License the Ribbon Control! (Huh?)
on 11.21.06, 08:03pm in windows • Comments (1)
[Jensen Harris] For the last year or so, one of the questions I’ve been asked again and again has been: "Can I use the new Office user interface in my own product?" … Internally, though, more than a year ago we started talking about how we could share the design work we’ve done more broadly in a way that also protects the value of Microsoft’s investment in this research and development.
Yes, it’s called the Win32 Common Controls.
Now on one hand, it’s great to see that there’s an official ribbon control that I can finally use in my own applications (provided that it doesn’t compete with Access, Outlook, Powerpoint, Word, Excel or any other application that uses the Ribbon).
On the other hand, I’m completely baffled by this. Why aren’t these just a new set of common controls instead of a totally separate no-cost license? Think of how interesting things would have been in Vista if all the applications dumped WIMP and used the ribbon. Perhaps we truly would have seen the death of the main menu. Just bizarre.
anonymous (November 24, 2006 @ 3:36 pm)
Instead of trying to read 120 pages of licensing, try:
http://www.devcomponents.com/dotnetbar/nextgen.html
http://www.codejock.com/
Or, if you want a “ribbon” for your Web 2.0 site, just look at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
And feel free to use the CSS and JS files that are used to make the ribbon.
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Why did Microsoft stop making common controls? Creating a new COMCTL32.DLL for the new Vista OS would have been my top priority instead of WPF and all the managed code stuff that can only be used in managed applications. They should have created VISTACTL32.DLL that was standard CreateWindowEx and SendMessage-based. Then, the WinForms guys could have wrapped the controls (just like they do for User32, ComCtl32, and ComDlg32) and provide them to developers - thus covering managed and native applications. Also, the Office guys should have put the ribbon in that package.
What I find absolutely funny about “licensing” of the Office UI is that the only reason Office went down this path was to differentiate it from OpenOffice. There isn’t too much new in Office and the open source guys were making traction so it the “ok” was given to revamp the UI. And, they were only able to do it for some things. Now O12 looks incredibly stupid. Visio, OneNote, InfoPath all have different UI; Outlook has both; this is horrible.
I know that Jensen is supposed to be the “god”; but the ribbon is horrible and not well thought out. And, since it is only in Word, PPT, Excel, and Access - it doesn’t go the entire way - what a waste. The new UI will sell copies of Office as will the new UI in Vista. I have learned that users really buy things for new UI and not necessarily for features. Take a look at iTunes 7 - they changed the scrollbars to show a little bit of “newness” in the application.
Getting back on topic; if you want a ribbon, find a 3rd party instead of MSFT; MSFT for Vista + 1 better get back on the native code path and start creating the next generation of UI elements in C/C++ and building managed wrappers. Instead of new applications and new randomness in Vista + 1, simply do the basics - all new controls; built-in spellcheck on edit boxes; standard search control; ribbon; enhance the Win32 Resource File format for the new controls; ship a new resource editor; allow .RC files to be shipped on disk and loaded as text files (easily). Support JPEG, JPEG2000, PNG, RAW and all the other image formats in GDI (not GDI+ or MilCore)… Get back to basics! Give us animation and 3d in GDI; give us a timeline control. Give us a video control; a video jog dial; give us thumbnail viewers for images that we can add to our applications. Make drag-drop part of every control so we don’t have to write code… come on, build us an foundation so we can continue to build great applications.