RibbonX: Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon

Chapter 10. Formatting Elements

So far, this book has focused on setting up environments and controls to interact with the user. Each control discussed in this book thus far has a specific purpose — to allow the user to make a choice. Whether the control is a button, checkBox, or comboBox, each provides the user with the opportunity to do something.

The controls in this chapter, however, have different purposes than those that we've been working with. Our new focus here is strictly on formatting. (None) of the controls discussed in this chapter are provided for the user to work with in any way. While these controls will not react to clicks, they do retain a certain dynamic so that they can react to other controls, should you so choose.

We begin the chapter by looking at two grouping elements: the box, and its close cousin, the buttonGroup. Following that, we explore the labelControl, which is purely a textual control. Finally, we discuss the separator and menuSeparator controls. These final two controls enable us to divide menus and controls into logical groupings.

Because the concepts for working with formatting controls apply equally to Excel, Access, and Word, we do not demonstrate working with the controls in each program. However, you can rest assured that the XML elements, attributes, and callbacks are indeed equally applicable to each of the applications, and you will have little or no difficulty adding them to your projects, regardless of the program.

As you prepare to work ...