planning to put Windows onto smaller devices, going beyond netbooks to compete head on with Google's Chrome and Android operating systems in tablets.
Although that announcement was seen as a bold move by Microsoft, these screenshots show that it is taking smaller steps when it comes to tinkering with its user interface. µ
Tags: Microsoft
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Office 2010 is significantly less productive than 2003 for me. For basic functions, I now have to click around twice as much, I don't have keyboard shortcuts anymore, and the ribbon requires me to flip back and forth between tabs all the time - because required items are placed on various tabs. Another issue is that many features are not accessible from the ribbon. And icons often don't make any sense because the function is much easier to understand as a menu text (would you recognize the icon for "insert caption" if it didn't write "insert caption" underneath it?)
And with widescreen monitors now the norm, the ribbon wastes a lot of screen space.
I had very bad impression of the ribbon interface, but under a strange circumstance. I had to take an Excel class for my major. I mainly uses Linux hence LibreOffice (OpenOffice) as the office suite. One of my Excel test composed entirely of questions of about the ribbon interface, such as where the location of a function is in the ribbon interface. I had to install Windows and Microsoft Office 2010 and learn its interface. It was very messy and difficult to remember where things are. Absolutely ludicrous.
I really thought MS did a great job with Win 7, but I won't wait and skip another OS release like I did with waiting for Vista to be replaced by Win 7. I'm voting with my wallet and simply getting a new MAC to replace the used one I have on my desk that I've been tinkering with. My recently acquired i5 17" laptop is my last PC for sure. Apple Mac is much less painful, and being UNIX much more potent. Oh and those annoying ribbons? Where did they go? LOL.
@mtcoder - "have any of you spent time to customize your ribbon for your personal needs?"
Why in bloody Hell would I want to do that? I have to work on at least fifteen different computers every day. That means fifteen hours (an hour on each machine) wasted on "customizing" a shite interface so I can make it work according to my habits - which have not changed in the more than 20 years I've been a computer professional. And every time one of those machines has to be rebuilt, I'd have to do it all over again.
I have better things to do with my time than play with the toys some idiot in Redmond thought looked pretty - toys that idiot never has to actually *use* to get paid, evidently.
The ribbon interface is the second-worst idea ever produced by Microsoft (ActiveX is the worst).
The ribbon in Office gets in the way of this power user, it can't be customised, so I have to add loads of extra missing items to the top menu bar; it just plain it sucks!
I'm well glad Directory Opus exists, it's my best software investment, it makes Windows Explorer, even this new hack, look very very primitive and desolate!
Give me a ribbon interface any day instead of a menu and a toolbar. I find it so much easier to find things.
I like the ribbon. I much prefer word with the ribbon over office 97/2000/xp/2003
But I'm not a heavy word user either. I'm sure it would be different if I used word day in and day out.
To all of the Micr0$uck$ bashers out there - get over it already.
The LoseDoze Operating System (O/S) is the only one available that lets you install the internet onto your computer / tablet / phone so that you can browse the web and multitask and cut and paste do all of the things that are so DIFFICULT if not IMPOSSIBLE to do with any other product.
They have severely broken the already kludgey MS Word with that gawdawful ribbon. Now they want to do this to windows too?
It takes me several times longer to write and format a document than it used to with the old menu system because of the utterly illogical arrangement of the ribbon.
Ribbons are OK if approached intelligently, that is to say not done over the top and confusingly and pushing it on functions where it's not appropriate, but apart from that kind of misuse they are OK I think.
Plus maybe they are easy for touch screen adaption huh, and seeing MS is going ARM.. well I think you get the point.
And once that's in standard windows maybe current ribbon haters will like it too for that reason, the ever popular touch interface.
I hate that stupid ribbon. Their UI egghead theorists who thought this up should be rounded up and put on the next rocket to Pluto! I went from Excel expert to n00b with a single 20 minute installation. I still struggle to figure out how to do tasks I could do with my eyes closed before.
for all the ribbon haters, have any of you spent time to customize your ribbon for your personal needs? Have you learned the shortcut keys. Do you know about using alt+key to navigate through the menus? 99% of people I ask these simple things to say no.
Ribbon actually is a much needed move in the OS. People have to stop thinking about mouse and keyboard interfaces they are going away. Windows 8 is designed to allow kinetic and you to interact. kinetic is not just a toy for the xbox its MS's new interface device. If you want to get to interfaces like seen in Avatar you have to drop the mouse. Ribbon allows that to happen. Add on voice commands for basic functions and you have a smoking hot windows 8. Not to mention windows 8 is rumored to support 3D desktop. This would allow for a whole new way to control and maintain your OS, one that standard menu systems don't support. MS has been up front about this for years now guys, and they have been slowly weening you all off a menu system onto a touch / spacial driven operating system. Put the pieces together people, its not very hard.
Am really sorry to hear that ribbon use may be expanded to Windows 8. Am still having difficulty with it in Office even after 3 years and taking a special class on it.
Ha ha good one.
That office ribbon shire is a crap.
But April 1st was 3 days ago.
Some ppl dont like it, bt i bought (for the first time, after a long time of OO) it for it. Not only that, in college my mates also bought it cuz it was most useful.
Sorry, but as a longtime user of MS products, I have to say that I really HATE the ribbon. We are forced to upgrade software at work, so I have to use it. But when I go home and use my 2003 software (which still works perfectly fine) I can find the tools I need blazingly more quickly.
I understand people probably worked very hard on this, but I really think it is a fail -- the placement of everything is so arbitrary. I don't enjoy it visually (and I usually prefer a visual interface.)
I understand the need for a touch-integrated interface, but I would much prefer something that had equal-sized buttons for each function, and a strongly consistent and organized arrangement --- almost like the old drop-down toolbar scheme, but with boxes of buttons that appear below File, Edit, etc., instead of text.
But what we have right now is a real dog.
If MS goes ahead with integrating the ribbon motif into Windows 8 you can say goodbye to Windows. That was my main reason for abandoning Office 2007 and going with Open Office. Besides, Open Office was free and I did not have to pay an arm and leg for it. If this is true, I believe you will see more people migrating to Linux.