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Submission details

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The Ribbon disappears in narrow windows

Submitted by billerr on February 1, 2009 to Aesthetics, Annoyance, Bug, Usability

If you make a Paint or Wordpad window very narrow, the Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar disappear completely. See the screenshots below.

Imagine such a situation in a small display, where the Ribbon has disappeared in a newly opened window and there is no way to bring it back other than widening the window, which might be difficult due to the constrained width of the display.

EDIT: By design, derived from the Office 2007 Ribbon.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/19/482631.aspx

(thanks to user Jaips, for the heads up)

Either disable scaling Ribbonned windows down past a certain point, so the Ribbon is always visible, or add a visual cue that the ribbon is there. Either a version with smaller icons or a dropdown menu.

Medium

Medium

Not fixed

Discussion (12 comments)

Ensign Joe wrote on February 1, 2009, 8:36pm

There should be a button that opens the ribbon as a window (not window but a window (haha) that expands towards the edges of the window to fit all the options in it.. some sort of popup)

Helito wrote on February 1, 2009, 8:46pm

And the WordPad have an old ruler...

+1

logic_earth wrote on February 1, 2009, 8:48pm

How small? well below 640! Yeah...
So I don't see how severity or impact is above low.

billerr wrote on February 1, 2009, 9:37pm

Well, there are always UMPCs and netbooks with sub-7-inch screens.
The Severity is medium because of the frustration caused by a program's main interface disappearing.

logic_earth wrote on February 1, 2009, 9:48pm

I don't think I've seen UMPCs with anything less then 800x600. Not to say there isn't!

Jaips wrote on February 2, 2009, 2:26am

i believe this is by design at least it was for office 2007

see:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/19/482631.aspx

Antonio wrote on February 2, 2009, 8:58am

When in a narrow window the ribbon could be shown on hover.

tino wrote on February 2, 2009, 9:16am

It's by design so you can use a document as a simple note.

Window must be smaller than 300px! Even smart-phones do have a higher resolution.

-1

billerr wrote on February 2, 2009, 11:47am

@Jaips: Thanks for that document. It makes more sense now.

However, it can't be denied that it is frustrating for those who might not know it. The only useful change I think of is perhaps a small information bar about what happens. Maybe it would appear the first time this happens only.

I'll edit the submission to include the new info.

billerr wrote on February 2, 2009, 11:48am

Changed problem description.

xombie wrote on February 2, 2009, 12:27pm

I think it's a good idea as it is. -1

Plus, the first time the program is launched, the ribbon is going to be visible anyway.

tino wrote on February 2, 2009, 9:58pm

@biller: Nobody would shrink the window so far if he wants to actually work with the program. And there is simply not enough space to show the ribbon.

This also happens to the navigation pane in Explorer.

nyp wrote on February 21, 2009, 11:04am

-1

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511279.aspx
"Resizable windows also need to use screen space effectively when made smaller, by making resizable content smaller and by removing space from UI elements that can work effectively without it. At some point, the window or its UI elements become too small to be usable, so they should be assigned a minimum size or some elements should be removed completely."

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