We have to go back.
Not to the SystemMenu, but to the Legacy menu. See this post for a short explanation as to why this secret third option is in fact the superior one.
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Oh jeez, all this ranting in the thread.
I’ll be honest, I used to be just like you guys - SystemMenu 4ever, ignorant to change, never gonna use it.
But once I realized that some features weren’t working correctly in SystemMenu, such as the mobile emulator, I knew that if I wanted to stay up to date with the best ROBLOX Studio functionality, I had to move onto RibbonBar.
To this day, I still think the default layout isn’t very good, which is why I made my own modification of the Ribbon Bar XML file. Switching to RibbonBar was not the end of the world. I got used to it, and it works just fine for me.
With all that said, ROBLOX really needs to make customization support a top priority.
Some things it would be nice to have would include:
- Tabs & Groups under Tabs
- We should be able to create, rename, or remove certain tabs.
- Element alterations
- Drag/Drop items.
- Switch between textundericon and textbesideicon
- Toggle the display of text on an icon.
- Create dropdown lists.
- Allow us to add an options menu to a group (the same thing being used for Material Action as Tool)
- Theme Options (that actually look nice)
- Allow us to scale the height of the upper menu?
Is all of this way too complicated and insane for QTitanRibbon? Probably. But at the same time, if you guys want people to like RibbonBar more than SystemMenu, it needs to be just as flexable and configurable as SystemMenu is.
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You need to open studio via the shortcut on your desktop, then before opening a place head to Tools->Settings. There will be an option called UIdisplay, or something along those lines. Change that from SystemUi to RibbonBar, close studio and re-open it.
It may not be as complicated as you think considering ROBLOX’s ribbon is a modified MS Office ribbon, and Office 2013 allows you to configure the ribbon freely:
For instance, here I’ve created a new group of buttons in the HOME tab (I can also create new tabs):
@UristMcSparks These poll results are frightening. Only about a third of users are satisfied with the default RibbonBar layout, which is substantially less than what the default interface should see. I’d recommend bumping up the improvement of RibbonBar to a high-priority issue so that at least the majority of Studio users can be satisfied with the interface. Since Studio’s ribbon is based off of the ribbon MS Office uses, hopefully it won’t be too difficult to implement something like tab/tab content configuration which is already supported in modern versions of MS Office.
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Here’s a nice Ribbon regression:
Ribbon incorrectly cancels a multiple object selection when the mouse leaves the window this selection happens in.
As you can see, Legacy/SystemMenu handles this scenario correctly and identically to Windows. Thread.
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This is a poll I’d like to see.
(note, vote based on your preference based on the default SystemMenu and default, unedited RibbonBar)
##If both themes had the exact same features/support, which design would you prefer
- SystemMenu
- RibbonBar
0 voters
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That poll doesn’t really make much sense because RibbonBar is pretty much the exact same thing as SystemMenu if you don’t use the ribbon and put everything in the quick access menu, bugs aside.
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Ribbon is not even close to being the same thing as SystemMenu. For one, Ribbon lacks a menu bar. My post and many others detail the many areas in which Ribbon falls short besides the bugs it introduces.
Default SystemMenu. Default RibbonBar, unedited with XML. Not sure if I can edit the poll to add that.
Putting everything in the quick access pretty much defeats the purpose of the ribbon.
-
A menu bar
SystemMenu’s menu bar is trivial and mostly clutter. The menus are either desolate (Window) or crammed with useless functionalities (Edit). As a previously-avid SystemMenu user, the only menu buttons I ever used were File, Insert, and Test. All of those can cleanly be combined into a single menu. SystemMenu’s menu bar is 20px of wasted space which could otherwise be a single button which doesn’t take up a whole bar, like in RibbonBar. -
Multiple rows
You wouldn’t need multiple rows if SystemMenu didn’t clutter your toolbars with buttons you never use
-
properly divided, mouse-sized icons with no wasted space
Same story with RibbonBar
-
Lack of tabs/titles
You can collapse the tabs so they don’t take up any screen space -
Widgets that respect the OS’s current theme
If you didn’t use an obsolete OS / theme this wouldn’t be a problem
I completely understand if you want RibbonBar to be improved – that’s awesome if you do. But what you’re spouting is nonconstructive, anti-change rambling.
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This is essentially turning RibbonBar into a smaller SystemMenu.
Case and point. “RibbonBar is pretty much the exact same thing as SystemMenu if you don’t use the ribbon and put everything in the quick access menu, bugs aside.”
