Ha! OpenOffice.Org experimenting with ribbon UI

Those who ran away from Microsoft Office 2007 to OpenOffice.Org to escape the Ribbon interface, prepare yourself for some terrifying news: the ribbon is stalking you! OpenOffice.Org is working on a new interface and some demo screenshots they launched last week shows a sparkling new Ribbon!

openoffice-prototype

Two months ago, OpenOffice.Org started a prototyping phase called project Renaissance to create a new user interface for OpenOffice.org. This has ended last week, and the project presented a new design. The Office 2007 inspired ribbon can hardly be unnoticed, and it looks gross. Sun says that it’s just a prototype and the user interface hasn’t been yet polished. But I doubt the final product will look any better. OO.o’s interface and icons has always been depressing.

The feedback from commenter's consist mostly of disgust. But resistance is futile. This was going to happen sooner or later. OpenOffice.Org’s interface has always been made to mimic that of MS Office, to enable users to migrate easily to the free alternative and keep the learning curve as shallow as possible. And if you look at it without any bias, the ribbon isn’t a bad design actually. The only problem is they eat a lot of vertical space.

If you want to try out the new layout there is an online demo of Impress (requires Java 6).

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AnonymousAugust 8, 2009 at 6:32 AM
Now seriously what's the problem everybody seems to have with ribbon? Everybody I know who hated it now loves it after I forced to use it for a couple of days. It's just superior to menus and toolbars (still very far from perfect though.
That being said OO.o version of ribbon is just plain ugly.
Kaushik PatowaryAugust 8, 2009 at 11:39 AM
I have no idea. Possibly because it is a Micrsoft invention, just like Linus Torvalds said, "Microsoft hating is a disease". Personally, I like the ribbon.
ChalkerJune 6, 2010 at 6:41 AM
personally, i think the ribbon is quite a good interface: it has categories under which options are grouped and is compact and versatile yet provides enough space to view what you are producing. I think it is a good invention and Microsoft seems to be the first to have implemented it... Something good microsoft did.

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