Free Managed Ribbon for WPF from Microsoft (with samples, source, and MVVM… [insert “Oh My” here])

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Ribbon for WPF

“Managed implementation of the Ribbon for WPF. The Ribbon is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task.

Version:	3.5.40729.1
Date Published:	8/2/2010
Language:	English
Download Size:	1.1 MB - 3.2 MB*

This release is a managed implementation of the Ribbon for WPF. The Ribbon is a command bar that organizes the features of an application into a series of tabs at the top of the application window, is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task. The Ribbon user interface (UI) increases discoverability of features and functions, enables quicker learning of the application, and helps users feel more in control of their experience with the application. The Ribbon replaces the traditional menu bar and toolbars.

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Additional Information

Note: There are a large number of design revisions in this release since the CTP version. This is mainly to facilitate MVVM-centric applications.

Design-time: The MSI will install design-time support for Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend 4. This includes a project template for a ‘WPF Ribbon Application’, an item template for a ‘Ribbon Window’, and Ribbon controls in the toolbox such as, RibbonButton, RibbonToggleButton, RibbonMenuButton, etc.

Sources: Ribbon source code is available for reference purposes only. Please see EULA for more information.

Samples: A few samples are also included to provide an overall view of all the available Ribbon features integrated within a WPF application. These samples include:

• RibbonWindow Wordpad Sample
  This sample illustrates a Ribbon control hosted within a RibbonWindow that emulates the Wordpad appearance. To run this scenario:
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• RibbonWindow MVVM Sample This sample illustrates a Ribbon control hosted within a RibbonWindow that is completely populated from a view-model collection. To run this scenario:
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• RibbonBrowser Wordpad sample This sample illustrates a Ribbon control hosted within a browser window that emulates the Wordpad appearance. To run this scenario:
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• RibbonBrowser MVVM sample This sample illustrates a Ribbon control hosted within a browser window that is completely populated from a view model collection. To run this scenario:
• …

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This makes adding a Ribbon to my personal open source/source available projects much easier (from a licensing point of view). Plus the design time support is very cool as are the samples, and the view pattern (i.e. MVVM) support.

Note: I had a really rough time downloading the MSI’s (I still haven’t been able to get the Source & Samples MSI). And the download page would appear to come and go… Maybe the content is still in the process of being made available? (or it could be my current connection to the Net…sigh) Anyway, if you try the link and it appears to be broken/gone, try again.