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4430

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One of the PDC2008 presentations showed off the new VS2010 UI (not the same as the current beta) that was built with WPF. Some of the new code effects looked fairly nice (comment xml parsed and styled within the code editor).

It got me wondering if Microsoft would ever change the VS UI to the Ribbon; like Office, the change could possibly be forced with no 'classic' mode.

Would you embrace such a change?

From what I gather

Advanced programmers: minor change, hot keys are the same.

Intermediate/Beginner programmers: considerable change, every button has moved!

New programmers: Context sensitive ribbons help emphasize what they may do and where.

+2  A: 

I absolutely love the Ribbon Interface for MS Office, because it is so intuitive, but I would hate it for Visual Studio. MS Office is a program for everyone, so it should be easy to use for everybody, but VS is a specialised application designed for experts.

Terminus
I bet many people in the publishing world would question the difference.
Karl R
I think people in the publishing world use DTP applications, not Office applications ;).
Terminus
you'd be suprised Terminus. Probably 3rd party publishers do but plenty of internal publishing departments dont ;)
Anonymous Type
+3  A: 

It all depends on how it would be implemented.
It could be a good thing, but just in case I would like it to be optional:)

Antonio Louro
+2  A: 

If they did that, I would predict that the biggest backlash of developers ever would occur. The Ribbon is a great evolution of the File menu, but it does not solve all problems, and it's no where near mature enough for an application like VS.

I honestly believe that such a move would make many devs move to something like SharpDevelop. Including me. The best move wold be to make the Ribbon style menu optional, and NOT the default.

Jeff Schumacher
+1  A: 

I'm a huge fan of the ribbon, but it would be horrible if they implemented a ribbon-like UI on VS if it hogged too much screen real estate and kept me from seeing my code.

Dave Markle
looking at Word and VS side by side, the ribbon takes up about the same space as 3 rows in VS
Karl R
@Karl - but, in the Ribbon's defense, you can hide it by double clicking the top menu text.
Jeff Schumacher
A: 

Bad Bad Bad... I already remove all the toolbars that exist in favor of a custom created one which contains about 15 select commands from all over the place.

I don't need a ribbon cluttering up my workspace.

Rory Becker
Fortunately you can set it to auto-hide, or not show at all.
Terminus
I commend you for the minimalism, but wouldn't you be able to create a personalized ribbon like that too? CTRL+F1 would hide it away nicely too!
Karl R
+3  A: 

Rico Mariani mentions several times that he does not like the Ribbon for VS, so I don't think it will be implemented any time soon.

Juan Zamudio