La nueva versión de LibreOffice estará lista en pocas semanas, por lo que es oportuno hacer una revisión rápida de lo que nos traerá. Algunas de las cosas que comentaré aquí repiten lo que ya se habló en un artículo anterior sobre la versión alfa, pero a no preocuparse, que hay material nuevo y bueno en abundancia.
No muy importante (o sí, ya me dirás): la «pantalla de bienvenida» ahora respeta el tema de escritorio y tiene algunos detalles estéticos que la hacen más agradable
Community… muy sutil… Al menos es mejor que eso de personal edition, pero no quiero dispersarme, que si entramos en la discusión de que «mejor» no siempre es «bueno», no salimos más.
En el menú Ver → Interfaz de usuario podemos elegir qué estilo de programa queremos. Yo siempre lo dejo en la opción por defecto, no sé, será que me estoy poniendo viejo y eso de las cintas, pestañas, lo que sea, no termina de convencerme. Menús y atajos de teclado, de allí no me sacas.
Algo que no comenté en el artículo anterior: ahora es posible elegir el anclaje por defecto de las imágenes insertadas desde Herramientas → Opciones → LibreOffice Writer → Ayudas de formato
Eso sí, a ver, que sería mejor que esto estuviera implementado en los estilos de marco… En fin, peor es nada.
El Inspector de estilos está mucho más pulido ahora, los cambios desde la versión alfa han sido importantes y de hecho está disponible por defecto
El foco en el inspector de estilos pasa automáticamente al estilo que corresponda a la posición del cursor, lo cual está muy bien.
Ahora es posible tener sombras «suaves», eligiendo cómo difuminarlas
Activando las opciones experimentales en Herramientas → Opciones → LibreOffice → Avanzado, tendremos en Herramientas → Opciones → LibreOffice Writer → Ver una nueva opción para habilitar la «modalidad de esquema» que permite «cerrar» partes del contenido haciendo colapsar todo lo que se encuentra debajo de cualquier título
Incorporado a la interfaz gráfica, ahora podemos acceder rápidamente a plantillas o temas de iconos sin necesidad de ir a un navegador, descargar, etc
A alguien le servirá.
A esto se añaden nuevos colores para las fórmulas Math, animaciones basadas en física para Impress, y mucho, mucho más.
Seguiremos informando.
El Pingüino Tolkiano 
Se ven interesantes las nuevas características, yo igual no me puedo acostumbrar al estilo de pestañas
Yo ni lo intento… 😉
Yo tampoco…
Y así evito perderme, entre otras cosas.
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En 2012:
> I really don’t want ribbon UI for browsing files, and besides aren’t those icons way too big for smaller screens?
Microsoft seem to want to put a ribbon interface on every single application. Maybe they want users to come to expect a ribbon-style interface, and perhaps to become unable to use anything else? Yet another attempt to lock people in to Microsoft products?
You would think that Microsoft had a patent on the ribbon interface, wouldn’t you?
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/591-microsofts-office-ui-patent-trap-watch-out-with-that-mfc-update.html
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2006/11/21/licensing-the-2007-microsoft-office-user-interface.aspx
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> Maybe they are just trying to come up with some sort of consistent app interface
Maybe they are, but then in that case, why not just let every app developer use it without encumberances? After all, Microsoft already do that for things like dialog boxes.
Then, if it was any good, every app developer would use it, and users would then enjoy a consistent app interface even when running apps not made by Microsoft. The ribbon UI might then then become a value-add for users, rather than a jarring inconsistency between some apps and others.
Is it even legal to claim ownership over a UI design, and charge a license fee for it? Microsoft in the past have certainly argued along those lines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation
«Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation, 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994) was a copyright infringement lawsuit in which Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.) sought to prevent Microsoft Corporation and Hewlett-Packard from using visual graphical user interface (GUI) elements that were similar to those in Apple’s Lisa and Macintosh operating systems. The court ruled that, «Apple cannot get patent- protection for the idea of a graphical user interface, or the idea of a desktop metaphor [under copyright law]…»
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> I do not believe that they are charging for usage of their Office Ribbon UI library, are they?
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2006/11/21/licensing-the-2007-microsoft-office-user-interface.aspx
«There’s only one limitation: if you are building a program which directly competes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access (the Microsoft applications with the new UI), you can’t obtain the royalty-free license».
