New Ribbon interface, what do you think?

Hi people.

Was talking about the Connect interface with and old work mate from previous office.
Looks like both agree. Ribbon interface is a catastrophic decision.

Personally, I've really felt disconnected with Bentley's vision on how MS should evolve, I love MS, SS3 is like a Ferrari tunned for race so don´t think I'm here for Autodesk fanboyism.


I got into MS after Acad swtiched to Ribbon. I loved Bentley systems because its unique approach to engineering soft with supper serious and practical interfaces, super powerfull design environment, great 3d modelling tool, the keyboard shorcuts that allow you to super quickly change tools etc...


I could not believe Bentley would EVER switch to  Ribbon. I'm so dissapointed. What do you people think? you like it?.

  • At first, I think such discussion is a bit useless and boring, because it's very opinion based. I remember there was a discussion during CONNECT Edition EAP phase about "how to enhance ribbon to be better and what is missing comparing to other CAD software using ribbon", which in situation when Bentley quite clearly expressed the ribbon is the way they will go, seems to be more valuable. And I have to say I was really surprised at that time what big CAD/CAM/CAE packages use ribbon and also what own extensions were implemented to make it more flexible.

    What I heard from my customers is literally everything from "I dislike it very much" over "I will learn it if I have to" or "I don't care" to "I have no problem / I like it". Personally I have no problem with the ribbon itself, because I use popups very much and I also customized ribbon and mouse context menu a bit to better comply my requirements, so my interaction with ribbon itself is quite limited and in such case I use F4 often because I need to find some rarely used tool. I have thought about own screen menus also, but have had not enough time to play with them more.

    But I have to say there are some features that makes ribbon much worse than it really is:

    • To switch from one workflow to another has to be instant, right now the delay is pretty big, it's slow slow slow.
    • Also switching between tabs seems to be laggy sometimes.
    • Customization, which I treat as a crucial tool, is buggy and it crashes or does not work as expected often.
    • There are no features like pull down (hiearachical) menus, drop down dialogs etc. available.

    I am looking forward to the next MicroStation CE version to check what complains will be solved.

    With regards,

     Jan

  • You are aware that you can still use the old Task interface with MicroStation CONNECT right? (link)

    I don't know anyone that has already moved to CONNECT for production work that isn't still using the Task Interface.

    The current implementation of the Ribbon Interface is slow and frankly quite unproductive. Many AutoCad users who use the Ribbon interface actually use the keyboard for most commands and also avoid navigating the Ribbon as much as they can. Using the keyboard for everything is just that extra bit harder in MicroStation. 

    The only upside to the Ribbon is that it's more "discoverable" for novice users than the Task Interface is.

    Well, that and the fact that the shiny new icons look really nice.

    I hope Bentley manages to give the whole Ribbon Interface a pretty massive performance boost. Nobody in their right mind is going to want to move to an interface that negatively impacts their bottom line. 

  • Unknown said:
    I think such discussion is a bit useless and boring, because it's very opinion based

    I couldn't agree more! And we've had this discussion multiple times, I don't think you're going to change Bentley's mind about the ribbon. A ribbon is on everything now, we should be used to it!

    If they improve the responsiveness of the ribbon I wouldn't mind selling this to my clients, but I'll be holding off until at least the first update before I think about implementing it for production anywhere.

  • Going back to IGDS this is probably the 7th overhaul of the UI that I've been thru. This one is really just another superficial reshuffling of icons.
  • Thank you for the Link! I have not been following Connect too much as we are limited by client and vertical applications from really being able to use Connect. I am very please to see the Task Menus being "retained" - these are very similar to the Palettes in AutoCAD and make for a reasonably easy transition back and forth between the two platforms. And a number of client workspaces have embraced them so I anticipate them being a substantial part of theirs (and our) workspaces for the foreseeable future.


    Charles (Chuck) Rheault
    CADD Manager

    MDOT State Highway Administration

    • MicroStation user since IGDS, InRoads user since TDP.
    • AutoCAD, Land Desktop and Civil 3D, off and on since 1996