Couple of days ago we released a beta version of DotNetBar to our customers that allows
you to get very close to the look and feel of Office 2007 in your application and
all of that super easy. Here is screenshot of our standard RibbonPad sample that shows
off new functionality:

See anything different 😉 ?

This new release includes lots of new stuff and I’ll try to cover all of it in next
couple of posts. First there is a extension of Ribbon control to provide Office 2007
style “Start/file“ button and Quick Access Toolbar all
in form title bar. The Office style Button that you see in upper left corner is used
to provide access to all document/file and system related functionality, at least
that is what similar button does in Office 2007, but you can use it for anything you
wish.

Quick Access Toolbar located next to the start button can be used to provide
easy access to frequently used commands.

All this is super easy to use, you can show both start button and quick access toolbar
with just single property change and you can add new items simply by using the right-click
context menu in Windows Forms designer. Of course the form title bar and system buttons
functionally comes free with that as well.

Best of all, any VS.NET version is supported from 2002 to 2005 and all .NET Framework
versions.

So what happens when you press the start button? We’ll see tomorrow 🙂

If you have active DotNetBar subscription you can download this release under Upcoming
releases today. The final release is coming soon. I appreciate any feedback on
new functionality as always.

Denis Basaric, DevComponents LLC.