Why is it called the Ribbon?

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

Rick Schaut — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 19:57:07 GMT

The "Formatting Palette" in Mac Office was originally called the "Property Browser". Having things change name after you've written the code makes life interesting for developers. You have to remember that the name in the code is not what it's called everywhere else.

And, it gets worse as time goes on. The original implementation of the Formatting Palette was done for Mac Office 2001. With time comes turnover. People move on to other jobs, new people come in, and, as they learn the new code, they don't have that knowledge of how the names of things have changed over time.

By the way, the word "Ribbon" isn't new. Mac Word 5.0 had one, and it was the precursor to toolbars. Now, it's a replacement for toolbars. Funny how things come full-circle.

Rick

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

Rick Scott — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:13:33 GMT

The name the devs call it can be different from its "official" name...but sometimes the users call it something different, too. System Tray anyone?

I can see everyone in user-land start calling it the "header bar" or something. Or maybe ribbon will stick. Most likely, users will call it "that one place with the buttons and stuff".

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

Kawigi — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:36:00 GMT

Or "The Toolbar"

Speaking of meaningless names for the ribbon, I think I remember some people trying to call it the "Office Space". Any story on that, Jensen?

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

jensenh — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:47:07 GMT

"OfficeSpace" is another name that was used early as kind of the general name for the UI area in Office 12--I think it even pre-dates the Ribbon. But there's lots of code that references "OfficeSpace" still as well. Once names get in the code, it's not usually worth it to touch hundreds of files just to change names. There are many cryptic and often funny internal names for features. There's one particular feature that's been in the product since the late 90s that had a very funny name in the code--but I can't share it here. :)

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

Rick Schaut — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:16:23 GMT

I'd thought of Ben Waldman's feature, but decided against mentioning it for likely the same reasons. By the way, the copyright date in the header file for that feature is 1994, and the explanatory comment has been bowdlerized in the Win Office source tree. The original comment remains intact in the Mac Office source tree. If you want to know how Ben described it, let me know :-).

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

Step — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 22:38:10 GMT

Now I'm curious. :) Btw, I like Ribbon - probably for two reasons.
1 - It's short and sweet, and easy to say.
2 - I'm so excited about how much of an improvement it looks like it will be.

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

TC — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:29:32 GMT

Jensen, my comment is offtopic for your post, but ontopic for Office.

Previous versions of the Office apps have contained easter eggs. For example, Excel 95(?) had a complete adventure game with graphics, rivers, dungeons & so on. You could navigate a figure through a wall (IIRC), over a bridge, & so on.

I've always felt that the inclusion of those eggs, was hugely unprofessional. Every second, every byte, that was spent on those eggs, was completely unpropductive from an end-user viewpoint. Indded, it is /counter/ productive, because it just adds more code with the inevitable quantum of bugs & problems. IMO, the managers responsible for letting those eggs into the codebase, should have been ... erm ... thoroughly egged!

So my question is this. Will contemporary versions of Office contain any easter eggs? I'm hoping to hear no; not yes. IMHO, you should rigorously get rid of all of them.

Looking forward to hearing your views on this.

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

TC — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:34:25 GMT

Jensen H wrote: "There are many cryptic and often funny internal names for features." Is the guy who chose "NSA_Key" still laughing? :-)

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

jensenh — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 02:39:52 GMT

Current versions of Microsoft products do not contain "Easter Eggs."

This has been true for the last five years or so (in Office, the last version I'm aware of with eggs was Office 2000.)

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

TC — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 08:13:16 GMT

Jensen, my second post (above) seems to have messed up these comments. When I come back to this page, I see my first comment (above) ok, in its entirety, but then the text of my second comment (and your reply) just flashes up for an instantl & then disappears. Just thought I would mention it, perhaps other people are seeing that also.

re: Why is it called the Ribbon?

Max Palmer — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 11:10:28 GMT

I like the name the ribbon bar, to me it sounds like a thick toolbar, which (visually) is what it resembles - with tabs of course.

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