La communauté autour de la suite bureautique OpenOffice est actuellement secouée d'une polémique relative à la future interface utilisateurs. Les nouveaux "rubans" ressemblent étrangement à ceux de Microsoft Office 2007 alors même que ceux-ci sont très décriés.
Slamming the redesign simply on the toolbar redesign "is a bit unfair," McCreesh wrote in an e-mail. "Yes, one of the elements of the new design was a new toolbar, which reminded people of the Microsoft Ribbon. Not really surprising, in that using tabs like this is pretty common in UIs, e.g. on web sites."
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The redesign still needs to be "formally tested with real users and refined," he wrote. "The team will analyze the feedback from people who have used prototypes; other prototypes may be built.... It will be fascinating to see what emerges."
Haff said he prefers Microsoft's forceful hand when deploying the Ribbon, which he called "a clean sheet replacement for years of accumulated user interface crud." By contrast, OpenOffice.org's ribbon "*looks* to be an addition to what is already there, which, if that's the case, wouldn't solve anything," he wrote.
Michael Meeks, a Novell Inc. engineer working on OpenOffice.org, said he personally likes Office 2007's ribbon UI. His main concern about OpenOffice.org's proposed redesign is that "it is unclear to me who is going to do the coding," he wrote in an e-mail. "Lots of good ideas out there, but not enough typing muscle."
Controversy aside, OpenOffice.org appears more popular than ever. The latest version 3.1 passed the 20 million download mark last week, just three months after its release.
By Eric Lai / ComputerWorld