Access™ 2007 Bible

Chapter 34. Customizing Access Ribbons

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Learning about the new Access ribbon

• Working with the default ribbon

• Examining ribbon architecture

• Studying ribbon controls

• Learning the XML necessary to construct ribbons

• Adding VBA callbacks

Perhaps the greatest surprise in Access 2007 for experienced Access developers is the ribbon — the new control that replaces the Access toolbars and menus. Many Access developers and users have long had a love-hate relationship with the Access toolbars and menus. Toolbars and menus are an effective user interface component when users need to get to a variety of different tasks and operations. However, the CommandBars model used in previous versions of Access was quite complex and sometimes difficult to program.

Microsoft has replaced toolbars and menus in Access 2007 with the ribbon, a large horizontally oriented object at the top of the main Access 2007 screen. The ribbon is quite unlike any toolbar or menu that you may have seen before and supports features not possible with toolbars and menus. As you will soon see, customizing Access 2007 ribbons is a very different process than using CommandBars to compose toolbars and menus in previous versions of Access.

Note

In the Chapter34.accdb database, you will find several database objects needed to support the techniques described in this chapter. You will not be able to see the USysRibbons table until you right-click the Navigation Pane, select Navigation Options and select the Show System Objects ...