SharePoint Dresses Up with New Ribbon UI

Microsoft Ribbon, also known as Ribbon Framework since its introduction in Office 2007, turns out to be highly productive and in most cases amazingly simple to use, mainly due to the way options are presented and categorized. However, this change in UI, especially when it started, was not as easy to adopt for the end users as you might expect. Considering the fact that most users were accustomed to using old menu bars, the change in layout posed some degree of challenge to them, to say the least.

SharePoint 2010 follows the same trail by adopting a similar Ribbon UI/Framework. This newly added Ribbon UI takes some time to grasp, but once you get some command over it , you start realizing its benefits. There is one advantage in terms of adoptability of the Ribbon UI: it's not entirely new, as most users have been working with it since the Office 2007 launch. And compared to SharePoint 2007, the options and menu items are more logically grouped, and this gives users (in particular the new SharePoint 2010 users) a much better experience in performing common tasks. Let's take a look at some of the key features of the Ribbon UI SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint List / Libraries

Document management is one of the key areas of SharePoint, and Libraries/Lists facilitate this feature. The Ribbon UI fits seamlessly here. In fact for most users who are involved in authoring and editing, it's a more natural fit , and most of them are coming from the Office 2007 background, which, as I stated, already had a Ribbon UI. The following picture shows how document library is displayed when you browse to it.

Ribbon UI is really about how it reacts to context. This is apparent when you click on a document or select the check box on left side of the document, and you will see that many options/controls in the Ribbon are now enabled. To perform tasks directed toward Library in general, the Ribbon UI already contains this option, as shown below. As SharePoint takes account of a current user's permissions, the options available depends on what kind of rights you have on the Library. The figure below shows what options are available for "Site Collection Administrator".

Altough the Ribbon UI is a new feature, the options sequencing, for the most part, live on in the same logical way as they did in SharePoint 2007.

For example, similar to SharePoint 2007, clicking on "New Document" will show the available templates associated with Document Library. Ribbon UI does not mean that the normal context menu is eliminated. This is shown in image below, also to note there is some duplication of options as they already present in Ribbon, for example option of "Check Out" as shown below.

SharePoint "Custom Lists" also follow the similar Ribbon UI used in "Libraries;" the only changes are the options available which are different from that of Libraries. This is shown in the figure below.

Similar to Libraries, the item selection causes the Ribbon options/control to become available/enabled. Also the options available for a "List" are presented and they also depend on the rights of the logged-in user.

Site Permissions

Interestingly enough, site permissions is another area where Ribbon UI is used, as show below. Again, the context of item and rights of the current user determines options available in the Ribbon. One might argue that if an option is not available due to current user rights, rather that an option being grayed out, perhaps a better way is to not display it at all.

Solution Gallery

The Solution gallery also utilizes the Ribbon UI, as shown below. Solution gallery takes into account "Sandbox Solutions." This concept is new in SharePoint 2010, plus for external hosting companies, this area of managing solutions is extremely important, as it directly affects overall performance. Ribbon UI provides easy and quick way to managing the available options. (The Central Administration Web site also leverages Ribbon UI.)

Service Applications

Service Application is a new architecture that replaces SharePoint 2007 Shared Service Provider "SSP". The main "Service Application" page is shown below.

The drop down "Connect" is shown below. Do take note that not all options will lead to the same behavior and some of them will open a dialog window, rather than an expansion of the same window.

Although Ribbon UI is quite consistent in SharePoint 2010, when you compare it with Ribbon in Office 2010 clients like Microsoft Word 2010, there are some minor differences. Some of them are discussed below. For example, the Ribbon in Word 2010, although similar to SharePoint 2010 Ribbon in general, behaves a little differently when an object is selected. This is shown in the figure below, where "Smart Art" is selected and Ribbon UI added extra options "Design" and "Format". Note that these options were not visible before.

Moreover, a gentle preview is displayed, when your mouse is moved over a quick access icon throughout the Ribbon, as shown below.