Basic Ribbon Wrapper

Basic Ribbon Wrapper

We will start looking at some code.

Creating .NET wrappers The first thing needed for using WinForms-Ribbon from .NET is converting the C++ / COM definitions to C# ones. The conversions are done mainly by Microsoft CsWin32 project. I only have to define the needed COM-interfaces and other native methods to the files NativeMethods.txt and NativeMethods.json

The files relevant to Ribbon are: UIRibbon.idl, UIRibbonKeydef.h and UIRibbonPropertyHelpers.h. Note that UIRibbon.h is not interesting since it is auto-generated from UIRibbon.idl by the MIDL compiler. All these files are installed with Windows 7 SDK or a later Windows SDK.

How does the Windows Ribbon Framework work? The full details are provided in MSDN, which I recommend reading. Here I’ll only give a short overview so we are all on the same page.

To initialize a ribbon in your application you need to do the following:

1. Design your ribbon appearance using XAML-like markup (Can be done with RibbonTools64).

2. Compile your XAML-like markup using Microsoft Ribbon Markup Compile, provided with Windows 7 SDK (Can be done with RibbonTools64).

3. Have the binary output of the markup compiler stored as a (unmanaged) resource of your application.

4. On application load, CoCreateInstance the UIRibbonFramework class which implements IUIFramework interface.

5. Call IUIFramework.Initialize and pass it a reference to your implementation of the IUIApplication interface along with the HWND of your application window.

6. The IUIApplication interface supply a callback for the ribbon framework to call when it needs a command handler, for handling commands (represented as buttons, combos and the other usual controls).

7. Call IUIFramework.LoadUI which loads the pre-compiled resource and shows the actual ribbon.

What have I done, up until now?

In order to facilitate the use of the ribbon within .NET applications we will create a class that will be used as a façade for the Windows Ribbon Framework. RibbonStrip class is able to support applications with one or more ribbons on different forms. This class, named RibbonStrip, will be in charge of initialization and communication with the Windows Ribbon Framework.

The RibbonStrip class will provide an implementation of IUIApplication and handle all the COM details. The RibbonStrip class is derived from the System.Windows.Forms.Control class and handle the steps 4 to 7 written before. The RibbonStrip must be placed to a Windows Form directly with Top docking. The binary markup must be set to Embedded Resource and a reference must be set to RibbonStrip property MarkupResource.

The idea is to have your application provide only the minimal required details for the ribbon to work.

The RibbonStrip class currently exposes 2 methods, which are handled internally:

• InitFramework – receives the markup resource that will be used to load the ribbon configuration.

• DestroyFramework – cleanup code, free Windows Ribbon Framework resources.

These methods are called by the RibbonStrip class when the handle is created and destroyed, respectively.

Summary

I’ve put the library code RibbonFramework on Github along with some sample applications that uses the code to create a simple WinForms application with Ribbon support.

On my next post I’ll provide simple details on how to build your first WinForms Ribbon application using what we’ve developed so far.