New Ribbon interface, what do you think?

Hi Everyone,

Just jumping in to see if I can help explain the thinking behind our Ribbon implementation.

The primary reason to adopt a Ribbon is that it's a familiar design pattern to standardize on.
If we made 1 application, it would be a different situation, but when you look at a suite of products used together with a mix of Ribbon, Task, and Toolbox approaches - we needed to take a step to increase the common ground.

A while back I emphasized that we didn't just "do a Ribbon". We added key enhancements which will only be defended once they prove themselves in production workflows.

In fact, there's a key question I can ask to lead our discussion to explore this deeper...

"Do you use shift+right click to access view tools?"
(and yes I realize common view operations are directly mapped to the mouse)

Best regards,

Gino

Gino,

I don't use shift+right click to access view tools but will start using it from now on! I'm not quite sure what KEN-T is on about when talking about the shortcut: Press Shift (1st action), right click (2nd), click Window Area tool (3rd) VS Press ESC button/home focus(1st action) press 4 - View tools(2nd), press 4 Window Area tool (3rd). Or am I missing something? 

I would have to say that the CE ribbon is larger than other ribbons I'm used to, and does slightly take up more screen real-estate, but my main issue is it's responsiveness. It always seems to take a second between my clicks to access the tool and actually opening the tool.

Best regards,

Liam

P.S microstation has been in need of an interface update for years but you're never going to please the anti ribbon clan, 

Ken,
I have to say I like this reply and respect your opinion! To be honest with you I think for a lot of long term MicroStation users, the only way to fix the ribbon is to get rid of it. There are also general issues with the ribbon that is stopping people like me from recommending this product to any of my clients. Mainly why I would like Bentley to focus on fixing the actual issues with the ribbon, rather than appease the anti-ribbon clan :)

Best regards,
Liam

Gino,
1 make a selecton
2 Click an icon that has "set displayset on;selview 1;displayset set selection;fit all;point ab;displayset clear;update view extended"

done.

Thanks Koert (and others if you are following along :) ).

Give the following sequence a try:

1. Start the selection tool (I use QQ, but you could use any method) and click on a few elements
2. Shift+Right Click
3. D
4. Shift+Right Click
5. V
6. Shift+Right Click
7. C
8. Reset, and click in an empty space to clear the selection set

Note that the shortcut keys for anything in a ribbon group popup are shown in the tooltip. This allows people to either click on something, or look up the keystroke if its something they do often.

Best regards,

Gino

I think I'm going to stay put with my two click solution from our customized GUI.

To me that's not an option for me, call me old fashioned, I remember the days when you had a good interface, good quality icons and you picked the tool and used it, with the focus on design and draughting. I note with Connect edition a new term was introduced called 'Discoverable', as a draughtsman I don't want to happen upon a tool or do some arthritic keyboard combo, I want it in front of my face, I'm a designer not Rick Wakeman.

Another thing while I'm having a rant, We have large icons (mostly fixed), we have small icons with a text descriptor which is considered medium and small icons, Since we are stuck with the ribbon, a lot more flexibility in the layout is required, I would like to see proper legible medium sized icon as the small icons are just eye strain if you are using a high res. monitor (2560 X 1440).

Regards Ken

To me that's not an option for me, call me old fashioned, I remember the days when you had a good interface, good quality icons and you picked the tool and used it, with the focus on design and draughting. I note with Connect edition a new term was introduced called 'Discoverable', as a draughtsman I don't want to happen upon a tool or do some arthritic keyboard combo, I want it in front of my face, I'm a designer not Rick Wakeman.

Another thing while I'm having a rant, We have large icons (mostly fixed), we have small icons with a text descriptor which is considered medium and small icons, Since we are stuck with the ribbon, a lot more flexibility in the layout is required, I would like to see proper legible medium sized icon as the small icons are just eye strain if you are using a high res. monitor (2560 X 1440).

Regards Ken