[Lucas]

I thought the whole point of the ribbon was the amazing amount of options that they had figured out that word processing required. I don't think that OF has nearly the number of fiddly options, thank god.

Besides, the only benefits you name (that I could see in your post at least) for the ribbon are that power users may, someday, be familiar with it, presumably after the release of the new office for mac. Seems like kind of limited upside.

Personally, having used the new office on Windows, I found the ribbon worse, because they had shuffled around the location of all the commands I was familiar with. Oh, I thought, to be able to type this on a mac, where things make sense, would be such a relief.

[ifonline]

Originally Posted by Namssa

Just an important clarification: as you can see in the videos I posted, the new Ribbon is collapsible.

Ok. My vote still stands: no.

[Namssa]

Originally Posted by Lucas

I thought the whole point of the ribbon was the amazing amount of options that they had figured out that word processing required. I don't think that OF has nearly the number of fiddly options, thank god.

Besides, the only benefits you name (that I could see in your post at least) for the ribbon are that power users may, someday, be familiar with it, presumably after the release of the new office for mac. Seems like kind of limited upside.

Personally, having used the new office on Windows, I found the ribbon worse, because they had shuffled around the location of all the commands I was familiar with. Oh, I thought, to be able to type this on a mac, where things make sense, would be such a relief.

I see your point. But I am talking about the ribbon as an alternative to the inspector.
As someone else also mentioned in this thread, the inspector pane is not very convenient, and there ought to be a better alternative for it.
My suggestion is that a ribbon-like addition could put the options that are in the inspector somewhere more convenient and useful, that would increase the ease of use of OF.

[rogbar]

I used MS office for years and grew weary of the bloat. I did find the ribbon helpful in one regard: displaying lots of formatting options at one time, in a more accessible way than the menus had.

But that was all. And since there's precious little formatting to be done in an OmniFocus document, i can't see how the ribbon would be an improvement. As I use OF more and more, I find I use the menus less and less. The Inspector works fine for me, and I very much prefer the ability to drag it around to where I'm working than to moving back and forth to the Menu Bar.

I appreciate your intention to improve OF, but as a former ribbon user, I can't quite see how the ribbon improves OF. I say this so you understand my opinion is not based on some knee-jerk reaction against all things Microsoft (although I am very happy to have them out of my life), but on the basis of having used it extensively and found it useful under circumstances different than the ones I experience with OF.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

[jgrafix]

I personally *love* the ribbon in the MS products. I suspect that like a lot of other Mac users, I'm very visual. If I wasn't visual, I suppose I'd be satisfied with a PC. But that is another topic.

I think a ribbon would be a nice addition to OF. To address concerns of screen real estate, in Office you can have the ribbon on or off. You can even collapse it. So there is a way to make everyone happy with a ribbon.

I am very much looking forward to v2 of OF. One of my biggest complaints about the desktop version of OF is that the UI, imo, is ugly. Things looks much nicer - though I'm not a fan of the way Things works or is laid out. But truth be told, I don't find the aspects of OF that look like they are hold overs from Omni Outline to be very visually appealing.

Personally, I'm hoping that some of what we see in the iPad version will make its way into the Desktop version.

I've used OF since the beta days. I've occasionally wandered away, but I aways come back because of the rock solid functionality and glitch free syncing that can't be found anywhere else.

Anything to make OF more visually appealing would be good in my book.

[lareaarnett]

A long time (Windows) Office user votes no on the ribbon....

As a Mac user for less than a month (just picked up a MacBook Pro in order to run Omnifocus, I may not be typical but I just hate the ribbon.

To me a regular toolbar is very easy and quick to browse through, the logic works for where to find things, and the words mean something. The ribbon is full of tiny pictures that don't look like anything to me or mean anything and it takes me much longer to look at it and try to see if what I am looking for may be there. Then, the ribbon (in Office) has certain areas where you have to click a down arrow to see more, so it STILL isn't showing everything anyway.

[erifneerg]

my two cents on the Ribbon UI comes from using it on Windows.

I've always thought of it as the menu bar expanded into the toolbar and grouped into tabs giving you focus on the task at hand. When working on reviewing a document, you always only have reviewing tools in front of you. When I've used it, I've liked it. I can see how/why people hate it so much.

The Ribbon UI came from people requesting features for Office that where already there. People just didn't know how to find them. And i know some people say the Ribbon UI hides more things now. I simply disagree.

It seems like people would just like a better set of toolbar options with OF. Taking some ideas from Ribbon isn't bad idea.

[lhotka]

Keep the ribbon bar out of OF. It takes far too much space on the screen (especially the new 16x9/10 aspect ratio), and violates Mac UI standards.

I despise it in office. For a novice user it may be easier, but for an expert it takes far too long to navigate. The targets are too small and hard to perceive.

Are there UI improvement's I'd like? Sure. Right off, the calendar popup in the inspector is annoying (it's doesn't close properly). Giving us more options for columns in the task view would solve the problem (e.g. I'd love to have the next review date as a column when doing my review).