Ribbon (computing)

The Ribbon is a Widget composed of a strip across the top of the window that exposes what the program can do.

One of the ideas behind using a Ribbon is that all the functionalities of the software should be put in one and only one place and that they are easily reachable. One need not look through 3 levels of hierarchical menus, open up 31 toolbars and peruse about 20 Task Panes before finding the right functionality.

Ribbons will be heavily used in Microsoft Office 2007 and will replace menus, toolbars and many task panes. Microsoft claims that this will consolidate all the functionalities in one place.

External links

• Examples of Ribbons and discussion of their use