Creating a Ribbon in XL2003?

[Josh Sale]

I have some users who are totally enamored with the new XL 2007 ribbon
interface (doesn't matter why ... they just do) and they now want my Excel
based application to use a ribbon even when running under XL 2003.

So I'm thinking of picking up a 3rd party ribbon control (say from
Infragistics) and hosting it in either a taskpane or a non-modal dialog that
is kind of docked below the XL 2003 toolbars. So this "ribbon" would reside
below the XL2003 menu, toolbars, etc.

I'm just curious if anybody has been down this path already? If so any
advice? Taskpane vs non-modal dialog? Choice of 3rd party ribbon control?
Other?

TIA,

josh

 

[Jim Rech]

Seems like an awful lot of work, Josh. I'd be tempted to smack the users
until they came to their senses.<g> If you haven't done a task pane before
(like me) you'd get more out of the experience than doing a userform though.
And it would dock nicely in the Excel app window.

--
Jim
|I have some users who are totally enamored with the new XL 2007 ribbon
| interface (doesn't matter why ... they just do) and they now want my Excel
| based application to use a ribbon even when running under XL 2003.
|
| So I'm thinking of picking up a 3rd party ribbon control (say from
| Infragistics) and hosting it in either a taskpane or a non-modal dialog
that
| is kind of docked below the XL 2003 toolbars. So this "ribbon" would
reside
| below the XL2003 menu, toolbars, etc.
|
| I'm just curious if anybody has been down this path already? If so any
| advice? Taskpane vs non-modal dialog? Choice of 3rd party ribbon
control?
| Other?
|
| TIA,
|
| josh
|
|

 

[Josh Sale]

Thanks Jim.

I'm forwarding your message to my users!

josh

 

[Jon Peltier]

You're kidding, right? Or is this a plant?

To mimic the productivity gains of the ribbon, you could unplug users' the
keyboard and mouse.

- Jon

 

[Josh Sale]

Sadly I'm not kidding and I'm not sure what kind of plant this would be ...

I'm off evaluating the 8 or 10 3rd party ribbon controls to see how much
work this would be. I already mocked up a screen shot using SnagIt showing
how our custom Excel 2007 ribbon tab appears in Excel 2003 below the
standard Excel 2003 menu and toolbars. I thought the reality of seeing it
would turn them off but quite the reverse!

josh

 

[Jon Peltier]

Of the thousands of posts I've read about Excel's ribbon, this is the first
time I've ever seen someone wanting to retrofit the ribbon to a version of
Excel that had the familiar menu and toolbar system. It is inconceivable to
most who have tried Office 2007 that anyone would want to intentionally
inflict the ribbon onto users of an earlier version.

- Jon

 

[JP]

Please stop, there's only so much laughing one person can do. This is
one of the best threads I've read in a long time.


--JP

 

[Josh Sale]

I'm always happy to be breaking new ground!

But seriously, without trying to start a religious war, I now prefer to use
my Excel add-in based application under Excel 2007 (with ribbon) than under
Excel 97- 2003 (with menu and toolbars). The ribbon has certain very nice
qualities for our application such as the:

immediacy of live preview

accessibility of functions that comes from having essentially a
non-modal control panel always present

visibility of the applications functionality

With regard to Excel's built-in ribbon tabs, they're growing on me. As long
as I don't find myself having to switch between tabs to often (which
admittedly can happen a lot more than I like) I'm OK with what MS has done.
I can still get around faster when using older versions of Excel but I
suspect this will change over time.

Anyway we'll see what happens with this project!

josh

 

[Jon Peltier]

Excel 2007 is a much less efficient work environment for me.

I find that the tab I need is almost always hidden. My old customized
commandbars take up no more space than the ribbon, but display as many
controls as any three or four tabs do now. So "visibility of the
applications functionality" is actually reduced for a seasoned user.

I can't move a toolbar near where I'm working in 2007, there are no tearaway
formatting palettes, the modeless dialogs mean that undo and repeat last
action only remember one single thing I formatted in the dialog, not
everything I did during my entire visit to the dialog.

The newer dialogs violate any number of usability guidelines. For example,
if I want to change an axis scale parameter in Excel 2003, I can click
directly in the box and change it, and Auto is automatically unchecked for
me, if it wasn't already unchecked, or I can uncheck the Auto box and the
input box's contents are selected, ready to edit. In Excel 2007 I have to
first check the Fixed box, then select the contents of the input box, then
enter a value. Many more clicks and much more mouse movement around the
screen.

It looks pretty, sure, but it's really just another example of the elevation
of form over function.

- Jon

 

[Josh Sale]

These are all really good, valid points Jon!

The Excel 2003 menu/toolbar interface was the result of how many years (15?
20?) of refinements. I hope and presume the current ribbon will serve as a
baseline for another couple of decades of refinement which will hopefully
address your, mine and other users criticisms.

josh