There is a lot of excitement around the new Scenic Ribbon UI in Windows 7, and after hearing a lot of requests from my customers, I am currently building the Windows 7 Scenic Ribbon skin for my WPF control BinaryRibbon .NET.
The new UI looks cool, the major changes observed vis-a-vis the current theme being:
- Rendering colour of various UI elements is different (including the AppMenuButton)
- The ApplicationMenuButton looks rectangular, and is not a toggle button (as is in other themes in the control) but then a drop-down button, and is located alongside the first tab item header in the Ribbon Bar panel.
- The QAT (Quick access toolbar) does not have that nice fancy curved corners, but then takes a rectangular one.
I have almost completed writing the Windows 7 skin XAML, and will be posting here a screen-shot of how it has come out :-)
The updated version of BinaryRibbon .NET (version 1.5) will also be available soon once the skin is ready!
As is currently in my control, this new skin will be available as a new value from the Skin enumeration that you can choose from, which already contains a couple of UI skins including Office Blue, Black and Silver.
Although Windows 7 is now only an RC, I take it Microsoft won't be making any major change to the Scenic Ribbon UI in the RTM release.
Well, even if they did change it in the RTM, its not a big deal, since we can still keep this skin in the control (we wrote it!! :-)), and it does look good and appealing ;-)
Update 17/06/09
Guys, i have now added my new Windows 7 Scenic Ribbon Skin into BinaryRibbon WPF :-)
Please read the latest update in my blog. All Binarymission customers (and potential customers too ;-)) can now download and enjoy Windows 7 Scenic Ribbon 7 skin in their Ribbon enabled apps :-)
Get your copy of BinaryRibbon WPF Build 2.0.400 now.
- Sundar
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