Using ButtonSpec instances in your KrytonHeader and KryptonHeaderGroup controls is now much easier with new design time features.

Adding a ButtonSpec to a control like the KrytonHeader is very easy. Just use the properties window to edit the ButtonSpecs collection property and define whatever you need. But hooking into the Click event is a pain. You can only do this by adding code manually.

Well no more. Now when you click on the displayed button specification on the control it will change the selection to the ButtonSpec instance. You can then alter the properties or view the component events in the property window. Even better, when you double click the button it automatically generates the click event handler in your code. Just like it does for a conventional button. This is much more intuitive and speeds up development.

I have fixed a couple of design time issues with the KryptonNavigator that should improve usability and ease development.

If you Copy and Paste an KryptonNavigator instance it does not copy the KryptonPage objects it contains. Instead it would move the pages from the original instance to the new navigator instance. Obviously this is not the expected behaviour and it has now been fixed.

The second issue is less apparent to most developers. The Document Outline docking window shows the hierarchy of controls and components in your Form. At the moment it never shows any children for the navigator even when it has pages. This makes it impossible to use the Document Outline to visualise the hierarchy and change selection. This is now fixed as you can see here…

There is a third design time issue that I have not yet been able to resolve. If you place a navigator on a Form and then inherit another Form from it then you cannot edit the navigator pages collection in the derived class.

Actually it is a little more complex than that. If the base form has no pages in the navigator then the derived form can edit the colllection. If the base form has 1 or more pages then the derived form shows the pages collection as read only. Why this should be the case I cannot yet work out.

The base navigator control and pages are marked as public in the base form. But for some reason the designer will not let you edit the pages collection if it has contents declared in a base form. Any ideas people?

Double click a ribbon tab or right click the tabs area to get a context menu and you can toggle to and from the minimized mode.

When in the minimized mode you get to see the tabs area but the groups area is hidden away to give the application as much room as possible.

Now when you click one of the tabs it becomes selected and also a popup appears showing the groups for that selected tab. This popup appears over the top of the window and so does not restrict the underlying application area.

As soon as you click anywhere away from the ribbon control or use the keyboard to switch active window then the popup is dismissed. Once the popup is dismissed the selection is also removed as you cannot have a selected tab without the groups area showing.

To switch between minimized and normal mode you can right click the tabs area and use the context menu as shown here…

Alternatively double click one of the tabs or use the Ctrl+F1 shortcut key combination.

The group now hot tracks when the mouse moves over it and the dialog launcher button works.

When the mouse enters a group it becomes highlighted as can be seen with the blue scheme below.

The small button on the bottom right of the group is also now working. Here you can see the mouse hovering over the button which is highlighted. When pressed it will generate a event for the group instance so you can then show a dialog box or perform any other operation you need.

Just to complete the set here is the black color scheme and this time the selected tab is for a context tab, hence the lighter background to the groups area.

Now that the tabs and context titles are working I am moving onto the actual groups within the tab.

You can now use the RibbonGroups collection that is a property of the KryptonRibbonTab object to add/remove a list of groups. You can only use it define the number of groups at the moment. I want to get the appearance right before adding other functionality such as a working dialog box launcher or correct group name etc.

Here is a tab with a couple of groups.

Using my trusty Paint Shop Pro I have managed to get the colors and appearance about right for the three color schemes.