

The successor to Windows 7 may soon greet the masses










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RE: What's so risky?
By Breakfast Susej on 5/11/2011 11:09:03 AM , Rating: 5
I can think of two ways in which it is risky without going into anything regarding the specifics of the OS at all.

Number one being that it has been a relatively short time since Windows 7 released.

Number two being that Windows 7 has been extremely popular and well received.

When you look back at the history of it despite the fact that Windows 7 is essentially a polished version of Vista, Vista was horribly received for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which being the attachment to XP.

Following a well loved product is inherently risky, particularly if there is any change involved whatsoever. It wouldn't even take "drastic" changes in my opinion to get some people up in arms about 8.

If it indeed does have changes along the magnitude of the ribbon bar in office I would have to agree that they could have a backlash on hand. Do not misunderstand, I don't have a problem with changes such as the ones in office. I didn't have a problem with Vista either. Likewise I doubt I will have a problem with 8 unless it is horribly flawed in some real way (not in an imaginary way, such as the way Vista and Office 2007+ were demonized)

RE: What's so risky?
By omnicronx on 5/11/11, Rating: 0
RE: What's so risky?
Did you read my post I wonder?


I like the ribbon interface and use office 2007.

RE: What's so risky?

RE: What's so risky?
Evolution of the GUI as a whole is a good thing.


Namely business users.



RE: What's so risky?

RE: What's so risky?

RE: What's so risky?

RE: What's so risky?



RE: What's so risky?
By Solandri on 5/11/2011 1:06:07 PM , Rating: 2
Context styled menus are dated and boring. Do you really think they are going to last forever? Heck there is not a single OS that is not in the process of phasing them out. (from nix to OSX to Windows)

Simplified menus that have the most commonly used buttons make more sense and if not for the fact that context style menus were not so engrained within all OS's over the past 30 years, you probably would not be so adamant about he change in the first place.

I still don't understand this. The idea behind GUIs of old was a two-pronged approach to the user interface problem. You had certain functions which got used a lot. And you had hundreds (sometimes thousands) of functions which got used rarely.

The functions which got used a lot would be learned naturally by the user, through use. Priority was given to minimizing the time/effort needed to use them. These became the buttons on the GUI, placed so they were obvious to find and could be used quickly.

The complex functions which got used rarely usually wouldn't be learned by the user. So instead, the program had to provide a way for the user to quickly and easily find the specific function s/he was searching for. Thus was born the context-styled menu.

This new trend seems to be trying to take the context-style menu, and jam it into an ever-changing row of buttons. You lose the best of both worlds. You lose the quick access to frequently used buttons. Now you have to click an extra button to get access to them. And you lose the ability to look up, by context, a function you don't know about but should/could be there. Instead you have to sift through every single function trying to find the one you need.

I'm not ragging on the ribbon. I think it's a good solution to the problem of not having enough GUI space to contain all the buttons of frequently used functions. But the really frequently used buttons should remain on the GUI regardless of which mode the ribbon is in. The functions with intermediate use go into the ribbon. And the context-styled menu should remain so you can (1) easily find the functions which you'll only use once in a blue moon, and (2) have a readily accessible hierarchical list of every single function the program can do.

You can relegate the menu to the last entry in each ribbon mode, but it needs to remain. Some people categorize functions by physical location - buttons and ribbons are good for them. Others categorize functions by function - the hierarchical menu needs to remain for them.

RE: What's so risky?
By adiposity on 5/11/2011 1:59:51 PM , Rating: 2
I never got used to using the buttons in Office. Instead I relied on right-click and the menu system. I found the words reassuring, but buttons which sometimes had confusing or just indecipherable icons remained unclicked.

Now, obviously, I am forced to use these things in the ribbon. To a certain extent, then, the ribbon has been a success as I learn to do things "in one click." On the other hand, I feel like things aren't where they are ought to be, and I'm searching through graphical toolbars to find something that would be more easily found by reading words. Quite frequently I find myself using the right click to do things that I used to do through the menus.

There is a learning curve associated with the ribbon, but overall I think it is an improvement over menu driven interfaces. The ability to generate ribbon elements as needed (tables, for example) is a plus. I guess my only complaint is the loss of the old menus. It would be nice to be able to get to features "the old way" when you don't feel like learning a new toolbar today. But that's how you learn, I guess.

RE: What's so risky?
By jonmcc33 on 5/11/2011 11:51:15 AM , Rating: 2

Not really. By the time Windows 8 comes out I am sure Windows 7 will be more than 2 years old. That is normal OS release cycle (not counting the mistake of Windows XP). Linux and Mac users are used to that.


Which was positive given the horrible press that Windows Vista got. It depends if they are trying to revamp the OS the way they did from Windows XP to Vista and whether they allow enough public testing, etc from the Beta and RC before the product goes final.

