Content
Part 1: Background
The ribbon that is going to be used in this article is an open source project created by Jose Menendez Poo. However, the original author of the ribbon has stopped support of it. A group of fans of this ribbon re-host and continue to develop/enhance and support the ribbon.
The original 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.
Old Site: http://ribbon.codeplex.com (By original author, but has stopped support)
New Site: http://officeribbon.codeplex.com (Re-host by fans of the ribbon)
The latest released ribbon (10 Jan 2012) supports Visual Studio 2008, 2010 and 2012.
Part 2: How to Use this Ribbon Control
- Download the latest build of System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon35.dll (released on 10 Jan 2012)
- Create a blank WinForms project.
- Add a Reference to System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon35.dll in your project.
Right click on Reference in Solution Explorer, choose Add.
Locate System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon35.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
{
private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (disposing && (components != null))
{
components.Dispose();
}
base.Dispose(disposing);
}
#region Windows Form Designer generated code
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:
private void InitializeComponent()
{
ribbon1 = new System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon();
this.components = new System.ComponentModel.Container();
this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
this.Text = "Form1";
this.Controls.Add(ribbon1);
}
private System.Windows.Forms.Ribbon ribbon1;
Save and close Form1.Designer.cs
.
Double click and open Form1.cs, and now the Ribbon control is added into the main form.
4. Click on the Ribbon and click Add Tab.
5. Click on the newly added RibbonTab
, then click Add Panel.
6. Click on the newly added RibbonPanel
, go to Properties.
You will see a set of available controls that can be added to the RibbonPanel
.
Well, some of you might not able to see the extra command links of "Add Button", "Add ButtonList", "Add ItemGroup"... etc at the Properties Explorer.
Well, what you need to do is right click at the Properties Explorer and Tick/Check the [Commands].
7. Try to add some buttons into the RibbonPanel
.
8. Click on the RibbonButton
s, go to Properties.
9. Let's try to change the image and the label text of the button.
10. This is how your ribbon looks like now.
11. Now, create the click event for the buttons. Click on RibbonButton
, go to Properties, modify the
Name
of the button.
12. 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();
}
}
}
13. 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.");
}
14. Press F5 to run the application. Done.
15. 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.
16. 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.
Start
- 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
- To make your own color theme, create another class and inherit RibbonProfesionalRendererColorTable.
- Change all the color objects into your desired colors.
- 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();
}
}
}
Article Change Log:
02 Jan 2013
- Introduce new compiled version of ribbon, released on 10 Jan 2012.
31 Dec 2012
- Part 2: Guide added for using the ribbon in Visual Studio 2012
27 Apr 2012
- Content added: Part 6: How to Make a New Theme, Skin for this Ribbon Programmatically
15 Apr 2012
- Content added: Part 1: Background - Emphasize that Ribbon applicable on .NET Framework 3.5
and 4.0
14 Apr 2012
- Content added: Part 2: Step 3 - Added second method to add Ribbon into Form
12 Apr 2012
- Content added: Part 4: Using this Ribbon with MDI Enabled WinForm
11 Apr 2012