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Mozilla plans to 'ribbonize' Firefox | |
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| Time: 18:13 EST/23:13 GMT | News Source: ComputerWorld | Posted By: Andre Da Costa | ||
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Mozilla plans to "ribbonize" Firefox for Windows Vista and Windows 7 to reduce clutter and free up space for the browser display, according to company planning documents. "Starting with Vista, and continuing with Windows 7, the menu bar is going away," said Mozilla in its published plans for revamping the Firefox user interface. "[It will] be replaced with things like the Windows Explorer contextual strip, or the Office Ribbon, [which is] now in Paint and WordPad, too." | ||
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| #1 By 25030 (72.78.48.152) at 9/22/2009 6:44:53 PM |
| Not surprised. Frankly, after hating the Ribbon at first, it's grown on me to the point where I have to search to do things on a machine using Office 2003... |
| #2 By 95132 (96.25.183.211) at 9/23/2009 4:52:44 AM |
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God I hate the ribbon, I've tried but it ain't taking with me, if only I hat a nickel for every minute wasted looking for something in the last year. uhhh. Yeah I know supposedly most people like it, odd I've never met one of these people yet in my travels.
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| #3 By 37 (192.251.125.85) at 9/23/2009 6:35:40 AM |
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You haven't met me. I much prefer the ribbon now. Took some getting used to, but I have found a ton of features that I was never aware of because of it.
However, the ribbon will take up some real estate in Firefox, which I really don't want to give up. |
| #4 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 9/23/2009 6:53:52 AM |
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Count me in too - I love the ribbon.
#3: Microsoft didn't ribbonize IE for that very reason. They said it took up more screen real estate than standard browser menus. If you open word 2007 and IE 7 or FF side by side, the ribbon does takes up a little more vertical space, but to me it is negligible. |
| #5 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 9/23/2009 7:56:15 AM |
| #4: The default IE8 has the menu bar and favourites bar enabled, so adding the ribbon would take half the screen away for sure. |
| #6 By 23275 (68.117.163.128) at 9/23/2009 9:39:16 AM |
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Latch, the ribbon interface has been shown to use fewer pixels, not more.
Word for example, breaks down like this: Word 2000: 143 vertical pixels devoted to UI Word 2003: 140 vertical pixels devoted to UI Word 2007: 135 vertical pixels devoted to UI The ribbon, or fluent UI, interestingly exposes far more features and tools while not adding to the UI vertical height. Related features and options around the feature or tool in use, are highlighted and available within relevant tabs containing tools for that feature. Jensen Harris published an article with details here, http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx IE 8's defaults, similarly use fewer pixels than previous versions of the browser. IE's probable use of the ribbon interface would similarly reduce UI size. |
| #7 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 9/23/2009 10:14:29 AM |
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I am not sure that the number of options available for IE 8 justify the "Ribbon"; on the other hand, in W7, it was added to WordPad so who knows.....
Besides I think that a lot of people who do not like the Ribbon could change their minds after using Outlook and One Note 2010; both programs, finally I would add, use the Ribbon now and it is, at least for me, a huge improvement. Personally the "ribbonized" Outlook would be enough to upgrade. |
| #8 By 23275 (68.117.163.128) at 9/23/2009 10:21:20 AM |
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The funny thing about Outlook 2007 is that it actually uses more of the ribbon UI than any other Office 2007 application.
Once any task from the main screen is selected, the ribbon UI is used in support of that task. I found it odd that so many reviews of Office 2007 and its use of the ribbon UI failed to note this. It seems then, as now, there were no gains to be had from using the ribbon in Outlook for the application's main screen. That'll change, of course, but I agreed with the UI design decision when O2K7 shipped as it simply made sense and because so many users depend so heavily on Outlook. |
| #9 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 9/23/2009 10:24:29 AM |
| #6: Well, which is it? Rxcall says that MS said that the Ribbon would take too much space away from IE. You say it doesn't. |
| #10 By 23275 (68.117.163.128) at 9/23/2009 10:33:08 AM |
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#9, All I can do in this case is count. Where the ribbon UI has been used, fewer pixels are used and more features and tools are exposed - all while providing instant previews of what the application of a tool would do.
As I understand it, one of the goals of the ribbon UI was to make more features and tools available to more users without taking up more space - the UI versus document balance. I think this goal was achieved, though there are many who disagree. |
| #11 By 2960 (72.196.201.130) at 9/23/2009 10:55:27 AM |
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Man, I hope it's optional.
