Ribbon-AppButton

[Waescher]

I really loved to see the button in your blog, Phil.
Incredible working speed, indeed!

[Waescher]

Hey Phil,

I've tested the 2.6.9 Beta. Very nice work. I posted this reply into this thread because it's just on the AppButton:

I think it looks good, but the button is a little bit too small. Theres one pixel missing in width and height.

Just take a look at the pic (click to zoom):


By the way: The distance to the form-border is different in office, too. Your button is positioned 1 pixel closer to the left and 2 pixel closer to the top of the form.
If you maximize a KryptonRibbon-Form, you'll see that the top pixels of the button are truncated ...

Anyway ... looks great! I love the new ApplicatinMenu

Best regards,
Waescher

[Darkas]

I like it too, but there ist one thing with the menu of the appButton (it doesn't matter if a normal context menu or the appButtonMenu): if you click on the appButton while the context menu is shown, then it flickers and it shows the menu again, but I think it should be minimized, right?

[Phil Wright]

Waescher - I have updated the button to be a pixel bigger in both directions and to start a couple of pixels further down.

Darkas - I have updated the button so pressing it when already open closes it down without automatically opening it up again.

[Waescher]

Oh, and please don't forget the AppButtonDoubleClick-Handler to exit the app, for example ...

[Waescher]

Hi Phil,

why do you resize the RibbonAppButtonImage?

Another Office2007 vs. KryptonRibbon:

The button on the right is my approach to clone the MS-AppButton (of course I'm not going to release the software with the Microsoft-logo - it's just to show the difference). The image is not centered correctly.



If I try to use a 32x32px image with the same icon placed a few pixel closer to the bottom, the ribbon resizes it.



Wouldn't it be better to let the developer decide, how big the icon should be and how it's placed?
For example, to use an image which covers nearly the whole button, like Codejock does.
They use an semi-transparent white imprint/negative of their logo so the buttons state-colors shines through it - with a very nice effect, I think.





Best regards,
Waescher

[firda]

Second
You are right. The actual app button is draw by two halfs. The top half is usually in the window caption area and the bottom half in the actual ribbon control. So drawing the button involves two windows messages, one for the caption are and another for the ribbon control. Because they are not part of the same single windows message you see a flicker because one half is painted a fraction before the other. Not sure how to improve on that.

I think, you can force the drawing of second half. It is one force painting per window = acceptable "performance reduction" (not noticable). There should also be some mechanism to clear the "dirty flag"... but I do not know right now.

Paint(OtherHalf.CreateGraphics())