Visual Basic 1002005 [A Developers Notebook] [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

3.1. Use Office-Style Toolbars

With .NET 1.0 and 1.1, VB developers have
had to content themselves with either the woefully out-of-date
ToolBar control, or draw their own custom toolbars
by hand. In .NET 2.0, the situation improves with a rich new
ToolStrip control that sports a modern, flat look,
correctly handles Windows XP themes, and supports a wide range of
graphical widgets, such as buttons, labels, drop-down lists,
drop-down menus, text boxes, and more.

3.1.1. How do I do that?

To use the
System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip
control, just drag the ToolStrip from the Menus
& Toolbars section of the Visual Studio toolbox onto a form. To
control which side of the form the ToolStrip lines
up with, set the Docking property. For example,
Figure 3-1 shows a form, Form1,
with two ToolStrip controls, one docked to the top of the form and
the other to the right side.

Figure 3-1. Three ToolStrip objects in one RaftingContainer

Note: Finally, a ToolStrip control whose looks are worthy of a
modern Windows application.

To add buttons to the
ToolStrip, you can use the Visual Studio designer.
Just click the ToolStrip smart tag and select Edit
Items. You can choose new items from a drop-down list and configure
their properties in a window like the one shown in Figure 3-2. Or, select Insert Standard Items to create
standard ToolStrip buttons for document management
(new, open, save, close) and editing (cut, copy, paste).

Figure 3-2. The ToolStrip designer

The key to mastering the
ToolStrip control is learning about all the
different widgets you can put inside it. These include:

ToolStripButton

Represents an item on the toolbar that
the user can click. It can include text or an image (or both). This
is the most common ToolStrip item.

ToolStripLabel

Represents a non-selectable item on the
ToolStrip. It can include text or an image (or
both).

ToolStripSeparator

Divides adjacent items in a
ToolStrip with a thin engraved line.

ToolStripDropDownButton and ToolStripSplitButton

Represent a drop-down menu with items.
The only difference is how the drop-down list is drawn. The
ToolStripDropDownButton shows its items as a menu,
with a thumbnail margin and the ability to check items. In both
cases, the menu items are ToolStripMenuItem
objects that are added to the collection exposed by the
DropDownItems property.

ToolStripComboBox, ToolStripTextBox, and ToolStripProgressBar

Allow you to add familiar .NET controls
to a ToolStrip, such as
ComboBox, TextBox, and
ProgressBar. All of these items derive from
ToolStripControlHost,
which you can use to create your own ToolStrip
controls (as described in the next section, "Add Any
Control to a ToolStrip").

All the ToolStrip items derive from the
ToolStripItem class.
That means they all support a few basic properties (the most
important include Text, Image,
and ImageAlign, all of which set the display
content). ToolStrip items all provide a
Click event you can use to detect when the user
clicks a toolbar button.

For example, if you want to react to a click of a
ToolStrip item that you've named
TestToolStripButton, you can use the following
code:

Note: When the user clicks a button on the ToolStrip, that
button's Click event fires. This is different than
the legacy ToolBar control, which fired a generic Click event no
matter which button was clicked.

Private Sub TestToolStripButton_Click(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles TestToolStripButton.Click
MessageBox.Show("You clicked " & CType(sender, ToolStripItem).Name)
End Sub

Once you've created a ToolStrip
and added at least one item, you can take advantage of a significant
amount of out-of-the-box formatting. The following are just a few of
the impressive features provided by ToolStrip:

It matches the Office XP toolbar look, with a blue gradient
background, etched sizing grips, and hot tracking (highlighting an
item as the mouse moves over it).

It correctly supports Windows XP themes. That means if you change the
color scheme to Olive Green or Silver, all
ToolStrip controls update themselves
automatically, allowing your application to blend in with the
scenery.

It allows user customization. If you enable the
ToolStrip.AllowReorder property, the user can
rearrange the orders of buttons in a ToolStrip by
holding down the Alt key and dragging items from one place to
another, or even drag a button from one ToolStrip
to another.

It supports overflow
menus. If you enable this feature (by setting
ToolStrip.CanOverflow to true)
and shrink the window so the entire ToolStrip no
longer fits, a special drop-down menu appears at the right with all
the extra buttons, as shown in Figure 3-3.

Figure 3-3. An overflow menu

In the previous example, the
ToolStrip is fixed in place. If you want, you can
give the user the ability to drag a ToolStrip,
either to dock it in a different place or to rearrange several that
appear together. To make this possible, you need to add a
ToolStripContainer
to your form, which shows up as a box with a blue gradient background
(like the background of the ToolStrip). Although
you can use more than one ToolStripContainer,
usually you'll just use one and dock it to fill all
or a portion of your window.

Note: To add a ToolStripContainer and place a ToolStrip in it in
one step, click the ToolStrip smart tag and then click the
"Embed in ToolStripContainer"
link.

The ToolStripContainer actually wraps four
ToolStripPanel objects, one for each side. These
objects are exposed through properties such as
ToolStripContainer.LeftToolStripPanel,
ToolStripContainer.TopToolStripPanel, and so on.
Each panel can hold an unlimited number of
ToolStrip objects, which are then docked to the
corresponding side. The interesting part is that once you place a
ToolStrip in a
ToolStripContainer, the user gains the ability to
drag a ToolStrip freely about its panel at
runtime. Users can even drag a ToolStrip from one
ToolStripPanel to another to change the side
it's docked on (or even to an entirely separate
ToolStripContainer in the same window).

Tip: If you want to prevent the user from docking the ToolStrip to the
left side of the container, set the
ToolStripContainer.LeftToolStripPanelVisible
property to false. You can also use similar properties to prevent
docking to the right, top, or bottom sides.

3.1.2. What about...

...updating the rest of your
interface to look as good as the ToolStrip? .NET
2.0 actually provides four controls that sport the flat, modern look
of Windows XP, and support Windows XP theming. These are
ToolStrip, StatusStrip,
MenuStrip, and
ContextMenuStrip,
which replace ToolBar,
StatusBar, MainMenu, and
ContextMenu. You can quickly refresh your
application's interface just by updating these old
standbys to the new controls.

Tip: In Visual Studio 2005, you won't see the legacy
controls like ToolBar and
StatusBar, because they're left
out of the toolbox by default. If you want to use them, right-click
the toolbox, choose Choose Items, and select these controls from the
list.

3.1.3. Where can I learn more?

For more information, read about the ToolStrip
classes in the MSDN help library reference. You can also refer to a
few more recipes in this chapter:

"Add Any Control to a ToolStrip"
explains how to add other controls to a ToolStrip.

"Add Icons to Your Menu" explains
how to use the new MenuStrip control.