Ribbon and Sidebar Examples
A ribbon with the tabs of TX Text Control, sidebars for styles, comments or tracked changes, and a quick access toolbar make up the user interface of most Windows Forms applications built with it. The samples and articles below show how to build such a form and how to change the ribbon to fit your application.
Sample Projects
| Example | What it shows | Where |
|---|---|---|
| TX Words Ribbon | A complete RibbonForm with all tabs, contextual tab groups and sidebars, the Ribbon sample of TX Words Sample Application | TX Words\Ribbon of the setup, and the folder TX Words of TXSamples_WinForms_CSharp |
| Mini toolbar | Groups of the MiniToolbar that depend on what is selected; ShowMiniToolbar sets when it appears. Version 32.0, in C# and Visual Basic | TXSamples_WinForms_CSharp, folder Howto |
| Merge field names in the ribbon | Readable names for the merge fields in the drop-down lists of the RibbonReportingTab, as described in Windows Forms Ribbon: Displaying User-Friendly Merge Field Names. .NET Framework 4.8, version 33.0 | TextControl.WindowsForms.CustomRibbon |
| Icons and texts of the ribbon | The icons and texts of the ribbon and the toolbars from the ResourceProvider, for any resolution, culture and color, as described in X17: Using the Windows Forms Resource Provider. .NET Framework 4.5, version 33.0 | TextControl.WindowsForms.ResourceProvider |
| Tab dialog from the ruler | The tab dialog opened when the user double-clicks a tab position in the RulerBar, as described in Opening the Tab Dialog on Clicking a Tab Position in the RulerBar. .NET Framework 4.8, version 33.0 | TextControl.WindowsForms.Tab-Dialog |
The other TX Words samples use further tabs and sidebars of the ribbon, such as the conditional instructions sidebar or the permissions tab; see TX Words Sample Application.
Blog Articles With Code
No repository shows the sidebar or the quick access toolbar on its own. These articles contain the code in the article, written for the version named:
| Example | What it shows | Where |
|---|---|---|
| A ribbon application on .NET 8 | A ribbon form with a styles sidebar, set up with the NuGet package and the smart tag of the TextControl. Version 32.0 | Getting Started: Creating a .NET 8 Windows Forms Ribbon Application with Sidebar Support |
| Contextual tabs and the application menu | Contextual tab groups for tables and frames, the quick access toolbar and loading and saving from the application menu. Version 29.0 | Creating A Windows Forms Ribbon Application |
| Customizing the ribbon | Texts changed, events attached, and items, groups and tabs removed or added | Customizing the Windows Forms Ribbon |
| Quick access toolbar | Buttons added to the quick access toolbar with SetQuickAccessToolbarStandardItems | Adding Elements to the Ribbon QuickAccessToolbar |
| Customizing the mini toolbar | A group with a print button added to the mini toolbar in TextMiniToolbarInitialized | Using the ResourceProvider to Customize the Ribbon MiniToolbar |
| Sidebars | Docked and pinned sidebars with the content layouts available in version X16; version 34.0 has more layouts, which SidebarContentLayout lists | X16: Using the TX Text Control Windows Forms Sidebars |
The articles name the toolbox tab of their version. In version 34.0, the tab is TX Text Control 34.0; see Visual Studio Toolbox and Designer.
Next Steps
- Create a Ribbon Application with Sidebar Support: build a ribbon form step by step.
- Ribbon, Toolbars, Rulers, and Status Bar: the components and their tabs.
- Sidebar: the panels of the sidebar.
- Sidebar and Panels: how the ribbon opens them.