We have two new modes for the KryptonNavigator. As we already have code in the renderer for drawing KryptonRibbon tabs it makes sense to reuse that code from the navigator.

Bar – RibbonTab – Group
In this mode the ribbon tabs are placed on a bar in the same way that the check button and traditional tab headers are also placed on a bar. So here is the appearance for the default Office 2007 – Blue palette.

The mode responds to all the usual bar properties and so you can place the tabs on any edge. Here we have the ribbon tabs on the bottom edge with the Office 2007 – Silver palette.

And now on the left edge with the Office 2007 – Black palette.

Next we have the Professional – 2003 palette with the tabs on the right edge but with an additional string at the bottom of the tab. We also orientated the tab contents to be vertical inside of rotated around and pointing towards the center of the control.

Also take note that when the tab itself has the focus it is drawn in the same dark yellow/orange style as it is inside the KryptonRibbon. Unlike the ribbon we also show a focus rectangle to be consistent with the check button and traditional tabs appearance. You could of course customize a single setting to remove the focus rectangle if you prefer it not to be present.

Bar – RibbonTab – Only
Our second mode is just a small variation. Here we are using the tabs like a tab strip so that the center does not have the selected page displayed.

As a fan of the Stephen Colbert show I thought I would follow his Tip of the Hat segment with my own. Here I want to give full credit to three people involved in the new website and server.

John Marshall
If you need a systems administrator with expert knowledge then this is your man. John setup our dedicated server from scratch using FreeBSD including email, website hosting, domain zones and much more. It runs like a dream and is constantly kept up to date with the latest security patches. Contact John via his website.

Heidi Ramirez
If you like the new website as much as I do then contact Heidi to get a makeover for your own site. She combines great design skills with active feedback to help you converge on the final design that makes sense for your business. Check out her resume.

Filippo Lughi
Finally a big thanks to Filippo for quickly creating the home page flash animation. Filippo managed to get it created in double quick time when I had a tight deadline. Check out his website.

Navigator Mnemonics
Prompted by a request from a forum poster I have added mnemonic key support. To setup a mnemonic you just add the ‘&’ character in front of the character you would like to see underlined. At design time you just use the property window for the KryptonPage and update the Text property. In code you would do this to get the ‘m’ underlined:-

kryptonPage1.Text = "Exa&mple"

At runtime you just press the ‘m’ character and that page will become selected. The use of mnemonics only applies to those modes that show per-page selection. So the Panel, Group and HeaderGroup modes do not have mnemonic support simply because it does not make sense for those modes.

Navigator Shortcuts
Also due to a forum request I have added shortcut definitions for each of the four action buttons. Here are the default shortcut key combinations for each of the buttons:-

Close Button = Ctrl +F4
Context Button = Ctrl + Alt + Down Arrow
Next Button = Ctrl + F6
Previous Button = Ctrl + Shift + F6

Note that these shortcuts only work when the corresponding action button is visible and enabled. The default combinations match those you find in Visual Studio for the document editing area. So pressing Ctrl + F4 in Visual Studio closes the current document and so is used to invoke the close button.

Navigator Methods
If you need to invoke one of the action buttons from code then you can use one of the four new methods:-

PerformCloseAction()
PerformContextAction()
PerformNextAction()
PerformPreviousAction()

So now you have the full range of options. The user can click the close button using the mouse, use a keyboard combination to invoke the close button or the developer can use code to invoke the action.