Spring RTS Engine

What do people think of the ribbon controls in general? I find the one in word is a vast improvement over 2003.

So what about in the lobby? What would people think of ribbon controls in the battle window with drop down panels for maps and other widgets rather than a crowded tab pane?
This is perfectly doable and I could have my own fully working ribbon controlled battle window up and running within a week (as you can see from the screen shot I have 2 small course works to finish typing up). Imagine auto host commands, a map picker with thumbnails underneath a list of commonly used maps and starting boxes and the main window being a big mini map chat and the player table with any 'changes' to the game such as command ends etc showing as messages in chat

I absolutely cannot work out what _anything_ in that screenshot is for. This isn't even an exaggeration. Everything seems to have completely different behaviours attached to what I would expect. Hint: using buttons as menus is completely stupid. When I click a button, I expect something to happen. I don't care if you've got an arrow or if it makes your UI look SLEEK, it's confusing.

and all the old menu dealies are now tabs for some reason, what's going on?

You do know not every button has to be a drop down menu?

how is that less confusing? some buttons explode and some bake a cake, what's gonna happen?!

Ribbon controls don't have to have drop down menus. If drop down menus are confusing then they don't have to be put in its as simple as that.

Other than that I have no idea what your referring to, what else is confusing? feedback!!!

I think tombom was just being a bit arsy and I was going with his flow to be honest.

all I can say is...I'm not really bothered by the menus we have.

I don't understand... you all seem to be talking about totally different things.

If you're talking about making anything Spring-related Certified Microsoft Office 2008 SUPER SHINY (tm), I'm completely against it. SUPER SHINY SLEEK USER INTERFACES make me want to commit genocide against all UI designers.

hmm perhaps I should have stated all those who haven't used a ribbon control for more than half an hour need not apply.

About Ribbon Controls

SUPER SHINEY HELL. I rest my case.

I do not like them and I own the new office.

what was i gona say... oh yeah

maybe you should post the picture links right so you can show us what your really talking about. your getting me confused with this big minimap and the chat head thingymagig.

pharoph wrote:what was i gona say... oh yeah

maybe you should post the picture links right so you can show us what your really talking about. your getting me confused with this big minimap and the chat head thingymagig.

Strip off all the asskissing text tips and just look at it as an interface.

I hate ribbons and see them as more invasive tabs.

Ya, I dislike ribbons. It's a design methodology that is constructed to make piece of software easier to learn to use, and give a new user a safer environment to play sandbox in. For an experienced user it means more unnecessary screen clutter, and in the case that it's replacing organized tabs and hotkeys, a much less powerful interface tool.

Ribbons aren't worth doing unless you have alternatives available to the user IMO. They sacrifice usability for learn ability... So fine, put them in by default for the new user using the software for the first time, but you need all the systems in place for the experienced user to remove them to increase their usable workspace and speed up their work flow.