ribbon functionality ideas

[ChillyChe]

Okay, I'm sure people have complained about and lauded the new ribbon
interface. Frankly, I'm skeptical, but think it's a bold step away from
menus.

Either way, there are two glaring problems with the interface as it stands.

1) I can't drag an item from the ribbon into the quick-access toolbar
thingy. WHAT? Why not? Isn't that far more intuitive than clicking the
office start menu thingy, then going to word options then meandering down to
customize then having to sift through a MENU-esque palette to find the
options and then add to the customized tool-bar?

I'm an Avid Media Composer editor, and we can customize our keyboards by
simply dragging buttons out of a command palette into our keyboard. That's
been a feature since as long as I've been using Avids.

2) Why isn't spell check on the HOME tab for the ribbon? Seriously, that's
got to be a more commonly used command (along with thesaurus) than styles.
No, whereas a single mouse click could activate my spellcheck in 2003, in
2007 I have to click twice to get there. That's lame. Now, I've just added
it to my quick access toolbar, but honestly, should I even need that?

2.5) Styles takes up about half of the ribbon real-estate here. I've never
used that junk in my life. A far superior design would allow me to customize
fully what options were in my HOME tab in the ribbon. It's MY HOME after
all, right? Each GROUP looks like it should be undockable, and that I should
be able to mix and match these things. WITHOUT WRITING ANY SCRIPT, PLEASE.

Anyway. If you want to make an intuitive user experience, which all this
bubbly post apple design seem to indicate, then you have to make it fully
customizable.



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[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Chilly

Okay, I'm sure people have complained about and lauded the new ribbon
interface. Frankly, I'm skeptical, but think it's a bold step away from
menus.

Full ack!


[..]

2) Why isn't spell check on the HOME tab for the ribbon? Seriously, that's
got to be a more commonly used command (along with thesaurus) than styles.
No, whereas a single mouse click could activate my spellcheck in 2003, in
2007 I have to click twice to get there. That's lame. Now, I've just added
it to my quick access toolbar, but honestly, should I even need that?

2.5) Styles takes up about half of the ribbon real-estate here. I've never
used that junk in my life.

Can you elaborate what kind of documents you create most? For me, styles
is one of the features I use in 95% of all the documents I create, and
extensively.

YMMV, of course, and Word is used for all kinds of stuff no doubt.

A far superior design would allow me to customize
fully what options were in my HOME tab in the ribbon. It's MY HOME after
all, right? Each GROUP looks like it should be undockable, and that I should
be able to mix and match these things. WITHOUT WRITING ANY SCRIPT, PLEASE.

Well, I'm sure more users than you and me will miss the ability to
_easily_ customize the UI in Word 2007. OTOH, this seems to have been
one of the prime goals by MSFT: to match the user experience for many
users. Also, it seems that MSFT thought that not enough users were
actually using these customizations in current versions that the feature
will be heavily missed.

Time (and sales, maybe) will tell.

Greetinx
Robert

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?Q2hpbGx5Q2hl?=,

1) I can't drag an item from the ribbon into the quick-access toolbar
thingy. WHAT? Why not? Isn't that far more intuitive than clicking the
office start menu thingy, then going to word options then meandering down to
customize then having to sift through a MENU-esque palette to find the
options and then add to the customized tool-bar?

Right-click the tool you want on the QAT and you should see an option to add it
to the QAT.

2) Why isn't spell check on the HOME tab for the ribbon? Seriously, that's
got to be a more commonly used command (along with thesaurus) than styles.
No, whereas a single mouse click could activate my spellcheck in 2003, in
2007 I have to click twice to get there. That's lame. Now, I've just added
it to my quick access toolbar, but honestly, should I even need that?

Hmm. I press F7 when I want the full spell check. I always find that quicker
than running with the mouse to the top of the screen...

FWIW, as long as we're griping My biggest problem with the new concept is
not being able to easily put together a set of tools for a particular task. Why
should I have to click back-and-forth for *anything*? With toolbars, I could
have all the tools I needed for a certain type of task visible - and just the
ones I needed.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

To add to what Robert and Cindy have said, I use "Check spelling as you
type" and never run the spell check at all. But I also will greatly miss the
ability to easily customize the menus and toolbars and create custom
toolbars.

Okay, I'm sure people have complained about and lauded the new ribbon
interface. Frankly, I'm skeptical, but think it's a bold step away from
menus.

Either way, there are two glaring problems with the interface as it stands.

1) I can't drag an item from the ribbon into the quick-access toolbar
thingy. WHAT? Why not? Isn't that far more intuitive than clicking the
office start menu thingy, then going to word options then meandering down to
customize then having to sift through a MENU-esque palette to find the
options and then add to the customized tool-bar?

I'm an Avid Media Composer editor, and we can customize our keyboards by
simply dragging buttons out of a command palette into our keyboard. That's
been a feature since as long as I've been using Avids.

2) Why isn't spell check on the HOME tab for the ribbon? Seriously, that's
got to be a more commonly used command (along with thesaurus) than styles.
No, whereas a single mouse click could activate my spellcheck in 2003, in
2007 I have to click twice to get there. That's lame. Now, I've just added
it to my quick access toolbar, but honestly, should I even need that?

2.5) Styles takes up about half of the ribbon real-estate here. I've never
used that junk in my life. A far superior design would allow me to customize
fully what options were in my HOME tab in the ribbon. It's MY HOME after
all, right? Each GROUP looks like it should be undockable, and that I should
be able to mix and match these things. WITHOUT WRITING ANY SCRIPT, PLEASE.

Anyway. If you want to make an intuitive user experience, which all this
bubbly post apple design seem to indicate, then you have to make it fully
customizable.



----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...b605a5&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement

 

[Patrick Schmid]

1) I can't drag an item from the ribbon into the quick-access toolbar

thingy. WHAT? Why not? Isn't that far more intuitive than clicking the
office start menu thingy, then going to word options then meandering down to
customize then having to sift through a MENU-esque palette to find the
options and then add to the customized tool-bar?

Right-click the control and select add to QAT.

2) Why isn't spell check on the HOME tab for the ribbon? Seriously, that's
got to be a more commonly used command (along with thesaurus) than styles.
No, whereas a single mouse click could activate my spellcheck in 2003, in
2007 I have to click twice to get there. That's lame. Now, I've just added
it to my quick access toolbar, but honestly, should I even need that?

Why would you need spellcheck on the home tab? The red, green and blue
squiggles underlining your words aren't sufficient as spell check?

2.5) Styles takes up about half of the ribbon real-estate here. I've never
used that junk in my life. A far superior design would allow me to customize
fully what options were in my HOME tab in the ribbon. It's MY HOME after
all, right? Each GROUP looks like it should be undockable, and that I should
be able to mix and match these things. WITHOUT WRITING ANY SCRIPT, PLEASE.

Styles are great

Anyway. If you want to make an intuitive user experience, which all this
bubbly post apple design seem to indicate, then you have to make it fully
customizable.

Won't be customizable. If you want any user customization, take a look
at my blog on my website and get the RibbonCustomizer alpha version.

Patrick Schmid