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Comment by jhbadger | Hacker News Reader

Personally, I'm glad they haven't updated it with that "ribbon" nonsense from Microsoft Office. Office suites are kind of a solved problem -- the only reason why Microsoft Office keeps changing is to give people an excuse to upgrade. That was even true in the 1990s, when absurd bloat features like "Word Art" (no, having the word "shark" in the shape of a shark is not useful) were beginning to be added

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Totally agree! I find the ribbon gui a total mess. I'm glad I can use LibreOffice, and since version 5 the layout is quite allright. I don't know what should be better. It is exactly like I expect it, buttons are where I want them, menus like we're used to. Why change that?

I'm not a Microsoft fan per se (just forced to use it at work) but what is the issue with the Ribbon? I have seen it complained about (mostly upon release) but not any particularly good reason. Would you care to elucidate me?

Initially I was against it too but have found it to be good for compartmentalising work over time.

I think the biggest problem was that it broke a stablished UI for no apparent reason, but that was 10 years ago. And people still hold a grudge to it, maybe?

Still, I've seen more than a few workplaces that still use pre-ribbon era Office [0], and haven't upgraded because the employees hate the ribbon...

[0] ...on Windows XP, with 12+ year old hardware... the horror!

> I think the biggest problem was that it broke a stablished UI for no apparent reason

The reason was that the existing interface was so overloaded that the Office team was regularly getting feature requests for things that that already existed in the apps for years.

That problem wasn't apparent to the users, and that's probably why people disliked it.

In a personal note, with the ribbon interface more than once I've had to google where a certain functionality ended up, which I could easily find in the old UI.

There's a search bar for that in Office 2016.

I hadn't noticed it, and (fortunately) it's been a while since I've needed to search for things!

I hate the ribbon. I can never remember on which tab has the button I want. I just click round the tabs in circles trying to find the appropriate button. The ordering of the buttons on the ribbon seems random too.

Why can't Microsoft implement an optional menu bar? It's ridiculous.

> "Why can't Microsoft implement an optional menu bar? It's ridiculous."

Not available from Microsoft, but...

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/add-classic-menu-to-microsoft-of...

The ribbon is just a non-standard interface that almost no other programs use -- even on Windows, and certainly not on other platforms. It's unneeded. And the thing is, if people did copy it, Microsoft would probably just change it anyway. That's really Microsoft's strategy -- to keep people chasing after it. But why bother? They don't really control the industry any more.

The ribbon is actually pretty common in other MS programs:

https://imgur.com/a/pQmVd

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