Easily Add a Ribbon into a WinForms Application (C#)

This is an old version of the currently published article.

Download source code + demo + sample
Download RibbonButtonAndShortcutKeys.zip (using Menu Strip's shortcut keys with ribbon buttons.)

The above download contains:

Ribbon source code: RibbonSource0.4
Demo: RibbonDemo0.4
Sample: RibbonSample (Part 2) - Sample project explained in this article [Part 2]
Sample: RibbonMdiSample (Part 4) - Sample project explained in this article [Part 4]
Edited DLL: (edited) DLL - Modified DLL as described in [Part 4])

Content

Part 1: Background
Part 2: How to Use this Ribbon Control
Part 3: Cautious While Using with Visual Studio 2010
Part 4: Using this Ribbon with MDI Enabled WinForm (Update)
Part 5: Alternative Ribbon
Part 6: How to Make a New Theme, Skin for this Ribbon Programmatically
Article Change Log

Part 1: Background

The ribbon that is going to be used in this article is an open source project created by Jose Menendez Poo and SpiderMaster ( http://ribbon.codeplex.com/). The ribbon creator has posted an article explaining what this ribbon is all about at here: A Professional Ribbon You Will Use (Now with orb!). However, that article doesn't describe how to use it in your project. Therefore, this article will show how to use it.

Original development platform: .NET Framework 2.0. Can be used in .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.0.

Obtain Ribbon for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.0

(Updated: 22 Apr 2012)

To obtain the DLL for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.0, you can either convert the original source project of this ribbon from .NET Framework 2.0 to 4.0, or create a blank class project of .NET Framework 4.0.

If you choose to create a blank class, add all .cs files from the source code of System.Forms.Ribbon into your class, and add additional reference for:

System.Design
System.Drawing
System.Windows.Forms

Then, you have to modify GlobalHook.cs (refer [Part 4, Step 2]). Find private void InstallHook(). Add a return statement at the beginning of the method so nothing is done.

Next, please note that in your new WinForms project, after the first build, the target framework will initially switch to .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile. You have to manually switch it back to .NET Framework 4.0. This is because Client Profile does not support System.Design which is required by the Ribbon to run internally.

Part 2: How to Use this Ribbon Control

Download the Ribbon source code and obtain System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon.dll.
Create a blank WinForms project.

There are two methods to add the ribbon into the form.

Using code to add the ribbon
Drag and drop

Using code to add the ribbon

Add a Reference to System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon.dll in your project.

Right click on Reference in Solution Explorer, choose Add.

Locate System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon.dll.

Open the designer of Main Form. In this example, Form1.Designer.cs.

This is the initial code for Form1.Designer.cs:

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    partial class Form1
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Required designer variable.
        /// </summary>
        private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

        /// <summary>
        /// Clean up any resources being used.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="disposing">true if managed
        /// resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>
        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (disposing && (components != null))
            {
                components.Dispose();
            }
            base.Dispose(disposing);
        }

        #region Windows Form Designer generated code

        /// <summary>
        /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
        /// the contents of this method with the code editor.
        /// </summary>
        private void InitializeComponent()
        {
            this.components = new System.ComponentModel.Container();
            this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
            this.Text = "Form1";
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

Add three lines of code into Form1.Designer.cs.

private System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon ribbon1;
this.ribbon1 = new System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon();
this.Controls.Add(this.ribbon1);

Save and close Form1.Designer.cs.

Double click and open Form1.cs, and now the Ribbon control is added into the main form.

Drag and drop

This is a simpler way to add the ribbon into a form. Simply create a new tab in the Toolbox. Drag and drop the DLL into the new tab. Click on any area of Toolbox. Right click > Add Tab.

Give the new tab a name.

Drag the DLL into the new tab area.

Drag the Ribbon into the form. That is it.

And this will automatically add a reference to System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon for you.

Click on the Ribbon and click Add Tab.

Click on the newly added RibbonTab, then click Add Panel.

Click on the newly added RibbonPanel, go to Properties. You will see a set of available controls that can be added to the RibbonPanel.

Try to add some buttons into the RibbonPanel.

Click on the RibbonButtons, go to Properties.

Let's try to change the image and the label text of the button.

This is how your ribbon looks like now.

Now, create the click event for the buttons. Click on RibbonButton, go to Properties, modify the Name of the button.

Open the code for Form1.cs.

This is what we have initially:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }
}

Add the Button's Clicked event for the RibbonButton.

public Form1()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    cmdNew.Click += new EventHandler(cmdNew_Click);
    cmdSave.Click += new EventHandler(cmdSave_Click);
}

void cmdNew_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    MessageBox.Show("Button \"New\" Clicked.");
}

void cmdSave_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    MessageBox.Show("Button \"Save\" Clicked.");
}

Press F5 to run the application. Done.

You might want to inherit your Main Form into a RibbonForm to have extra features. Such as:

Note: Inherit the Main Form to RibbonForm will have some compatibility problems with some of the System.Windows.Forms controls.

