Windows 7 New Taskbar - An Overview

Windows 7 has a new shiny Ribbon platform developers can leverage to create new user experience for their applications. Using the Windows 7 Ribbon, developers can eliminate much of the drudgery of Win32 UI development and deliver a rich, graphical, animated, and highly familiar user interface by using markup based UI and a small, high-performance, native code runtime.
Join Nicolas Brun and Ryan Demopoulos as they explain what Windows 7 Ribbon is all about, how developers can use it, and why Microsoft investments resources in creating a new Ribbon for Windows 7? Nicolas will also show some code and Mark-up just to show how easy it is to integrate this new technology.
Who said that the Office RIBBON was a good thing in the first place ???
It's damn hard to get used to .. I prefer the good old menu system ...
Even if the ribbon is there , there should be an option for the user to choose a classical menu interface ...
Clasical menues have : have predefined keyboard shorcuts, and they are faster to use without having to move the mouse and no need to even look at the keyboard ...
But when it comes to this silly RIBBON interface one tends to waste the time wondering where a command is located ….. which reminds us of the old Start Menu .. where you'd spend an average of 1/2 an hour a day searching for program shortcuts ..
Now VISTA offers quick search in the start menu .. but Office 2007 would reclaim that wasted 1/2 an hour in searching and locating the UI commands ...
Please let the RIBBONS in Windows 7 an option .. and make sure that good old menus are available for users who want things done and not waste their time in figuring out where a command is ...
80% of the usability testers like the ribbon. were they all kindergartners or were some first graders, too? because the ribbon in office, especially in excel, is a nightmare for developers.
Be careful what you ask for as far as productivity or you'll lose your QWERTY keyboard next.
For those can't, or don't want to, think for themselves but would rather have the new iteration of MS Bob hold their hands while doing basic "baby" tasks while keeping true functionality hidden, consider this, its at your level.
Monitors are virtually all wide screen with significantly less vertical viewing space. Good for movies, useless for much else. (Another statement on the sophistication of the audience that manufacturers and MS are marketing to) With less vertical viewing space, MS is their great wisdom decides to eat up even more of it with a ribbon.
If "pretty" and "toys" are your criteria for evaluating OS usability you might want to go back to crayons.