Changes in Ribbon UI for SharePoint 2013

In SharePoint 2013, selecting a document in a document library does not show the ribbon commands automatically and you need to manually click on the ribbon tabs (Files/ library) to use the commands. In SharePoint 2010, when you select a file checkbox in a document library, the 'Document' tab of the library tools ribbon automatically gets enabled with its commands. This is different in SharePoint 2013 where the Files/Library tab does not get automatically shown on document selection.

However, in SharePoint 2013, we can see that there is a " ... " button appear in the list/library, by clicking it, we can choose to perform the most commonly used actions against the page, list or other components. That means we can perform the actions of our choice within the list/library area in a page. What's more, we also can add custom actions into this " ... " menu to implement more functionalities.

This is an expected behavior in SharePoint 2013. The new UI reflects our “Minimal Download Strategy” in SharePoint 2013 that improves rendering performance when browsing content where large parts of the page do not change, which provides a more fluid navigation experience. You can read more here.

Also refer to the below links which provide more information about the SharePoint 2013 UI experience on document libraries.

#  Introduction to document libraries

# Introduction to libraries in SharePoint 2013 which shows the UI design for SharePoint 2013 document libraries.

# SharePoint 2010 Server Ribbon Architecture

Post by: Praveen Hebbar [MSFT]

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 22, 2014
  Hi Praveen You say above you can add new actions to the "..." menu, How do you do this in sharepoint 2013. I am having trouble finding that detail online. Specifically I want to add the workflows button to that list

• Anonymous
  July 07, 2015
  Ugggghhh...  This 'feature' is actually an annoyance.  I would like to know how to show the ribbon all the time.  The fact that document check-out is now an "Advanced" action on the ellipsis actually creates an extra step... an extra click to do something that was obvious when the ribbon was always displayed by default.

• Anonymous
  July 27, 2015
  You can enable the ribbon using Javascript Here is the link  rishiigupta.blogspot.com/.../enable-ribbon-on-item-selection-in.html

• Anonymous
  September 02, 2015
  So now selecting a document does...nothing. Brilliant. It used to open the ribbon allowing users to choose what to do with the document. OR You could select the Edit Menu and choose actions from there, two clicks. NOW you select the ... and then select the ... and then select the action. Three non-obvious clicks. What is wrong with your usability people?