Actipro Navigation is a control suite that includes NavigationBar, ExplorerBar, and Breadcrumb controls, along with styles for animated Expander controls, designed for use in WPF applications.

NavigationBar

NavigationBar provides a facility for navigating through different panes of data. This concept was introduced in Outlook, and NavigationBar implements nearly all of the features found in Office 2007. It has an elegant user interface which uses buttons to control which navigation pane is selected. Panes can display data or simply act as a container for child controls.

The NavigationBar control used to replicate a user interface similar to Outlook 2007

If screen real estate is available, large buttons can be used for pane selection. The end-user has the option of using a splitter to move the large buttons into the overflow button tray, which uses smaller buttons. If not all of the buttons can fit in that tray, they flow out into the overflow menu, accessible by the chevron button. The NavigationBar can also be minimized, so that its selected pane's content can be displayed in a popup by clicking a button. End user layout customizations can be persisted in XML format and restored later.

ExplorerBar

Explorer bar is an implementation of the task bar that was introduced in Windows XP's explorer. It hosts a vertical stack of expandable panes that generally provide task-based information to the end user.

The ExplorerBar control providing a user interface similar to Windows Explorer

Each expander pane uses smooth animation to fade in and slide down its contents when expanded. Likewise, when an expander pane is collapsed, its contents fade out and slide back up. Any content can be placed within each expander pane and the alternate style of pane headers is supported via a simple style setting.

Breadcrumb

Breadcrumb is an implementation of the breadcrumb control that was introduced in Windows Vista's explorer address bar. It can be used to select a single item from hierarchical data, much like a TreeView but requiring less screen real estate.

The Breadcrumb control at the top showing how it can be used to navigate through a file system

There is even a progress bar embedded in the background of the Breadcrumb control, which supports three different states each with a distinct look. The progress bar fades into view when it is needed and fades out when not needed.

Part of Actipro WPF Studio
This product can be purchased individually or as part of the Actipro WPF Studio control suite bundle.

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