Custom XtraNavBar view: XPExplorer view without expand/collapse buttons and with always expanded groups

This article explains how to create a custom view for the XtraNavBar.

The view is defined by the NavBarViewInfo class. That's the NoExpandButtonViewNavBarViewInfo class in our sample, which is a direct descendant of the XPExplorerBarNavBarViewInfo class.

For the sake of the example, we will hide the expand/collapse buttons from group headers by creating a custom NavBarView. Generally, if you need to hide these buttons in your NavBar control, you don't have to create a custom view; it's enough to set the ExplorerBarShowGroupButtons property to False.

To hide the expand/collapse buttons we've implemented the OpenCloseButton painter class (NoExpandButtonOpenCloseButtonObjectPainter). It does not draw anything, so there is no button.

A user can expand/collapse a group by clicking its header. The DoGroupClick method is overridden so as to ignore mouse clicks and prevent a group from being collapsed.

The NoExpandButtonViewInfoRegistrator class registers the custom NavBar view.

Here is the code to assign the custom view to a NavBar control:

	
[C#]
public class CustomNavBarControl :NavBarControl {

   protected override void RegisterAvailableNavBarViews() {

       base.RegisterAvailableNavBarViews();

       AvailableNavBarViews.Add(new NoExpandButtonViewInfoRegistrator());

   }


    protected override BaseViewInfoRegistrator GetExplorerView(ActiveLookAndFeelStyle activeStyle) {

        if (activeStyle != ActiveLookAndFeelStyle.Skin)

            return AvailableNavBarViews[NoExpandButtonViewInfoRegistrator.CustomViewName];

        return base.GetExplorerView(activeStyle);

    }

}

	
[VB.NET]
Public Class CustomNavBarControl
    
    Inherits NavBarControl

    Protected Overrides Sub RegisterAvailableNavBarViews()

        MyBase.RegisterAvailableNavBarViews()

        AvailableNavBarViews.Add(New NoExpandButtonViewInfoRegistrator())

    End Sub


    Protected Overrides Function GetExplorerView(ByVal activeStyle As ActiveLookAndFeelStyle) As BaseViewInfoRegistrator

        If activeStyle IsNot ActiveLookAndFeelStyle.Skin Then
        
            Return AvailableNavBarViews(NoExpandButtonViewInfoRegistrator.CustomViewName)

        End If

        Return MyBase.GetExplorerView(activeStyle)

    End Function 


End Class

 
See Also:
A2701