Command Bar Design
Before we get into command bar creation, let's cover a few best practices for command bar design. Try to follow all of these practices when designing your custom command bars and controls:Emulate Excel's menu bar. Users are already familiar with the Excel menu structure, so if your application emulates it users will have some immediate familiarity with your application. This is especially true for dictator applications, whose menus may include a large number of the same features that would normally appear on Excel's menu bar.Don't use more than three menu sublevels. Although the table-driven command bar builder that we will describe in the next section provides a means to create menus deeper than three levels, this is not something you should do unless absolutely necessary. Users tend to get lost when your menu structure exceeds three sublevels.If you are adding one or more top-level menus to the built-in menu bar, those menus should be located directly to the left of the Window menu. This is a longstanding user interface convention that most users are familiar with.Unless you have a very good reason for not doing so, always dock your custom toolbars at the top of the Excel window. There are a reasonable number of situations where it is appropriate to create floating toolbars, but remember that your users can always undock your toolbar if they want. Even less frequently, but still on occasion, it is useful to dock a toolbar at the bottom of the Excel window. Right and left docking, even though the command bar builder supports them, are never recommended. We have never seen a situation where these positions are appropriate. The vast majority of users have never encountered a toolbar docked on the right or left sides, and the necessity of doing so is almost always an indication of poor user interface design.Physically group controls that perform related functions. Your application will be much easier to use if similar controls are located near each other.Separate related groups of controls from each other using separator bars, but try not to have more than four our five menus or toolbar buttons in a row without a separator. Separator bars are created using the BeginGroup property, which we cover in the next section.Select or create icons whose appearance visually implies the action performed by their control. This seems obvious, but it's very difficult in a custom application with a large number of features. Put as much thought and creativity into the appearance of your icons as possible. Features whose icons bear no visual resemblance to their function will be much harder for users to remember than those whose icons clearly imply their function. Think, for example, how easy it is to determine which toolbar button you need to click to print a document. Do your best to emulate this close association between function and appearance.
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