Building Ribbon Interfaces in Code

It’s hard to believe that the ribbon replaced command bars in Microsoft Office more than 15 years ago.  

The ribbon allows you to build dynamic, responsive, and context-sensitive user interfaces.  But with that power comes great responsibility complexity.  Even after a decade and a half, Microsoft still has not provided a built-in tool for creating and editing custom ribbons.

In this talk, I will demonstrate a VBA-based solution to create custom ribbons.  All the complexity is encapsulated in two modules that will be provided.  These modules will let you build a full-featured custom ribbon with only a single line of code per ribbon button.

Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:

• Using code to generate valid ribbon XML
• How to load a custom ribbon at startup
• Using built-in images for buttons
• Using custom images for buttons (and a great resource for finding professional button images)
• Creating several types of ribbon controls:
  • Buttons
  • Dropdowns
  • ComboBoxes
  • Gallery controls
• Making ribbon buttons enabled/disabled or visible/invisible based on the current user
• Calling custom functions from the ribbon

Session Details - Access Europe

The meeting will take place via Zoom on July 6, 2022, at 1 PM Eastern (6 PM UK time, 10 AM US Pacific).  The Access Europe event page has all the remote connection details.

DevCon Vienna presenters, Colin Riddington and Alessandro Grimaldi, will be hosting.  The Access Europe user group meets the first Wednesday of each month, from 18:00 - 19:00 UK time (1 PM Eastern, 10 AM Pacific).

External references

Access Europe – Mike Wolfe (Building Ribbon Interfaces in Code) – Europe – AccessUserGroups.org

Image by Alexander Lesnitsky from Pixabay