Windows 7 Ribbon: How to specify “Four buttons, two big, two small”?

Question

When laying out a group, the Windows Ribbon Framework supports some predefined layouts. One of the layouts, which requires four buttons is called FourButtons.

This layout supports 3 different sizes, Large, Medium, and Small. In each case it gives the layouts:

Large:

Medium:

Small:

Right now i am using the FourButtons predefined template in my xml file as:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Application xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2009/Ribbon">
   ...
   <Application.Views>
      <Ribbon>
         ...
         <Ribbon.Tabs>
            <Tab CommandName="tabHome">
               <Group CommandName="grpActivity" SizeDefinition="FourButtons">
                  <Button CommandName="cmdStartWorking" />
                  <Button CommandName="cmdStopWorking" />
                  <Button CommandName="cmdPrint" />
                  <Button CommandName="cmdDuplicateTicket" />
               </Group>
            </Tab>
         </Ribbon.Tabs>

      </Ribbon>
   </Application.Views>
</Application>

And you can see the line

<Group CommandName="grpActivity" SizeDefinition="FourButtons">

which specifies the FourButtons layout template.

And my layout is FourButtons:

Except i don't want FourButtons layout, i want "Four Buttons, Two Big Two Small".

In the same way that there is ThreeButtons-OneBigAndTwoSmall:

And there is a FiveButtons:

i want a FourButtons-TwoBigTwoSmall, which i can manually mockup:

Unfortunately declarative programming that Microsoft invented for creating custom layouts confounds me as a programmer.

Can anyone decipher the declarative language example at the bottom of the page and come up with a FourButton-TwoBigTwoSmall template?

Note: All the pretty graphics, formatting, links, and stuff are used to attract squirrels - who love shiny graphics. And if you actually read this far i could actually use your help.

Answer 1

you should use BigButtonsAndSmallButtonsOrInputs SizeDefinition

e.g.

      <Group CommandName="cmdGroupBatch" SizeDefinition="BigButtonsAndSmallButtonsOrInputs">
        <ControlGroup>
          <Button CommandName="cmdButtonGetBatch" />
          <Button CommandName="cmdButtonPutBatch" />
        </ControlGroup>
        <ControlGroup>
          <Button CommandName="cmdButtonSaveBatch" />
          <Button CommandName="cmdButtonDiscartBatch" />
        </ControlGroup>
      </Group>

Just check, if your Group has Size="Large" in your Tab.ScalingPolicy.

Answer 2

i eventually did figure it out.

First is the control map, which mandates that the group have (in this case) four buttons. By having four entries in the ControlNameMap we mandate that the group using this size definition actually has four buttons.

<ControlNameMap>
   <ControlNameDefinition Name="button1"/>
   <ControlNameDefinition Name="button2"/>
   <ControlNameDefinition Name="button3"/>
   <ControlNameDefinition Name="button4"/>
</ControlNameMap>

The four buttons are given aliases:

• button1
• button2
• button3
• button4

so that they can be referenced in the definitions to follow. First is the Large template:

<GroupSizeDefinition Size="Large">
    <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button1" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
    <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button2" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
    <ColumnBreak ShowSeparator="true"/>
    <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button3" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
    <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button4" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
</GroupSizeDefinition>

which causes two large buttons, a separator, and another 2 large buttons.

The medium template:

<GroupSizeDefinition Size="Medium">
    <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button1" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
    <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button2" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
    <ColumnBreak ShowSeparator="true"/>
    <Row>
        <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button3" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="true" />
    </Row>
    <Row>
        <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button4" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="true" />
    </Row>
</GroupSizeDefinition>

causes two large buttons, a separator, and then two rows (with each row containing one small button).

The small template:

<GroupSizeDefinition Size="Small">
    <Row>
        <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button1" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="true" />
        <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button3" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="false" />
    </Row>
    <Row>
        <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button2" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="true" />
        <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button4" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="false" />
    </Row>
</GroupSizeDefinition>

causes two rows, of two small buttons in each, to appear.

---

Bringing it all together:

<Group CommandName="grpActivity" >
    <SizeDefinition>
        <ControlNameMap>
            <ControlNameDefinition Name="button1"/>
            <ControlNameDefinition Name="button2"/>
            <ControlNameDefinition Name="button3"/>
            <ControlNameDefinition Name="button4"/>
        </ControlNameMap>
        <GroupSizeDefinition Size="Large">
            <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button1" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
            <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button2" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
            <ColumnBreak ShowSeparator="true"/>
            <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button3" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
            <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button4" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
        </GroupSizeDefinition>
        <GroupSizeDefinition Size="Medium">
            <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button1" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
            <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button2" ImageSize="Large" IsLabelVisible="true" />
            <ColumnBreak ShowSeparator="true"/>
            <Row>
                <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button3" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="true" />
            </Row>
            <Row>
                <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button4" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="true" />
            </Row>
        </GroupSizeDefinition>
        <GroupSizeDefinition Size="Small">
            <Row>
                <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button1" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="true" />
                <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button3" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="false" />
            </Row>
            <Row>
                <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button2" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="true" />
                <ControlSizeDefinition ControlName="button4" ImageSize="Small" IsLabelVisible="false" />
            </Row>
        </GroupSizeDefinition>
    </SizeDefinition>

    <Button CommandName="cmdStartWorking" />
    <Button CommandName="cmdStopWorking" />
    <Button CommandName="cmdPrint" />
    <Button CommandName="cmdDuplicateTicket" />
</Group>