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I don't have anything new to complain about, but the Office ribbon control is just pissing me off at the moment. I've tried to get used to it, but I only find it 'OK' when I don't actually have to use it.
It tries to be both a menu and a toolbar, but fails at both. I haven't found a single use-case where it is easier to use than menus and toolbars.
Obviously, I not looking at it as a newbie user, but as a computer professional, but does anyone actually like the thing, rather than just tolerating it?
Specific points:
* Being able to customize and add new toolbars and have all of those commands visible and available at once is a massive productivity boost that has disappeared.
* Being forced to constantly flip between ribbon tabs. Even when you do (rarely) know where something is, it's usually on another tab. As of 2010 we can 'fix' this by customising to some extent, but it would be easier if I could just see everything at the same time (see above), without having to create my own interface! I assume this is OK for that class of user that used to use the mouse and menus for everything, but it doesn't like keyboardists or toolbar users much.
* No way to logically consume functional content, without a proper menu. This is the old 'I can't find it' problem - but I could eventually locate anything through the hierarchical menus. I don't seem to be able to twig MS's system for ribbon organisation. Several times I have literally been unable to discover where a function was using the ribbon and had to Google it. And then you find that the function might not even be on the ribbon in the first place.
* No proper translation for old add-in toolbars to the ribbon. This means that if an add-in isn't ribbon aware, I can't reorganise its functions on the ribbon, they are just dumped on the 'Add-Ins' tab and can't be moved.
* At least for me, the combination of icons and text is not easy to consume in the jumbled ribbon. Icons on menus in a fixed location relative to text, easy to scan - multiple icon sizes with varying text locations - hard to scan. I can't be alone in this one? I always turn off text on toolbars, if it is possible, precisely because mixing menus with the top level of a toolbar doesn't quite work.
So MS, what exactly is so good about it? I've seen some users say 'I like it', but I've never seen them expand as to why it is functionally better than what it replaced.
Nothing new here! Move along!
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I didn't quite understand your rant...
I guess you are forced to used the Ribbon for developing a project which doesn't warrant it, is it?
One thing you have to admit is that you can cram more command on a Ribbon that on a 1 level Menu!
That's the crux of the argument!
That plus you can have creative control people seldom dare put in a menu (like a color picker for example)
This week I am working on a hybrid control, which drops Ribbon and menus! Might be on CodeProject soon! 
modified 26-May-14 20:32pm.
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Nope, just having to use it in Office (since we have to use it, corporately).
Edit: But your point it partially my point - why would you put a colour picker on a menu? It belongs on a toolbar...
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That's the problem, zillion of toolbar! They try to save space, Ribbon is mean to replace (toolbar + menu) combo
If you were a 0 toolbar person then, obviously it eats space..
though you can collapse the ribbon (double click on it) the it become a very large horizontal menu, might be mouse intensive though.
But the fact it's only 1 level own makes it easier for newbie to find commands!
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Yes there are potentially lots of toolbars, but you only show the ones you need, and it was quick and easy to drag buttons between them for that odd thing you only used occasionally.
And I dispute the fact that being only one level helps - it only helps if what you want it immediately visible and you can visually parse the ribbon to find it (which I contend is much harder than reading a menu), otherwise there is no logical, systematic way of finding it, other than perhaps searching 'All commands' on the customise menu.
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Look might matter more than you think!
For instance, though I did use and implement the ribbon since 2005 it left me somehow unsatisfied... 
(though it did help reduce the clutter of tool windows, toolbars and menus in our app)
But using Office 2013 at home (Word, Excel, OneNote) and the new metro-ish ribbon didn't even register in my awareness on any level, I just used it... until one day, recently, I thought to myself hey, this new Office2013 Ribbon is good!
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Super Lloyd wrote: you can cram yam
in a can of spam?
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oops, little typo! 
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And it consumes so much screen real estate. (Yes, I know you can shrink it, but it's not obvious)
I find it harder to use, slower to locate infrequently used commands, and less intuitive.
I suspect it was designed for morons: by morons marketing executives.
It is a coincidence that VS still doesn't have a ribbon? I don't think so...
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Andre Zimmern, bizarre foods fatso and official small animal sadist. Just watch the glee in his eyes when he guts that frog, alive, on one of his shows.
So who is your hated TV personality and why?
"The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s." climate-models-go-cold
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Those two on "Love it or list it" - Somebody make them stop
The MC on "Say yes to the dress" - My wife watches this POS
Jim Nance - He's a poser and Phil Simms in gonna kill him some say I swear.
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Munchies_Matt wrote: TV personality
Define personality, anyone participating in a reality show or a cooking show is automatically excluded from the human race so they cannot qualify as personality.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I don't. Mostly because I hardly watch TV at all, but also because I avoid those programs with people I don't like.
Now, do you think there's a correlation between those two statements?
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I have no TV. Not connected to any on the internet. No hatred!
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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All of them.
That way, they have to become liked. Which means there aren't that many that make it...
So the "like" list is a lot shorter.
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Wow, where do you want me to start.....
a) Any w....../d.../f...wit on those reality shows. e.g. Big Brother, Towie, Made in Chelsea, Keeping up with the K's etc. etc.
b) Those smarmy hosts/chefs on Master Chef and other cooking programs.
c) Sandy Toxic Toksvig.....she bugs me senseless
d) The Eggsheads......especially CJ and Daphne, wouldn't get tired hitting them around the head all day with a 4x2.
that will do as a starter.
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Sandy Toksvig - met her recently when I appeared on 15-to-1 - OK, but lacking in charisma
The Eggheads - I'm friends with several of them - Pat, Kevin, Barry, Dave, and have met all of the others. Daphne is a sweetie, but tomorrow's show is the last before her retirement - CJ returns, along with another woman called Lisa.
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I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka.
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Chris Quinn wrote: Daphne is a sweetie
She maybe is fine in real life, but on the telly she comes across as such a big headed know it all smarmy old dear...So does CJ, but he also has a 'look' about him that invites a skelp.
The others comes across a lot better and they don't really grate on me.
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Skelp! Not heard that word in forty years - my mad Irish maths teacher Paddy Butler used to administer them on a regular basis!
If you really want to know what CJ's like, read his Twitter feed[^]!
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I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka.
=========================================================
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Skelp!
My mother used to threaten me with one of those!
All the Eggheads strike me as a bunch of tossers.
The person I reserve my deepest loathing for though is Ross Noble.
I cannot abide that complete sunshine.
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Obscurum per obscurius.
Ad astra per alas porci.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur .
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Ricky Gervais
Jimmy Carr
Russell Brand
Michael McIntyre
Miranda Hart
All as funny as a case of genital warts (on your own genitals, not somebody else's)
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I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka.
=========================================================
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They are more annoying though, aren't they? I actually Hate Zimmern, he has a nasty glee in his eyes when small animals are killed, really, I think he is a psycho.
"The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s." climate-models-go-cold
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