Classic menu still available?

[Woody44]

The Features web page for FlexiPDF offers the following as a "feature":

NEW: Intuitive ribbon interface in the style of modern Office programs

Is the ribbon menu the only user interface in FlexiPDF 2022, or does it also offer a classic, text-based menu toolbar as in SoftMaker Office 2021?

[martin-k]

Ribbons only in FlexiPDF 2022.

SoftMaker Office 2021 will continue to offer a choice of ribbons and menus.

[Woody44]

Looks like I won't be upgrading to FlexiPDF 2022, then.

I run SoftMaker Office with the classic menus. When I use Word 2016 or Word 2019, or Excel 2016 or 2019, I run them with an add-on that provides classic menus. I still use Adobe Reader XI and Acrobat 9 because they have classic menus. I am not interested in ribbon interfaces -- they make no sense to me. The attraction of SoftMaker Office is the availability of a comprehensible, classic menu system. I have zero interest in a product that only offers a ribbon menu, and I know that I am not alone in that opinion.

[pulgoki]

If you purchased 2022, can you install older versions of FlexiPDF?

I'm not a huge fan of the ribbon interface either. It could be a matter of just getting used to it.

[SuperTech]

No, with a new purchase of FlexiPDF 2022, you will be unable to activate older versions of FlexiPDF. Just start using FlexiPDF 2022 and in some time you will start enjoying ribbon interface.

[Woody44]

No, with a new purchase of FlexiPDF 2022, you will be unable to activate older versions of FlexiPDF. Just start using FlexiPDF 2022 and in some time you will start enjoying ribbon interface.

With all due respect, SuperTech, that is HIGHLY unlikely. I don't know how old you are, but I am 77 years old and I started using computers for word processing and spreadsheets with IBM-DOS 2.10. I have been using "classic" menus for so long that the ribbon menu makes no sense whatsoever. I have to use Word 2019 at work, and I must waste at least an hour out of every day searching the Internet to find out how to do something I could do in five seconds using Word 2003 or Textmaker (with the classic menu).

Same thing with PDF readers. FlexiPDF 2019 isn't bad, but I also still use Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe reader 11 for some tasks. Both of those Adobe products are out of date, but I know how they work. I tried the newer version of Adobe Reader and I couldn't do anything with it, so I deleted from my system and put Reader 11 on all my machines.

Respectfully, please don't let SoftMaker fall into the same mold as Microsoft, and assume that people will follow your lead and convert to the ribbon menu. We won't. I was all set to buy FlexiPDF 2022 -- until I learned that there's no classic menu. I'm sorry, but that takes FlexiPDF 2022 off the table. I have no reason to buy a program that offers very few (or none) new features that I need, and which is going to result in massive loss of productivity trying to learn a new user interface that makes my work more difficult rather than easier.

If SoftMaker Office didn't include the classic menu, there's no way I would have bought it. I could just download Libre Office (which still uses a classic menu) and use that.

[JohnWasilewski]

I have to say that I do agree. Classic menus very, very much preferred.

[Jossi]

Yes, this is a severe setback in FlexiPDF2022. As a SoftMaker volunteer I got early access to the release version and complained about this issue at the time, but I got the firm answer from SoftMaker that there will be no classic menu option for FlexiPDF. I helped myself by putting all my standard functions in the quick access bar.

[JohnWasilewski]

I have tried and tried to like the 'ribbon' GUI but, after some years of trying, I still very much dislike it. Why oh why did Micro$oft ever come up with this awful interface?
Two reasons why do I so dislike it:
(1) I still do not find it intuitive, and I still find sometimes that I have to search and search for ages to find something.
(2) Most documents have portrait orientation, which means I need as much vertical clearance as possible on the screen, for the document image. This wretched ribbon interface fills the top of the screen and extends so far down that the space available for the document becomes excessively depleted. With a 'classic menu', for a start, it takes up far less vertical space at the top of the screen, but that is not all, for one can also move one complete row of icons to a vertical position, on the left side. Not only does this give even more room for the height of the document but it also seems so much more natural, to have a top row of icons for format and layout functions, and a left side column of icons for all the other actions, like bookmarking, cross referencing, footnoting etc. With the 'wonderful' ribbon UI, I am able to do NONE OF THIS, and my document height is greatly and needlessly reduced.

When writing or editing complex documents, one really does need to be able to see as much of the page as possible. Having to keep continually scrolling vertically to check the text above or below the line under the cursor and/or to move paragraphs or parts of paragraphs around the page, is excessively inefficient. In part, I think it fair to say that the WHOLE POINT of a word processor is the ability to see a lot of the page whilst working on it.

Please, Martin and others, I know I'm not alone when I say I can't understand why you seem to have such belief in the ribbon interface, but do reconsider, won't you. and give us a 'classic UI' option in FlexiPDF? And please, PLEASE, don't ever remove it from TextMaker.
----
Sincerely,
John

[Jossi]

John,

sadly, every word you write is true. Ribbon interface is for me like: "Oh, you have all your books sorted neatly by author and title? How old-fashioned and boring! Let's sprinkle them all over the shelves to make a nice pattern of the spine colors!"

As there is no hope to ever see a classic menu in FlexiPDF again, I've tried to help myself, as I wrote before, by putting all functions I need quite often into the quick access toolbar and then minimizing the ribbons. Now most of the time I only see the ribbon group titles and the quick access toolbar, which is as close to a tradtional interface as I can probably get.

[martin-k]

May I suggest collapsing the ribbon?

In that case, you not only have more vertical space compared to the old menus in FlexiPDF 2019, it also feels very much like a menuing system: the menu bar (the ribbon tabs) is available the whole time, and clicking on one main "menu entry" opens a "menu", only horizontally arranged instead of vertically.

[Jossi]

That's what I meant with "minimizing the ribbons".

[martin-k]

Yeah, my high-speed reading comprehension was a bit lacking yesterday

[Woody44]

As there is no hope to ever see a classic menu in FlexiPDF again, I've tried to help myself, as I wrote before, by putting all functions I need quite often into the quick access toolbar and then minimizing the ribbons. Now most of the time I only see the ribbon group titles and the quick access toolbar, which is as close to a tradtional interface as I can probably get.

Respectfully, that's not at all close to a traditional menu. A traditional ("classic") menu uses text, not icons.

[Woody44]

May I suggest collapsing the ribbon?

In that case, you not only have more vertical space compared to the old menus in FlexiPDF 2019, it also feels very much like a menuing system: the menu bar (the ribbon tabs) is available the whole time, and clicking on one main "menu entry" opens a "menu", only horizontally arranged instead of vertically.

Sorry, that's an extremely poor alternative, and not at all acceptable.

You can mark me as one unhappy customer who will NOT purchase FlexiPDF 2022. I'll keep using FlexiPDF 2019 until it stops working, and then find another solution that works for me. I do not understand SoftMaker's position on this. You MUST know that the option of a classic menu is a major selling point for SoftMaker Office. I simply cannot comprehend why, knowing this, you have come out with a ribbon interface for FlexiPDF and NOT given users the option of a classic menu. Your response to those of us who have expressed a need for the classic interface strikes me as being akin to Marie Antoinette's famous "Let them eat cake" response when she was told the peasants had no bread to eat.