This new build of DotNetBar for WPF includes the all new Advanced Window control that provides you with the Office 2007 style Window and the great high-performance custom styling functionality. Here is screen-shot which shows the default Office 2007 style:

Can’t I already style the Window any way I want you might ask. Yes, indeed. Setting AllowsTransparency to true, Background to Transparent and WindowsStyle to none will let you style all of window surface with just one little disadvantage 😉 It forces the Window to use software assisted rendering instead of hardware one. Your custom window is now sluggish when resized and is just plain slow.

Enter the Advanced Window. Our implementation carefully worksaround this limitation and it does not cause window rendering to downgrade to software assisted rendering. Results is high-performance, snappy custom window. Here is screen-shot of the custom style I created:

You can find complete source code for this style in RibbonPad sample project included with new release.

We also added Live Preview support (see KB Article for details) to Ribbon buttons as well as better support for Windows Forms controls in Wpf-Dock control through DockSite.DockHintOverlay property. When set, it uses different overlay implementation so docking hints are displayed on top of windows forms controls.

Go grab fully functional trial of DotNetBar for WPF and create professional applications much easier than before.

Stay tuned for more in coming weeks…