Sharepoint 2010 Ribbon Menu by:Adrian Gates

SharePoint Server 2010 is the trending topic these days

. And when talking about SharePoint 2010, how can I miss to mention one of the most valuable interface changes provided in it, i.e., the new Ribbon Menu. SharePoint Ribbon Menu is a contextual interface that allows users to execute any action related to ribbon controls depending upon the context the user is currently dealing with. Simply put, Ribbon Menu helps to add or replace buttons, groups, tabs or even the whole ribbon. You also remove the custom button from the ribbon. However the designers and web developers, who until now were quite comfortable with designing master pages for SharePoint Server, are somewhat puzzled now with this thing called Ribbon Menu in the middle of their page. But there's nothing to get confused about because the SharePoint 2010 API allows developers to extend and customize the ribbon using SharePoint features on site/site collection level.

There are several types of controls which can be deployed to SharePoint Ribbon, which are as follows:

- Button

- CheckBox

- DropDown

- FlyoutAnchor

- ToggleButton

The above given controls can be collected for usability purposes to containers such as Group and Tab. Consequently, it is possible to add controls with custom functionality not only to existing containers, but deploy new tabs and groups, and then add necessary controls to them. However, any ribbon customization should be mounted within XML in-feature declaration.

If you have deployed some ribbon customization XML and later have to provide some changes into it then it might be necessary to change the Feature ID for SharePoint feature where your customization belongs. For simple modifications (i.e. changing button titles, image URLs, etc.) this is not necessary, but if you change the Feature ID, every time you change anything in XML, it might save a lot of time and effort.

To conclude, the Ribbon is a new concept with SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010, and another advance over Microsoft Office SharePoint server. Also do not forget the free SharePoint web parts or templates that come with SharePoint.

About the author

Adrian Gates (adrian@apps4rent.com) is a Business Manager with Apps4Rent; which offers Microsoft Exchange Hosting, Windows SharePoint Services, SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, and virtual dedicated servers.

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