We have seen that office has the ribbon UI since 2007. Now is 2010 and we all feel the great productivity the ribbon has brought to us.
My question is why Visual Studio, now 2010, still not use the ribbon? What do you think? Please share.
+2
A:
Not really an SO thread, but I think the rationale behind not moving the VS interface to the ribbon was that it is meant for end users, who are typically non-technical. Users of Visual Studio do not fall in that camp (typically ;)) and there would definitely need to be a lot of usability testing and allowing developers to customize the interface to get it to where they're comfortable.
From this MSDN thread, a Microsoft employee marked this as the answer:
I once asked that question too, and the answer was then that the audience for the ribbon are the end-users. Since it uses much space and since the developer is an experienced user, there is no need for ribbon support in Visual Studio.
birryree
2010-10-12 04:24:52
I guess I don't totally agree with this idea - the fact that we are developers doesn't mean we don't need easy-of-use UI for Visual Studio.
Nam Gi VU
2010-10-12 08:49:40
+4
A:
Ribbon its a great user interface to organize tools like buttons and some kind of small items. But it doesn't work well, (or at least it's very difficult to achive) when the user interface has to be very personalizable as Visual Studio has to be. And there's also the problem of many windows that are not toolbars, like the solution explorer or the many different designer, they can't be placed very easily.
Whili I'm not saying it's impossible. There is a lot of features that would have to be rebuilt to accomodate a ribbon.
From MSDN Ribbon User Experience Guidelines
Command scale
Is there a large number of commands? Would using a ribbon require more than seven core tabs? Would users constantly have to change tabs to perform common tasks? If so, using toolbars (which don't require changing tabs) and palette windows (which may require changing tabs, but there can be several open at a time) might be a more efficient choice.
For efficiency and flexibility, do users need to make significant changes to the command presentation contents, location, or size? If so, customizable and extensible toolbars and palette windows are a better choice. Note that some types of toolbars can be undocked to become palette windows, and palette windows can be moved, resized, and customized.
Because of some of this reasons I believe Visual Studio works better in a toolbar-based interface
PS: While I don't believe Visual Studio will implement the ribbon, Autodesk products like AutoCAD are very good examples of very complex ribbon-based application.
Carlos Muñoz
2010-10-12 04:26:08
Does Microsoft say the same thing(s) back when Ms Outlook was not upgraded to use ribbon UI?
Nam Gi VU
2010-10-15 15:06:53
@Nam - Yes they did! They gave all kinds of reasons why the Ribbon wasn't "appropirate" for those products when they could have just come right out and said "we ran out of time" since obviously it was "appropriate" in Office 2010.
Josh Einstein
2010-10-16 17:20:26
+2
A:
I agree that they should bring the ribbon to VS because the stacked command bar UI is dated and ugly. I have to look at that garbage for 8-12 hours per day. Let's not even get me started on how frustrating it is when a contextual toolbar grows the height of the toolbar and shoves the top of the text editor down.
But you're unlikely to get anything more than opinion here which is not really the right forum. I'd post it to http://connect.microsoft.com.
Josh Einstein
2010-10-12 04:50:59
upvote for linq powershell extensions :P If you need a linq-where implementation hollar
Frank Schwieterman
2010-10-12 05:01:03
Thanks, Frank. Not to get too off-topic but what does Linq-Where do differently from Where-Object?
Josh Einstein
2010-10-12 05:09:26
The offer was meant in jest, because as you mention its trivial to implement. I remember thats why you didn't implement it.
Frank Schwieterman
2010-10-12 06:30:43
+2
A:
I kind of think Ribbon would be as bad for Visual Studio as those silly button bars. Working quickly in visual studio is all about good navigational keyboard shortcuts, not mouse clicking.
Frank Schwieterman
2010-10-12 04:59:15
There's no substitute for good shortcuts (I have a Logitech G15 gaming keyboard that I use exclusively for programming because of its 15 macro keys) but where the Ribbon excels is showcasing commands that are not necessarily used frequently but would otherwise be buried under obscure menu hierarchies.
Josh Einstein
2010-10-12 05:11:50
@Frank: For me, I get used to the mouse clicking first, and the hotkeys come later. Though, the Ribbon is all about showing hidden buttons, not just the keyboard. Agree with Josh!
Nam Gi VU
2010-10-12 08:51:24
How do you discover hotkeys then when using the ribbon in office?
Frank Schwieterman
2010-10-13 16:31:26
@Frank: What I mean is that before I need a hotkey to do something, you need to get used with the functionary of that first. Only after I use it so much frequently do I deadly need a hotkey! The Ribbon helps to get use to the functionarity easily and quickly for evryone, maybe you are not among those, but hopefully you are. When you need hotkey, just go for help resource. Ribbon can show hotkey in their tooltips.
Nam Gi VU
2010-10-15 11:55:10