In the code for Form1.cs, change this line:

public partial class Form1 : Form

to this line:

public partial class Form1 : RibbonForm

A sample project (RibbonSample.zip) that is used to explain this article is downloadable at top.

Part 3: Caution While Using With Visual Studio 2010

Always save and close straight away after you have finished designing the GUI editing of Main Form (the form that contains the ribbon control).

Don't Run (press F5) the application while the Main Form is open in Visual Studio 2010. Or else, you might experience that the ribbon control has disappeared. You will end up redesigning/redrawing the ribbon and reconnecting all the events that are associated with the ribbon.

Part 4: Using this Ribbon with an MDI Enabled WinForm

The following guide will show how to apply this ribbon with an MDI (Multi Document Interface) enabled WinForm.

Simple Walkthrough

I'll briefly explain what are we going to do here.

The original System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon.dll obtained from the source code is not fully compatible with System.Windows.Forms's MDI client. You'll experience a delay while closing forms within the MDI client area. Therefore, we have to make some modifications on the DLL so that it will enable us to use the Ribbon with MDI fluently. The sample project described in this article can be downloaded at the top. You may download it, and view the code to have a better understanding of the workflow of implementing MDI with this ribbon control.

This guide will also show you how to eliminate the control box (highlighted in the below picture) when a MDI child form is maximized within the MDI client control of the main form. This will help make the appearance of the application look less weird.

Start

Start off by modifying the original System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon.dll.
Download the source code of the ribbon. Open GlobalHook.cs.

Find private void InstallHook(). Add a return statement at the beginning of the method so nothing is done.

Build the solution and obtain the newly edited System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon.dll. We'll use this to build our next MDI WinForm. Or, you can simply download it (which I've modified) at the top of this page.

Add this edited System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon.dll as reference and start building the application.

Let's first create a Ribbon application with the edited System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon.dll like this. Don't inherit the MainForm (the form that contains the ribbon control) with RibbonForm. Inheritance of RibbonForm is not compatible with the MDI client control.

Create the Click event for the ribbon buttons.

public partial class MainForm : Form
{
    public MainForm()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        cmdCloseForm.Click += new EventHandler(cmdCloseForm_Click);
        cmdForm1.Click += new EventHandler(cmdForm1_Click);
        cmdForm2.Click += new EventHandler(cmdForm2_Click);
        cmdWelcome.Click += new EventHandler(cmdWelcome_Click);
    }

    void cmdWelcome_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {

    }

    void cmdForm2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {

    }

    void cmdForm1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {

    }

    void cmdCloseForm_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
            
    }
}

Next, set the MainForm's properties of IsMdiContainer to True.

Create a few forms that needs to be opened in MainForm's MDI. You can name them anything, of course, but we take these as examples:

Form1.cs
Form2.cs
WelcomeForm.cs

and the codes we use to open the forms in MDI might look like this:

void cmdForm1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Form1 f1 = new Form1();
    f1.MdiParent = this;
    f1.ControlBox = false;
    f1.MaximizeBox = false;
    f1.MinimizeBox = false;
    f1.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized;
    f1.Show();
}

These forms run normally, but you will notice there is an annoying Control Box appearing at the top of the Ribbon Bar control.

To get rid of the Control Box, we need to rearrange these codes in the correct sequence.

f1.ControlBox = false;
f1.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None
f1.MaximizeBox = false;
f1.MinimizeBox = false;
f1.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized;

First, we create another form named MdiChildForm.cs. Open the designer for MdiChildForm.

Add the below code to MdiChildForm.Designer.cs at the right sequence:

this.WindowState = System.Windows.Forms.FormWindowState.Normal;
this.ControlBox = false;
this.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None;
this.MaximizeBox = false;
this.MinimizeBox = false;

In the Load event of MdiChildForm, add this:

public partial class MdiChildForm : Form
{
    public MdiChildForm()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.MdiChildForm_Load);
    }

    private void MdiChildForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        this.ControlBox = false;
        this.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized;
        this.BringToFront();
    }
}

Save and close MdiChildForm.cs and MdiChildForm.Designer.cs.
Modify all forms (forms that will be loading in MainForm.cs's MDI) to inherit MdiChildForm.

Form1.cs

Change this:

public partial class Form1 : Form

to this:

public partial class Form1 : MdiChildForm

Form2.cs

Change this:

public partial class Form2: Form

to this:

public partial class Form2: MdiChildForm

WelcomForm.cs

Change this:

public partial class WelcomForm: Form

to this:

public partial class WelcomForm: MdiChildForm

Open forms and load it into the MDI client of MainForm.

void cmdForm1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Form1 f1 = new Form1();
    f1.MdiParent = this;
    f1.Show();
}

Done. A sample project (RibbonMdiSample.zip) that is used in this article can be downloaded at the top.

Part 5: Alternative Ribbon

You may also want to have a look at:

Part 6: How to Make a New Theme, Skin for this Ribbon Programmatically

Default Theme

Example color theme of RibbonProfesionalRendererColorTableBlack.cs (ready made by ribbon author).

