A preview of an interesting UI tweak in the upcoming 10.2 release.

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A preview of an interesting UI tweak in the upcoming 10.2 release.

https://community.embarcadero.com/blogs/entry/ui-changes-in-the-ide-s-the-view-menu
https://community.embarcadero.com/blogs/entry/ui-changes-in-the-ide-s-the-view-menu

Comments

  1. Stefan GlienkeFebruary 21, 2017 at 7:27 AM

    David Millington Watch the video and you see that just slapping a ribbon onto the application is hardly increasing its usability but that it requires much more. And that moving actions close to their context doesn't have to be ugly. ;)

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  2. David MillingtonFebruary 27, 2017 at 3:52 AM

    Stefan Glienke I agree - but why do you feel they're not appropriate for single-document app?

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  3. Stefan GlienkeFebruary 27, 2017 at 4:43 AM

    David Millington I never said that. I do think they are but as you see in the presentation Ribbon control alone doesn't do good for usability. Without these little fading in toolbars mouse movement ways are too long (if you are not a shortcut virtuoso) just as an example. Which is not any different with classic toolbars - I think that is why they added sidebars and toolbars on the bottom and stuff in the "old times".
    And all these principles also apply for an IDE but there a Ribbon does not have the same effect because you don't have these many many actions that are available most of the time like in a word document for example.
    Typically an IDE consists of many many dockable parts and combining those with a Ribbon does not help in terms of usability.

    I am not a UX expert though but that is my experience with developing an IDE similar application and adding Ribbons at one point because someone thought they are cool. And then we still had to add toolbars near the controls that were either dockable or part of composite UI parts because if you are a mouse user moving back and forth between these controls and the ribbon was too much.

    If you want to enhance usability and productivity while using RAD Studio you should focus on other areas like working code completion when using newer language features in the code or making refactoring work beyond a simple rename variable. Or make certain things more intuitive in the designer and less clicking and typing in the OI.

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