Office-Inspired Navigation Pane

The behavior and appearance of these Views is similar to the Navigation Pane found in Microsoft Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2012. These Views can be painted using a regular paint style (emulating the look and feel of the navigation bar in MS Office applications) or any application-wide theme.

Help Topic: Available Views | Help Topic: Changing the Current View

Windows Style Explorer Bar

Views that belong to this category emulate the explorer bars found in Microsoft Explorer. Groups are arranged one under another. End-users can expand / collapse each group individually. These Views can be painted using regular paint styles (emulating the look and feel of the navigation bars in MS Explorer), as well as any skinning paint scheme.

Help Topic: Available Views | Help Topic: Changing the Current View

Traditional Side Bar

With its introduction in Microsoft Office® 97, the traditional Side Bar paint style revolutionized UI design in the industry. The XtraNavBar allows you to incorporate this look & feel into your applications with ease.

The following Side Bar paint styles are supported by the XtraNavBar:

• BaseView, FlatView - emulates Outlook 2000.
• Office1View, Office2View, Office3View - emulates Outlook XP.
• VSToolboxView - emulates Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
• XP1View, XP2View - provides unique XP themed Side Bars.

Help Topic: Available Views | Help Topic: Changing the Current View

Extended Arrangement Options

Since flexibility is at the heart of the XtraNavBar, the mechanism used for link customization is not dependent upon the layout you select. You never have to guess whether your users prefer large images with captions below or small images to the left. You only need to specify the images and captions for your items and let your users decide which layout they like the most - all with only one line of code!

Help Topic: Link Layout

End-User Customization

The XtraNavBar allows your application's end users to use drag and drop to move items between groups and automatically determines when its content cannot be fully displayed on screen.

Embedded Controls

Need to embed a tree view, grid control or calendar into a group? No problem. The embedded controls feature allows you to create streamlined interfaces, seen in Microsoft Outlook applications.

Help Topic: Embedded Controls | How to: Embed a DateControl into a Group

Superior Design-Time Experience

The XtraNavBar's built-in designer and context menus minimize development time at design time by providing advanced control management options.

Help Topic: Designer Dialog | Help Topic: On-Form Object Access | Help Topic: Group Header Context Menu | Help Topic: Link Context Menu

Powerful Infrastructure

The XtraNavBar is designed to show either auto-arranged links or embedded controls within its groups. Whatever your control displays, its content and representation are fully separated. You only need to customize items and link them to groups. After that has been done, you can allow your end users to choose any link layout they desire - without having to restructure anything.

Help Topic: Groups and Links Layout

Hints, Captions, and Hit-Testing

From automatic word wrapping to advanced hit info and persistence - the XtraNavBar control offers flexible options so you can build any application for any use-case.

Help Topic: Obtaining Hit Information | Help Topic: Save and Restore Layout