Another custom theme

Open the source code. In Solution Explorer, there is a file/class named RibbonProfesionalRendererColorTable.cs. This class defines all the colors of each component in the ribbon.

There is a class named RibbonProfesionalRendererColorTableBlack.cs. This is an example of a customized theme. (Shown above, picture 2.)

To make your own color theme, create another class and inherit RibbonProfesionalRendererColorTable.cs.
Change all the color objects into your desired colors.

A sample is available inside the source code file.

Example: (the first five colors have been filled for your reference).

In this example, we'll name the new theme MyCoolThemeSkin.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Drawing;

namespace System.Windows.Forms
{
    public class MyCoolThemeSkin
        : RibbonProfesionalRendererColorTable
    {
        public RibbonProfesionalRendererColorTableBlack()
        {
            #region Fields

            OrbDropDownDarkBorder = Color.Yellow;
            OrbDropDownLightBorder = Color.FromKnownColor(KnownColor.WindowFrame);
            OrbDropDownBack = Color.FromName("Red");
            OrbDropDownNorthA = FromHex("#C2FF3D");
            OrbDropDownNorthB = Color.FromArgb(201, 100, 150);
            OrbDropDownNorthC = 
            OrbDropDownNorthD = 
            OrbDropDownSouthC = 
            OrbDropDownSouthD = 
            OrbDropDownContentbg = 
            OrbDropDownContentbglight = 
            OrbDropDownSeparatorlight = 
            OrbDropDownSeparatordark = 

            Caption1 = 
            Caption2 = 
            Caption3 = 
            Caption4 = 
            Caption5 = 
            Caption6 = 
            Caption7 = 

            QuickAccessBorderDark = 
            QuickAccessBorderLight = 
            QuickAccessUpper = 
            QuickAccessLower = 

            OrbOptionBorder = 
            OrbOptionBackground = 
            OrbOptionShine = 

            Arrow = 
            ArrowLight = 
            ArrowDisabled = 
            Text = 

            RibbonBackground = 
            TabBorder = 
            TabNorth = 
            TabSouth = 
            TabGlow = 
            TabText = 
            TabActiveText = 
            TabContentNorth = 
            TabContentSouth = 
            TabSelectedGlow = 
            PanelDarkBorder = 
            PanelLightBorder = 
            PanelTextBackground = 
            PanelTextBackgroundSelected = 
            PanelText = 
            PanelBackgroundSelected = 
            PanelOverflowBackground = 
            PanelOverflowBackgroundPressed = 
            PanelOverflowBackgroundSelectedNorth = 
            PanelOverflowBackgroundSelectedSouth = 

            ButtonBgOut = 
            ButtonBgCenter = 
            ButtonBorderOut = 
            ButtonBorderIn = 
            ButtonGlossyNorth = 
            ButtonGlossySouth = 

            ButtonDisabledBgOut = 
            ButtonDisabledBgCenter = 
            ButtonDisabledBorderOut = 
            ButtonDisabledBorderIn = 
            ButtonDisabledGlossyNorth = 
            ButtonDisabledGlossySouth = 

            ButtonSelectedBgOut = 
            ButtonSelectedBgCenter = 
            ButtonSelectedBorderOut = 
            ButtonSelectedBorderIn = 
            ButtonSelectedGlossyNorth = 
            ButtonSelectedGlossySouth = 

            ButtonPressedBgOut = 
            ButtonPressedBgCenter = 
            ButtonPressedBorderOut = 
            ButtonPressedBorderIn = 
            ButtonPressedGlossyNorth = 
            ButtonPressedGlossySouth = 

            ButtonCheckedBgOut = 
            ButtonCheckedBgCenter = 
            ButtonCheckedBorderOut = 
            ButtonCheckedBorderIn = 
            ButtonCheckedGlossyNorth = 
            ButtonCheckedGlossySouth = 

            ItemGroupOuterBorder = 
            ItemGroupInnerBorder = 
            ItemGroupSeparatorLight = 
            ItemGroupSeparatorDark = 
            ItemGroupBgNorth = 
            ItemGroupBgSouth = 
            ItemGroupBgGlossy = 

            ButtonListBorder = 
            ButtonListBg = 
            ButtonListBgSelected = 

            DropDownBg = 
            DropDownImageBg = 
            DropDownImageSeparator = 
            DropDownBorder = 
            DropDownGripNorth = 
            DropDownGripSouth = 
            DropDownGripBorder = 
            DropDownGripDark = 
            DropDownGripLight = 

            SeparatorLight = 
            SeparatorDark = 
            SeparatorBg = 
            SeparatorLine = 

            TextBoxUnselectedBg = 
            TextBoxBorder = 

            #endregion
        }        
    }
}

Then, in the Load event of MainForm.cs, add this line:

namespace RibbonDemo
{
    public partial class MainForm : RibbonForm
    {
        public MainForm()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            this.Load +=new EventHandler(MainForm_Load);
        }

        private void MainForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            (ribbon1.Renderer as RibbonProfessionalRenderer).ColorTable = 
                new MyCoolThemeSkin();
        }
    }
}