Discussion For RIBBON

[boblarson]

I haven't even heard of windows 7...

Been living in a vacuum? My goodness, how could you not have heard of Windows 7? There have been quite a few posts flying around on the forum as well as news stories, commercials, etc. You got me amazed.

 

[Kryst51]

Been living in a vacuum? My goodness, how could you not have heard of Windows 7? There have been quite a few posts flying around on the forum as well as news stories, commercials, etc. You got me amazed.

LOL, you know, I don't have any channels on my tv and am too stubborn to get bunny ears..... I don't think I've read the posts concerning windows 2007, and as far as news is concerned, I catch some of it, but not a ton and I guess nothing about window 7.

 

[boblarson]

LOL, you know, I don't have any channels on my tv and am too stubborn to get bunny ears..... I don't think I've read the posts concerning windows 2007, and as far as news is concerned, I catch some of it, but not a ton and I guess nothing about window 7.

Windows 7 is a great OS version. It beats Vista hands down and has features that I like over XP. You might find this interesting.

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

Hm, who had ribbons before Microsoft? I'm under the impression it was their idea that never existed anywhere else.

Ribbons aren't a new idea at all - in a purely cosmetic sense their style is new in their MS offering, and it may be that nobody called them 'ribbons' before, but the concept of a tabbed graphical menu bar is as old as the hills.

For example:

-- Borland Delphi had tabbed graphical toolbars to contain and categorise the component library - seen here (underneath the menu that is shown as dropped down):
http://www.satelliteforms.net/KB/Images/Delphi1.png
(granted, the items in that 'ribbon' are objects, rather than operations, but the presentation is conceptually similar)

-- Macromedia Homesite was awash with tabbed menus, including some quite similar to ribbons - http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/tools/screenshots/macromedia_homesite.gif

 

[NigelShaw]

Hi

i champion the ribbon purely on a looks basis. i did bring the discussion group up a long time ago in "General".

the ribbon lacks flexibility. while it looks nice, its made in XML not VBA which most people are familiar with and it is limited to what VBA it can call back. It can call functions only not procedures and it can call macros!

if MS made it easier to create, it would be super as there would be no end to menu creation but they dont and 3rd party tools are ok but only ok.

i made a program and then had to learn XML to create my menus which was annoying but now they are easy enough.

a discussion would be good as it is a large part of the new office product. if those people who dont like or use the ribbon are not interested, you dont have to read the discussions....


regs

nidge

 

[wiklendt]

I have not seen Ribbon but Bob Larson seems to be the only person who does not dislike it.

let it be known, then, that i too quite like the (or should i say "do not dislike") the ribbon. this is from a user POV not developer... the closest i've come to changing the ribbon is MS and some third party add-ons.

i like the way you can quickly "tab" through the ribbon menus by simply rolling your mouse wheel over it.

i like how things are much easier to find, have larger icons, and are grouped intuitively.

it might take some time to learn, but once you do you realise just how much better organised it is compared to previous versions. this is mainly from an MS Word POV, as i haven't/don't really use(d) multiple versions of Access (only 2007).

However, when i have had the odd requirement to use Access 2003, i find myself frustrated that certain features are "buried" within the menu structure, rather than out for all to see in the ribbon.

 

[NigelShaw]

Hi

I posted a brief explanation on ribbon development a while ago

http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=878720&postcount=17

it explains the vba callback and xml construction. I think a good ribbon could be made within access that dynamically changes the ribbon as you build it. I've done various samples each with slightly different results that can demonstrate a dynamically updateable ribbon just haven't had a chance to build a full one.

If the ribbon was more friendly, I think everyone would love it. Drop down menus are ok but a bit old hat. The ribbon displays whatever you want right in front of you

nidge

 

[Simon_MT]

One has to remember that one is trying to create a useful and meaningful application and it has taken to Access 2007 for MS to finally ditch bitmaps over native formats. So whose been living in the dark ages?

I will concede that the ribbon is a pretty solution but it not the b all and end all, particularly when some developers have create extensive custom dropdown menus only to find that these have been summarily dismissed by 2007.

Just because something is pretty doesn't mean that it is the best thing since bitmaps!

Simon

 

[wiklendt]

my partner recently had her office version at work upgraded to 2007 because she had to be able to deal with XML files generated by their data analyst department but the end use was supposed to be an excel file (i don't know why they can't just export to excel 2003 and lesser compatible files).

she said that it's the first time she's felt comfortable using excel (b/c of the 2007 version upgrade) - she's never found it easy before, but now is even enjoying the experience.

her usual use of office has pretty much just been word and the odd excel file. so microsoft seem to be going in a good direction. let's think about it like moving from 3.5 inch floppies to USB...?

 

[genesis]

I suggested that this forum to have its own topic area for ribbon because there are so much to learn from it like other objects in the database.

While the ribbon topic and information can be found digging in the internet but I think not all.

NigelShaw had provided link for some of his knowledge shared working on Ribbons. It was really nice but again somehow there could still arise questions on other issues. So I think to facilitate easy access to specific topic and answers, a separate section for ribbon would suffice.

Like control ID's. Though it can be downloaded from Microsoft website but I really don't think that it is complete base on my experience because I do not know what is the control ID for QAT toolbar that will make its visible property to false in the XML.

Those are just few of the topics that my arise as problem.

 

[wiklendt]

I suggested that this forum to have its own topic area for ribbon because there are so much to learn from it like other objects in the database.

While the ribbon topic and information can be found digging in the internet but I think not all.

i agree. especially because the ribbon is also used in Access - and this is an Access forum, after all!