Now that more and more of Microsoft applications use the ribbon UI (such as Windows explorer now in Windows 8), then more and more applications will «directly compete» with Microsoft applications which use the ribbon UI, and hence have to pay royalties according to Microsoft.
This is simply another area where Microsoft is attempting to collect fees from software which Microsoft did not write themselves.
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> There’s nothing there about new apps. It states that you gotta pay if you want to build a Ribbon using Office suite, which at the
> time would have competed with the «Microsoft apps with the new UI.»
Today the «Microsoft apps with the new UI» extends well beyond just MS Office apps. The restriction Microsoft quoted was that the ribbon UI design could not be used royalty-free in any app that competed with a Microsoft app. At the time the MS Office apps were the only examples.
— Mark «Lemur2»
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To be honest, I don’t even like ribbon in Office.
The nice thing about the menu interface was that if you couldn’t remember where something was, you could find it with a textual interface that was (for the most part) logically laid out.
Now I have to scan through dozens of icons just to find something that’s picture vaguely represents the task I’m trying to perform. Worse yet, some functions are hidden in menus behind ribbon icons.
The problem with interfaces like the ribbon bar is they expect users to learn the layout. To generate a mental map of where the functions are. Which is fine if all you use in your working life is MS Office. However I regularly switch between MS Office, LibreOffice and dozens of other productivity suites. I don’t have the time nor inclination just to learn how to perform the same function I was regularly using 5 years ago.
People keep taking about GUIs and pictorial representations as the cutting edge of user friendliness, but I’m really not convinced. I’m not about to say that we should all be using the command line or anything equally absurd. However icons only work if people can identify with the graphic representation and GUIs are only use friendly so long as the form layouts are logical. Thus far I’ve found that the ribbon bar doesn’t always tick those two boxes.
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While the Ribbon interface is somewhat functional, it is limited compared to what it is replacing.
The Ribbon interface replaces both toolbars and drop-down menus.
—-> The Ribbon interface is not as complete as the drop-down menu’s.
—-> The Ribbon interface is basically not customizable.
—-> The Ribbon interface takes up more space than multiple toolbars and a menu-bar.
—-> The Ribbon interface is limited to one «topic» available to use at any given time,
whereas:
—> Toolbars could have multiple different toolbars on-screen at any given time.
—> Toolbars could be docked to different locations on the window: sides, top, bottom.
—> Toolbars could be UNdocked, and displayed outside of a given window.
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> Except that it is fully customizable
That will allow you to create a similcrum of the existing Ribbon subjects, but it will not let you specify the dimensions of the elements (actions) that you are adding — nor it’s behaviour as the Ribbon changes width — as to whether it should be «large» or med, small, if the element should stack on another — you can’t actually layout the toolbar, and if you even try to recreate the existing Ribbons the flaws of the limited customization is glaringly apparent.
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Also, in other interfaces (beyond Office), where Toolbars used to be customizable, you will instead now have non-configurable Ribbons instead (see Explorer). To make File Explorer remotely usable, you’ll need something like [QTTabbar](http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/), then you can almost entirely ignore the Ribbon for most intents and purposes.
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> Our goal is to improve the usage experience for a majority of customers while recognizing that, with such a long history and variety of
> depth usage, we cannot possibly provide all of the power everyone might want.
In other words, the power users are getting shit on once again in an attempt to further idiot-proof the OS, and wasting a lot of screen real-estate in the process.
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They seem to have no rules, just shoving shit everywhere. Probably since they have organizational direction of a bus full of schizophrenics, the result is inevitably a clusterfuck:
En 2017:
«Ribbon» related patents,
https://www.google.com/patents/US8117542
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Don’t you guys remember the trend of ’08? Everything has to have a goddamn ribbon. Even tools like Borland’s C++ Builder spoonfed it to developers:
Nowadays, software with ribbons look dated. Just like software written to look like Windows «Metro» will in another few years. Or software written to look like it could run on a tablet (*cough*, Gnome).
Actually, I am currently working on a project to replace some old software for an NHS stroke patient monitoring system. The original version has a goddam ribbon even though it only has a total of 4 menu items