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Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 18, 2015 10:37 UTC (Tue) by keeperofdakeys (guest, #82635)
In reply to: Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much? by louie
Parent article: Schaller: An Open Letter to Apache Foundation and Apache OpenOffice team

Keeping in mind that the last Microsoft Word I used with the ribbon interface was 2007 (it doesn't look like it's changed much), have they solved one of the biggest problems with the ribbon interface - far too many 'advanced' features being hidden as a giant list of icons you need to add to the quick access bar. I can only imagine how many users didn't know where their features went. Menubars may become big and complex, but at least they are able to show all the features available.


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Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 19, 2015 14:03 UTC (Wed) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link] (1 responses)

>Keeping in mind that the last Microsoft Word I used with the ribbon interface was 2007 (it doesn't look like it's changed much)

(To a person that doesn't use them, a bash prompt and a DOS prompt are indistinguishable.)

Almost everything about it has changed, in some cases in major ways.

The similarity between Word 2007's UI and Word 2010+'s UI is comparable to the similarity between Vi and Vim (or sh 1.0 vs bash 4.3): conceptually it uses most of the same ideas, so at a quick glance it might look like it's almost the same program, but in fact pretty much every aspect has been improved.

I'm not certain that I've ever come across a feature I've used even once that was missing from the ribbon in Word or Excel (I have in Outlook, in one case, but then Outlook was spawned in the pits of hell so it seems unfair to use it as an example), but you can always add your own tabs, or add your own groups into existing tabs, if necessary. When doing this, you can look at a categorised list or available functions, where some of the "categories" are actually pseudo-categories like "commands not in the ribbon". You can also define your keyboard shortcuts here, in case you have a burning desire to map "Paste as Source Formatting" to "ctrl+shift+p", or whatever.

Doing better than Apache, but is that saying much?

Posted Aug 19, 2015 15:40 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

The fact that this is completely customizable makes many of the complaints that the defaults don't perfectly correspond to someones unique and personal tastes look somewhat silly, like someone going out of their way to be contrary by refusing to use the tools built for them to fix their problems. It's amazing how many people who work with and write software for computers every day think that programs written by other people are supposed to be psychic and conform to their every whim without configuration or understanding.

With the MS Ribbon, they documented a long research and testing process which brought them to that design, it's hard to take criticism seriously from people who don't have the foggiest idea of how the design was made. I don't even care about MS Office, I just dislike poorly thought out criticism.


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