Actipro WPF Studio v3.5 adds a new control called NavigationBar. NavigationBar provides a facility for navigating through different panes of data. This concept was introduced in Outlook, and NavigationBar implements all of the features found in Office 2007. It has an elegant user interface which uses buttons to control which navigation pane is selected. Panes can display data or simply act as a container for child controls.
|
The NavigationBar control in its Office 2007 blue theme
|
If screen real estate is available, large buttons can be used for pane selection. The end-user has the option of using a splitter to move the large buttons into the overflow button tray, which uses smaller buttons. If not all of the buttons can fit in that tray, they flow out into the overflow menu, accessible by the chevron button.
NavigationBar Minimization
The NavigationBar supports a minimized mode in which it is collapsed to be very narrow. A button appears in the original content area of the NavigationBar and when clicked, a popup displays containing the content of the currently-selected pane. Minimization can be set to occur on the left or right sides.
|
A minimized NavigationBar control with its content popup displayed
|
Customize Button
The customize button can optionally be displayed in the overflow button area of the NavigationBar. When clicked, it displays a menu that is populated with default menu items but can be customized and fully styled
Options Window
A built-in Options window comes packaged with NavigationBar.
|
A minimized NavigationBar control with its content popup displayed
|
The window offers the end-user the ability to reorder navigation pane buttons by using the Move Up and Move Down buttons. Navigation pane buttons can also be hidden by unchecking the button items in the list. The visibility and sort order can be reset back to defaults by clicking the Reset button.
Themes
This product includes 8 distinct built-in themes and is fully extensible so that other product themes can be custom developed. Themes can be tinted towards any color or set of colors, and brush resources from them may be reused.
|
 
The built-in Luna Homestead theme and a custom-tinted theme
|
Containers
The NavigationBar has an option to hide its pane buttons. By using this option, you can mimic a simple container that has the NavigationBar appearance.
|
A NavigationBar control in the Luna normal-color theme containing a single pane, and with pane buttons hidden
|
NavigationBar also includes styles that can be used for Expander controls to mimic a sub-header panel. The expander uses fade and slide animation during expand and collapse operations.
|
A native WPF Expander with the Luna normal-color theme's expander style applied
|
Layout Serialization
End user layout customizations can be persisted in XML format and restored later.
Globalization
This control fully supports left-to-right layouts and user interface resource string customization.
Designer Support
NavigationBar has designer support similar to our other controls. For instance when working in Visual Studio 2008, you have access to task panes for the controls:
|
A NavigationPane selected in the Visual Studio 2008 designer
|
NavigationBar installs toolbox items for VS 2008. It even includes an item template that is available from the New Item pane in VS 2008 that when selected, creates a new Window with a simple NavigationBar on it.
Getting NavigationBar Free
Any Actipro WPF Studio customer with an active subscription is eligible to get NavigationBar for free!