So what’s the point of enforcing the RibbonBar and that ridiculous ribbon when everyone pretty much turns it into SystemMenu? I just don’t understand this.
The ribbon isn’t being enforced – you’re free to tuck it away. Why force RibbonBar and drop SystemMenu? Because it means 1/2 the testing and no complaints that end up being an issue with an unsupported layout. On top of that, with SystemMenu developers aren’t taking advantage of new features that are supposed to help making quality games easier since those features aren’t available on their layout.
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read the op. they gave a reasonable rationale.
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“SystemMenu’s menu bar is trivial and mostly clutter”
Only because it wasn’t updated with shortcuts to new features as time went on.
“You wouldn’t need multiple rows if SystemMenu didn’t clutter your toolbars with buttons you never use”
Having more than one row allows me to organize my buttons better. I’d really like the ability to just have one row for important stuff and another for less used stuff. Just because I only use the terrain tool sometimes doesn’t mean it should be more than one click away.
“Same story with RibbonBar”
Cool dividers bro. 
As in there aren’t any. Have fun having trouble to quickly identify groups of icons without visual cues. UXGuide says: “Organize the commands within a toolbar into related groups”. This can’t be done right now. It should be a feature.
“You can collapse the tabs so they don’t take up any screen space”
This changes nothing.
“If you didn’t use an obsolete OS / theme this wouldn’t be a problem ;)”
You’re in no position to reject the best practice of respecting the OS’ theme.
Enjoy using the Unreal Editor 4 in 2016, on Windows 10. Looks great right? Blends right into that wonderful Metro + Modern + leftover Aero + leftover XP blind bag Microsoft prepared for you. Wouldn’t look better at all if it just used the system theme instead, right?
“what you’re spouting is nonconstructive, anti-change rambling.”
You do realize you posted a screencap of you trying your hardest to build a janky SystemMenu surrogate within a Quick Access toolbar, right? Is that really the kind of change you want?
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SystemMenu is easier to use over long periods of time because the changes you make last longer than a week. With Ribbon, any time studio updates, your changes vanish into the ether. Roblox has a principle of making turnkey systems, and using max’s tool is quite removed from that ideal.
Ribbon customizations are local to each version and standalone version. With SystemMenu, theres… How to word it… A unified aesthetic across all ~platforms~ studio instances. Ribbon doesn’t have that.
With SystemMenu, you can edit the layout however you want simply by clicking and dragging. With RibbonBar you have to look at all the XML and try to reverse engineer it so that you can get even a fascimile of what you want. Where is the documentation? Where is the editor?
Aside from familiarity with my work flow, these are my reasons for not switching to Ribbon.
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https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause
There are countless programs whose UI differs from the OS’s (Slack, Spotify, Google Chrome, Photoshop, etc) that don’t look bad. Using the OS’s theme for your program has nothing to do with whether an interface looks good or not. And using the system’s UI is not “best practice”. Look at any program renowned for its usability or interface and chances are it doesn’t use the system interface. Out of all the programs on my computer, only those made by Microsoft do.
Why is this a bad thing? And yes this is the kind of change I want. RibbonBar allows comfortable use of Studio for both SystemMenu and ribbon users. SystemMenu only accommodates the former. Why in the world would we prefer to support something that only accomplishes part of what the other does?
You’re right. SystemMenu has a lot of weaknesses because it hasn’t been updated. Missing features like a dropdown for selecting how many players per test server and mobile emulation aren’t the only issues either:
- I can’t toggle individual buttons in SystemMenu. I either have to have all the surface buttons enabled, or none of them. RibbonBar allows me to have just the ones I need.
- SystemMenu does not allow me to hide things I don’t need until I do need them, while RibbonBar supports this through tabs that can be switched between and collapsed/expanded
- Some of the SystemMenu icons are low-quality and reflect poorly on the overall aesthetic of Studio
And given that I haven’t used SystemMenu in about a year I’m probably leaving out even more. Both RibbonBar and SystemMenu have their own respective weaknesses, and need to be improved. The question is with the same amount of time put into each, which would end up as the better layout? With RibbonBar’s flaws corrected, there’d be no reason to use SystemMenu. With SystemMenu brought up to speed with new features, we would still need RibbonBar. The obvious conclusion is that RibbonBar should be worked on instead of SystemMenu. Note that I do not agree with ROBLOX’s decision to drop support before resolving the issues with RibbonBar, but when it comes down to which of the two should be supported, RibbonBar is the answer.
I just have to say it…
System Menu Deprecation, aka the Ribbon Bar Depression
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