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New Feature Preview: "Ribbon"

· Posted by Peldi in Products · 5 Comments

Hi there. So no-one likes to scroll horizontally, myself included. So why does Mockups force you to scroll that way through 60+ UI controls in the UI Library?

Well, the main reason is because I couldn't come up with anything better. Then a customer pointed me to a better way, which helps a lot without taking too much space.

So here's a preview of the new "ribbon-like" feature of Mockups:

The thing to notice as I select control groups is how much bigger the scrollbar thumb gets (i.e. how much less scrolling will be necessary to see all elements in the group). Sometimes the scrollbar even disappears entirely!

I never use the UI Library myself (I'm a Quick Add fanatic), so I decided to not publish this change live until I got the go ahead of those of you who do.

So please test-drive the new UI here, let me know if you like it, and if so I'll push it live.

Peldi for the Balsamiq Team

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Comments (5)

  1. Ok, I’m pushing it live. Thanks for the feedback!

    Peldi Guilizzoni
  2. Test-drove it, liked it!

    I think that between getting rid of the background notebook, adding scroll-bars to the drawing surface, and now, this ribbon, you’ve removed all the little things that bothered me during day-to-day use.

    A nice plus would be: Show the ribbon “tabs” while hiding the UI library. Then mousing over, or clicking a tab would drop down the library until you selected an item or moved your mouse away.

  3. I’d love a keyboard shortcut which uses the full screen to display all components with the most recent 5 always at the top.

    brendan
  4. Looking good. Another, similar option is to do an auto-cad style tool pallette

    http://www.autocadgunlugu.com/im/0609/tpl-img2.jpg

  5. Why not make each subgroup a vertical scroll list, like a menu bar with big icons and descriptions?