Using ribbon user interface (wxRibbonToolBar) ?

[Loaden]

About the *ugly* wxToolbar, or wxAuiToolBar, May be the best replaced is: wxRibbonToolBar !
See http://docs.wxwidgets.org/trunk/group__group__class__ribbon.html for more information.
Or: http://www.corsix.org/gsoc/ribbon.html
Any comments?

[xunxun]

I enjoy Ribbon's theme, but I hate his menu style, as the same as Office 2007.

[oBFusCATed]

Fortunately wxRibbonToolBar is wx2.9+
Also it is not appropriate for IDEs, because too much vertical space will be lost.

Edit:

[Jenna]

I think there is not much that makes a gui more ugly and non-intuitive than such "ribbons".

[Biplab]

I completely agree with Obfuscated and Jens.

Ribbons makes gui ugly and it's counter-productive. Not suitable for IDE like Code::Blocks.

I use Fedora and Ubuntu regularly. But I didn't notice any ugliness in C::B toolbar.

[Folco]

I did (Fedora & KUbuntu too).

Look at that : http://www.mirari.fr/xoj9

I succeed in having KDE4 Oxygen theme for the whole C::B interface (menus, colors, buttons etc !), all else... the toolbars. Look at the Dolphin's one, the CB toolbars are ugly...


But I agree, Ribbons bars are too big !

[Loaden]

I use Fedora and Ubuntu regularly. But I didn't notice any ugliness in C::B toolbar.

See:

http://forums.next.codeblocks.org/index.php/topic,13153.0.html

[Loaden]

In Windows 7, seems ugly too.

[ptDev]

About the *ugly* wxToolbar, or wxAuiToolBar, May be the best replaced is: wxRibbonToolBar !
See http://docs.wxwidgets.org/trunk/group__group__class__ribbon.html for more information.
Or: http://www.corsix.org/gsoc/ribbon.html
Any comments?

Ribbons and IDEs haven't mixed so well in the past.
There was a project for converting Eclipse into a ribbon-based UI, but it was abandoned.

Even for it to be accomplished in an intuitive and non-obtrusive manner, a lot of concessions would have to be made. For example, one has to make sure that the screen space isn't taken so aggressively (in low resolutions, almost one third of the screen height can be usurped by the ribbon!), since it is important to give priority to the editor. Another thing to keep in mind is that a ribbonbar cannot be limited to being a toolbar on steroids.

I have been working on an IDE (for D rather than C++), but I did come accross a few challenges on how to adapt the ribbon to become useful in the context of an IDE. You can see here a demo video showing my early attempts, and also showing something that most ribbon based applications lack: an option to revert to the classic menu-toolbar interface. Notice how I tried to optimize the used space by embedding the log window, although this is not a completely satisfactory compromise either.

This is not a discouragement, but rather a warning that adopting a ribbon interface involves a lot of UI redesign challenges. Especially for IDEs, and especially considering that most programmers would resist such a change.

[Loaden]

So, We have the final way, see: http://forums.next.codeblocks.org/index.php/topic,13153.msg90063.html#msg90063

[Loaden]

I did (Fedora & KUbuntu too).

Look at that : http://www.mirari.fr/xoj9

I succeed in having KDE4 Oxygen theme for the whole C::B interface (menus, colors, buttons etc !), all else... the toolbars. Look at the Dolphin's one, the CB toolbars are ugly...


But I agree, Ribbons bars are too big !

Hi, Folco, could you trying this patch and feedback here?

[Folco]

Ok.

[Folco]

Rebuilt. I get the same ??

[Loaden]

Rebuilt. I get the same ??

In Windows 7, The toolbar seems better than before.

Before patch:


After patch:

[Biplab]

It's still same. There is little difference. IMO, slimmer vertical resize handle doesn't make the new toolbar better.

To make the look uniform you can write a patch to make vertical resize handle use same theme colour.