Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much? [LWN.net]

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 18, 2015 9:33 UTC (Tue) by Rehdon (guest, #45440) [Link]

I had to use MS Word recently for work reasons, and for me it's exactly the opposite: the ribbons felt clumsy, couldn't wait to get back to LO.

Rehdon

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 18, 2015 13:32 UTC (Tue) by kreijack (guest, #43513) [Link] (10 responses)

> But they are now used to it, having used it for years probably. Switching to LO will
> _feel_ old.

[Disclaimer: I am against the ribbon bar]

In this review http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418419,00.asp the author put in the comment:

Cons: Clunky interface.

but without justifying it. This suggested me that creating the "Ribbon bar" Microsoft made all other software to appear as "old"; I think that this was an expected (and wanted) result by Microsoft.

Regarding the Ribbon bar there are several things that I hate
1)not all the icon have a text; with the old menu interface, you can help by phone another colleague. With the ribbon this is more difficult because you can't name an icon . And if I am searching a function which vaguely remember, a text helps more than an image.
2) the ribbon have an "automate adjustment" behavior. So if you resize the window the icons are moved e/o resized. This make more difficult to find it sometime.
3) the ribbon bar interface is big, leaving less space to the other function!
4) the ribbon bar interface is located on the top instead on the left/right (the monitor is wide, so why still use the top/bottom area ?)

Apart that, I fatigue to see any gain in the ribbon interface.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 18, 2015 14:01 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (9 responses)

I love how we still use a 3.5" floppy image for saving. Try explaining that icon to someone learning who has never seen one. Or the drum image for storage once spinning rust is relegated to storage centers only. Not that many have seen platters directly, but I imagine folks can at least imagine that something is spinning based on the sounds they make.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 18, 2015 17:28 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

My friend's child said: "Oh, it's a plastic save icon!" when she saw a 3.5" floppy on my wall.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 18, 2015 17:34 UTC (Tue) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link] (5 responses)

I love how we still use a 3.5" floppy image for saving.

So when did you last actually use scissors for cutting text? And then used, uh, a clip board?!? for pasting it somewhere else? Uh what? I think the floppy disk should be the least of your worries.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 18, 2015 18:24 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Well, "scissors" and "cut" are at least related. Copy…eh, I still see clipboards around (and I feel like many saw them in schools growing up, but that is probably becoming less common now). Paste icons differ around, but glue is also related.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 19, 2015 10:05 UTC (Wed) by nelljerram (subscriber, #12005) [Link] (3 responses)

I wonder what children make of that strange icon we still use to represent a phone: a kind of crescent with a larger lump at either end. The modern icon for a phone should be just a rectangle.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 20, 2015 1:17 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

There is a TV series or documentary (don't remember which) where they give kids (about 5-12 years old) old chunks of technology they've never seen before. One of the ones I watched they gave the children an old ATT era phone with a rotary dial. Not a single kid had any idea what it was. When told what it was most couldn't figure out how to dial it because there were no buttons and better than half asked where you turned it on.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 20, 2015 1:31 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

I know of "Kids React". Here are the tech ones I found:

1st iPod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvlbRQq1UM
VHS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kesMOzzNBiQ
Typewriters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfxRfkZdiAQ
Game Boy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pCp8g-VjOs
Rotary phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkuirEweZvM
Old computers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF7EpEnglgk
Cassette players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk_vV-JRZ6E

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 20, 2015 1:20 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

If a rectangle does mean smartphone, it would imply "the do everything device", not telephone anyways.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 22, 2015 4:18 UTC (Sat) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (1 responses)

have you paid attention to the typical symbol for a 'phone'....
it usually depict a shape of phone from the 70's.... a decade before the 3.5 floppy.
and yet somehow even kids today, who may have seen one in a museum or an old movie, still have no problem selecting the right 'icon' on their cell-phone to make a call.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 22, 2015 4:37 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Umm, they outlasted 3.5" floppies by quite a few years (landlines still exist you know…kids probably still see them in schools too). Hell, desk phones at jobs are still handsets. They're far from as obsolete as floppies. We've already moved onto machines which don't even have CD drives.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 18, 2015 19:43 UTC (Tue) by bferrell (subscriber, #624) [Link] (7 responses)

different... not necessarily old

old, in this case, is a pejorative to denigrate a choice other than yours

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 19, 2015 4:30 UTC (Wed) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link] (6 responses)

Oh, you'd better believe it!

The word "old" is a dear friend to merchants and marketers.

I remember once reading about a marketing campaign by SCO encouraging people to give up on those "old Linux systems..." and go with their proprietary operating system. What was the name of that OS? Can't remember---it's too old.....

Companies like Microsoft love to talk about "Old."

Bach is "old." Beethoven is "old." Shakespeare is "old."

So what will people use 300 years from now when they want to get work done....the Ribbon or the menu system?

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 19, 2015 4:40 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (1 responses)

The command line!

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 20, 2015 16:11 UTC (Thu) by deucalion (guest, #12904) [Link]

I suppose when I mention EDLIN, few will rejoice and even less will say "nah, I'm still using debug to input data directly into memory."

:o)

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 19, 2015 4:45 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Ribbon, no doubt.

FutureUI

Posted Aug 19, 2015 12:22 UTC (Wed) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] (2 responses)

So what will people use 300 years from now when they want to get work done....the Ribbon or the menu system?

Direct brain interface. And that is assuming computers as we know them even exist at that time...

FutureUI is already here

Posted Aug 19, 2015 14:16 UTC (Wed) by louie (guest, #3285) [Link] (1 responses)

Note that, already in 2015, "the menu system" as practiced by Office 2003/LibreOffice 2015 is mostly dead - phones, and a (much-needed) drive for simplicity in desktop software, have killed it in new software. Again, not to say that the Ribbon is The Solution, but clearly the giant wall of icons isn't the solution either. The sooner LO realizes that the better chance it has to get new adoption.

FutureUI is already here

Posted Aug 21, 2015 10:50 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

As noted already, the "Ribbon" is nothing truly new, and although I would agree that verbose menus are somewhat dated (remember the attempts to have "expanding" menus that just confused everyone?), there are plenty of places to look for other approaches.

When people bring up phones and tablets as the driving forces for change, I can't help wondering if I imagined my desktop computing experiences over twenty years ago when the average display had far fewer pixels than today's smartphones and where certain desktop environments made a lot more use of pop-up menus, not just as extra contextual menus but actually as their primary solution for menus. Maybe people regarding the removal of menubars and the adoption of alternatives as "novel" stuck to the Mac or Windows and, if they were even using the Internet many years ago, stuck to arguments about whether it was better to have a menubar at the top of the screen or inside every window.