Ribbon Everywhere?

Microsoft spends four years on Office 2007. Yes, four years is such a long time. However, what makes you WoW? Just Ribbon UI and XML file format are two important things I notice. Even though the new file format is not well treated by users, Ribbon UI has received a lot of reviews.

It is apparent that somebody loves it while others hate it. However, now Ribbon enters a new field Microsoft never imagines. The field is development tools.

If you know NDepend, a wonderful code analysis tool for .NET, you may see the coming version with Ribbon UI.

http://codebetter.com/blogs/patricksmacchia/archive/2007/08/29/ui-matters-revisited-menus-and-toolbars-vs-office-2007-ribbons.aspx

And if you try InstallAware, you see Ribbon too. It is surprising that InstallAware does not publish even a screen shot of the user interface on its web site. I notice this feature only after installing the tool.

Yesterday, when I read about MonoDevelop, I found that the guys might do a Ribbon UI in future versions too. Now GTK# Ribbon Library is nearly complete, so it is quite possible to see a Ribbon driven MD.

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Aug-30-1.html

Will one day we see Delphi or Visual Studio with Ribbon? Wait and see.