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Bars for WPF

Everything you need to implement advanced ribbon, toolbar, and menu functionality

  • Reproduces a fluent Office-like ribbon user interface that has become the standard across many applications
  • An open source companion MVVM library allows you to completely manage the UI with view models and view templates
  • Includes many controls designed for usage in toolbars and menus, everything from split buttons and comboboxes to content-rich galleries

Ribbon

Ribbon implements an Office-like user interface, complete with modern themes, fluent animations, and extensive customization capabilities.

Variant Sizing

Variant Sizing

Ribbon consolidates all commands into a single location, which is easy to use and scales well, thereby providing fast access to all commands regardless of window size. The entire layout of child controls can be tailored to ensure the most important commands are prominently available. Through the use of variant layout phases, you can achieve nearly any dynamic layout that you find in Office.

Classic and Simplified Layout Modes

Classic and Simplified Layout Modes

Classic layout mode uses a taller ribbon with a combination of large buttons and multi-row groups of controls, and is ideal for large applications with lots of commands. Whereas Simplified layout mode is a modern refinement that uses a single row of controls and supports overflow. Ribbon can instantly toggle between the two modes.

Key Tips

Key Tips

Key tips provide easy keyboard access to any control on the ribbon or in its popups, even on backstage.

Screen Tips

Screen Tips

Screen tips are advanced tool tips with a standardized layout for bar controls, and intelligently display below the ribbon.

UI Density

UI Density

The user interface can switch between compact, normal, and spacious densities. Spacious densities are more touch-friendly.

Minimization

The end user can minimize the ribbon, reducing it to only show the tab row. While minimized, clicking on a ribbon tab shows the tab's content in a popup.

Quick Access ToolBar

The QAT may be located above the ribbon, below the ribbon, or hidden completely. It is a centralized place to store the most commonly-used commands and can be customized by the end user.

Contextual Tab Groups

Contextual tab groups may be displayed when the context of the selection is appropriate for them to be visible. For instance a Picture Tools contextual tab group's tabs may become active when a picture is selected in a document.

Ribbon Window

Used as a WPF Window replacement that provides tight integration with the ribbon control, allowing the QAT to be placed in the title bar, and backstage to fill the window.

Content-Rich Galleries

Galleries display a collection of related items or commands in a visually-appealing way, and may be used directly in a ribbon or in any menu.

Fonts

Fonts

Font family and size selection are galleries that are generally displayed from a combobox's drop-down menu, and can support preview on hover.

Colors

Colors

It's simple to display a custom color palette using the many available display options. Colors can be categorized and color shades can be generated.

Bullets and Numbering

Bullets and Numbering

Use custom rendering to display bullets or numbering systems, with the gallery items reflecting an example of the output.

Text Styles

Text Styles

Text style galleries can show a group of font and text appearance attributes applied as a set.

Symbols

Symbols

A symbol gallery provides quick access to insert commonly-used symbol characters.

Size Selection

Size Selection

Move the mouse over a custom-sized grid to support selection of a size, such as for new table row and column counts.

... and many more.

Galleries can be constructed to show any custom content and can support preview as the mouse hovers over items.

Backstage and Application Menu

Both the newer backstage and traditional application menus are available for use with ribbon.

Backstage
Backstage with the Info tab selected

The ribbon's backstage or application menu is displayed by clicking the 'File' application button in the upper left side of the ribbon. It generally consists of various application-wide commands such as those for new, open, save file operations and other functionality like printing.

Fluent Animation

Fluent Animation

Subtle fluent animations are used throughout Ribbon to delight the end user, such as when switching tabs and toggling Backstage.

Application Menu

Application Menu

Simpler applications may prefer a popup application menu instead of backstage. Optional additional content can be added to the side or a footer with buttons at the bottom of the menu.

Recent Documents

Recent Documents

A recent document control allows an end user to see and access recently-opened documents, and to optionally pin them.

Toolbars and Menus

Standalone Toolbars

A standalone toolbar control is flexible enough to be used in several contexts, and can host any of the galleries or controls that are used in a ribbon.

Primary Toolbar

Primary Toolbar

A standalone toolbar used as a window's primary toolbar can have a modern ribbon-like appearance.

Secondary Toolbar

Secondary Toolbar

A standalone toolbar used within a tool window can be set to host content more densely.

Overflow

Overflow

Any controls that don't fit on the toolbar are moved to an overflow popup, where they may be accessed.

Menus

Numerous menu item controls provide advanced functionality within menus, like split menu items and galleries, and are specifically designed to seamlessly appear alongside more traditional menu items.

Galleries

Galleries

Galleries are used in menus when a visual representation of a command is appropriate. Menu gallery items can look like in-ribbon gallery items, or be set to look like standard menu items such as with this borders gallery.

Context Menus

Context Menus

All of the menu item controls and galleries may be used in context menus as well, and a mini-toolbar can be displayed above the menu. This context menu contains a paste options gallery with three options.

Large Size Option

Large Size Option

While small menu items are typical, several kinds of menu item controls can be toggled to display in a large size. This is ideal when they need more emphasis, or if an extended description should be displayed.

The Bars product has been built from the ground up to support MVVM creation of the entire user interface if desired. An open source companion MVVM library is available that provides a full set of view models and related UI bindings to easily configure and manage your ribbons, toolbars, and menus.

Controls

This product includes these UI controls, for use in applications built with the WPF platform:

BarButton
BarCheckBox
BarComboBox
BarContextMenu
BarMenuGallery
BarMenuHeading
BarMenuItem
BarMenuSeparator
BarPopupButton
BarSeparator
BarSizeSelectionMenuGallery
BarSplitButton
BarSplitMenuItem
BarToggleButton
BarTextBox
BarToggleButton
KeyTip
MiniToolBar
RecentDocumentControl
Ribbon
RibbonApplicationButton
RibbonBackstage
RibbonContainerPanel
RibbonContextualTabGroup
RibbonControlGroup
RibbonFooterControl
RibbonGallery
RibbonGroup
RibbonMultiRowControlGroup
RibbonQuickAccessToolBar
RibbonTabItem
RibbonTabRowToolBar
RibbonWindow
ScreenTip
StandaloneToolBar
TaskTabControl

Explore Other WPF Controls

Next Steps

Free Evaluation

The best way to learn about our UI controls and their features is to download a free trial. This will allow you to see samples, documentation, and integrate them into your own apps.

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Licensing

When your app's development team is licensed, you can distribute an app using our royalty-free UI controls to anyone. Our purchase page helps you calculate the licensing to meet your needs.

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Online Documentation

All product documentation topics and a complete API reference are available for browsing on our web site.

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GitHub Repository

Clone our open-source repository on GitHub for the full source of the WPF Controls sample projects and documentation topics.

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NuGet Packages

Install product NuGet packages from nuget.org into any project, and easily update when new versions are released.

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