Happy New Year Everyone 🙂

So with the new year there is a new feature in DotNetBar Ribbon Control: KeyTips.

Keyboard support in DotNetBar Ribbon Control includes standard Shortcut keys and now
KeyTips in Office 12 style as well. KeyTips are actually keyboard accelerators adapted
to Ribbon control. You know the ones that you prefix with the & character when
assigning the text to buttons, menu items etc.

In menu based windows forms (WinForms) UI you can navigate top level menus by
using Alt + key combinations and accelerator character were underlined once you push
the Alt key so you know which character to push to expand the menu.

KeyTips take this concept and apply it to Ribbon control. When you press the Alt key
little “tooltips” show up on the items to indicate which keys you need
to press to activate them. Here is screenshot from RibbonPad sample taken after
Alt key was pushed to illustrate this in action:

So for example in picture above I could press L to switch to Page Layout tab or I
could press P key to activate the Paragraph ribbon. So when I press the P key the
Paragraph ribbon is activated and KeyTips for Ribbon alone are displayed as shown
in picture below:

Now after I selected Paragraph I can see only Paragraph ribbon KeyTips. I can
press for example C to execute Center Paragraph command. I could also hit Escape key
at any time to exit this mode. Neat. This should make keyboard aficionados using
your product happy 🙂

Build with KeyTips has just been posted for our Customers. Updated build as trial
should show up on Next
Generation page soon as well.

Enjoy.

Denis Basaric, DevComponents LLC.