Vista and Windows 7 Aero glass support in BinaryRibbon WPF

Yes, a new feature is getting in :-) I have now completed the enhancement of supporting Glass rendering on the non-client area in the Ribbon control :-)

By setting a new DependencyProperty named RenderGlassIfOSSupports, the control will render its non-client area with glass, rather than its default Office 2007 non-client area emulation.

Of course, the feature will work only in Operating Systems that supports Aero Glass – i.e. Vista and Windows 7, and only when the DWM composition is enabled.

Here is a screenshot of BinaryRibbon control running in its glass enabled mode in Windows 7 (RC):

You will see that the control renders the glass background for not only its standard Non-client area, but also for its Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) area.

There are a lot more goodies in the “works” for the next release (4.x of BinaryRibbon WPF) … so stay tuned! :-)

You can download the latest version 3.1.256 of the control to enjoy the glass feature in action!

- Sundar

Comments

[John]

Hi,

The control's glass rendering mode works like a treat!

A feature request: Is it possible to extend the glass rendering into the ribbon area as well - i.e. the ribbon background is like glass?

Although i have asked for this, this is not a top priority need since i don't see what use it would be ;-)

[Sundar]

Cheers John,

Well you guessed it yourself correctly ;-)

I don't think having extending the glass into the other client area like the Ribbon bar, etc would do any good.

Speaking of which, there is already a similar glass "effect" that i already do for the Ribbon bar panel's background - i.e

When you minimize the Ribbon bar panel (by invoking the minimize command from the QAT overflow menu, etc.) and then simply do a "single click" (note that you need a double click to maximize the ribbon bar") on the minimized tab item header areas, you will see that the full ribbon bar makes itself available for the user (for a temporary period until the user is done with using the the ribbon controls) and you can see that during that time, the Ribbon bar panel background actually is doing a "Glass-like rendering" - i.e. a transparent background - you can see that in one of my product screen shots in the product page.

Of course it won't do a "glass" effect - because technically speaking glass effect is translucent, not transparent.

Anyway there you go - a "fancy background rendering" is available in the Ribbonbarpanel area in the control anyway ;-)

Have fun!

Cheers

Sundar
Director and Software Architect,
Binarymission, UK