The ribbons in Office are the most productivity-sucking change ever done to office. With the exception maybe of Word 3.0 for the Mac LOL |
| #12 By 2960 (72.196.201.130) at 9/23/2009 11:00:58 AM |
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We are starting to convert to Office 2007 now. 22000 people. The #1 complaint?
"These ribbons are horrible. Can I change it back to the Icons?" Next up: "Why can't I tear off into pallets any more?" Next up: Outlook... "Why is my signature no longer animated!" |
| #13 By 2960 (72.196.201.130) at 9/23/2009 11:03:26 AM |
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In Outlook 2010, the ribbon uses up so much space that the GAL "Search For Contacts" field has gone from a useable, moveable entry field to a little, barely useable, 1" entry field tucked away in the upper right corner.
This is NOT progress. I fired them off a red frown over this one. |
| #14 By 23443 (169.200.80.17) at 9/23/2009 12:52:05 PM |
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For people who grew up using menus, the Ribbon takes some getting used to.
For new users, I'd be willing to bet that they learn the Ribbon faster than the old Menu system, and like it better. TD |
| #15 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 9/23/2009 3:14:37 PM |
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Someone posted this video here before. It's the story about the development of the ribbon.
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX08/UX09 Despite TL's endless complaints, a great deal of research, analysis, and iterative development and testing went into this. Like anything else, it takes getting used to. From an application perspective, it's one of the better GUI innovations in the last decade. |
| #16 By 143 (216.205.223.146) at 9/23/2009 4:19:06 PM |
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I'm liking Opera more than Firefox now.
It seems Firefox is becoming more unstable, even without add-ons. |
| #17 By 37 (66.188.109.107) at 9/23/2009 4:23:49 PM |
| The ribbon in FF would use MORE of my UI, not less. That is because I remove all the toolbars but one, reduce the icon size to small, remove all useless icons, and have a thin ui toolbar on the to top of my screen. The ribbon would be about 2 times lower than my current customized setup. |
| #18 By 15406 (99.240.76.72) at 9/23/2009 6:22:26 PM |
| #16: I run 3.5.3 with 10 extensions and I can't remember the last time it crashed. Granted, I never have more than 5 or 6 tabs open at a time, and I don't see a lot of window-dressing thanks to NoScript (except for white-listed sites.) When it crashes, have they been intercepted by the crash util? |
| #19 By 12071 (203.210.68.145) at 9/23/2009 9:23:52 PM |
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I think #14 is right... if you hadn't used Word and Excel prior to the ribbon then I can see why you might like/prefer the ribbon. If you had... then you truly understand how a simple application change can completely kill your productivity. Perhaps after using it for an extended period of time one can "re-learn" the interface but in the mean time I try to stay away from Office 2007 as much as I can because I honestly cannot stand the ribbon.
There's addins to get the "classic" menus back but there really should be a simple option of switching between them: RibbonCustomizer - http://pschmid.net/office2007/ribboncustomizer/index.php UBitMenu - http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/ #12 ""Why is my signature no longer animated!"" hehehe this is one feature I'm actually glad has been removed :) Damn people with their flying all over the screen signatures :p |
| #20 By 28801 (71.58.225.185) at 9/23/2009 9:38:13 PM |
| #17: Don't forget, you can minimize the ribbon so it really takes up a lot less space. |
| #21 By 23443 (169.200.80.17) at 9/24/2009 10:17:19 AM |
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The following was posted as an update to the Slashdot story on this:
Update: 09/24 05:01 GMT by T : It's not quite so simple, says Alexander Limi, who works on the Firefox user experience. "We are not putting the Ribbon UI on Firefox. The article PCpro quotes talks about Windows applications in general, not Firefox." So while the currently proposed direction for Firefox 3.7 involves some substantial visual updates for Windows users (including a menu bar hidden by default, and integration of Aero-styled visual elements), it's not actually a ribbon interface. Limi notes, too, that Linux and Mac versions are unaffected by the change. |
| #22 By 21912 (71.83.109.74) at 9/26/2009 10:44:31 PM |
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I'm not crazy about these ribbons, either. My first introduction to the concept was a quick check to see if there would be any problems migrating to Office 2007 from 2003. Immediately, my Excel auto-macros generated errors because several of my spreadsheets have custom toolbars with arrays of text-labeled buttons, and the arrangement automatically switches as appropriate when a different sheet is activated. Customizing the Office 2007 ribbon in anything approaching equivalency to this appeared to be a whole new ballgame, and I really just go to ballgames for the beer anyway, so upgrading was an easy no-go.
That was my excuse to not spend money on a program upgrade that I didn't need, and to not spend the time required to fall in love with the lovely new ribbon interface. I'm just glad America is still the land of the "free to not upgrade" ;-) |
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