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[LitusSaxonicum]

The Wikipedia page contains some helpful information (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing)), but as Clearwin+ doesn't allow you to create a moveable toolbar, then don't expect Paul to say that he has so little on his plate at the moment, he'll drop even that to develop it!

MS put a lot of effort into their ribbons, which are basically tabbed toolbars, and if you were ever experienced with the previous (traditional?) paradigm of drop-down menus, the ribbons took some getting used to. I set great store by the appearance of a Windows program, but if the user interface is designed well, the complexities of a ribbon may be unnecessary. For example, the Windows calculator neither needs nor uses a ribbon, nor does it even have menus.

[LitusSaxonicum]

I did dabble with a floating toolbar of my own design, based on sensing where the cursor was, and importing bitmaps to suit. This enabled me to get 'mouse-over' functionality that Paul hasn't implemented for %tb - %ib supposedly being the 'replacement' for %ib now has it, but %ib is actually the blind alley, and only %tb lets you achieve windows 8 to 10 look and feel.

Having got the thing to work, more or less, it seemed to me to be an over-complication of the user interface, and actually, a fixed toolbar was best.

I also discovered how to change toolbar styles while a program was running. A bit complicated, but definitely possible.

Word 2003 formats are not compatible with later Word versions, OK if you exchange documents in print, but not electronically, especially if they contain pictures.

[JohnCampbell]

John,

There was a big leap in capacity for Excel 2007. 2003 and earlier had sheet sizes were just too small to use. The ribbon was just collateral damage.

My use of clearwin+ is not as advanced as some/most. I am pleased that I can have a menu system that provides the functionality that I require. Every now an then I try to review the menu options and layout, but that is typically a long way behind the new features I am tying to achieve.
Creating a structured menu via multiple subroutines does help with development by isolating the new code that may not work.

John

[LitusSaxonicum]

John,

First of all, anything is possible if your main window is just one huge graphics region, and perhaps I didn't spell it out correctly, but you can create just about any look and feel - and that probably includes a 'ribbon' - if you are prepared to program the whole shebang yourself. It does make the graphics callback about the longest, most complicated, thing you'll ever program, however. My own attempts, through the medium of trying to simulate dockable toolbars, convinced me it was possible, but not worth the effort.

A little known foible of MS Word version-variation is not that 2003 can't read .DOCX files, as there is or was a file converter. The subtle differences in file formats mean that opening one version file in a different version program stores up some nasty surprises, for example, you write a paper with illustrations in a template prepared for one version of Word, and if you open the file in a different version, those carefully placed illustrations lose their anchors and spring to a different position, and one ends up screaming with frustration as they won't be put back. Part of this appears to be in the minutiae of font spacing calculations that differ from one Word version to another. Then again, some even earlier versions aren't readable at all. MS isn't alone in this, and even my favourite CorelDRAW recently stopped supporting many early file versions. If you want to irritate a long term user, this is one very effective way.

Some of the free software doesn't understand these issues, and is just as bad.

The latest versions of Word have removed some facilities that are allegedly rarely used (I never used them, so don't miss them) in the interests of loading speed, but Word still crawls into action.

The undockable nature of the ribbon means that the screen height is effectively reduced, and this has a deleterious effect on things that are taller than wide, for example text documents. Ribbons are collapsible (i.e. you can make them disappear), but clicking a tab makes them drop down. It just goes to show that the development team must be a right bunch of clever kids, fully able to program rather useless 'improvements' despite a regular intake of canabinoids 'for medical purposes'.