Command Editor

Command Editor offers you the alternative way to design application toolbars and menus. In addition, it allows setting up Categories and helps quickly assign commands to them.

You can open Command Editor by double clicking CommandBarManager component.

Left tree control contains Categories and Commands. Right tree control displays hierarchical list of command bars and menus with actual toolbar and menu buttons.

Right of the tree of command bar you can find "up" and "down" buttons. They allow you change order of buttons in a menu or toolbar. "+" and "-" buttons allow to expand or collapse all tree nodes.

Property list control displays properties of selected object.

At the beginning you don't have any Categories in the application, but probably have a list of commands and toolbar buttons created in the plain designer.

Set up the list of categories using "Add New Category" group below the right tree control. When the list of categories is ready, expand the "Commands" node and drag commands to appropriate categories.

A Command can be assigned to one Category only.

You can populate buttons that are connected to the same command by dragging a command to a toolbar or menu bar. In this way you can quickly setup toolbars and menus.

You can create new commands that are not assigned to any menu or toolbar using "Add New Command" group. Type the name of command to be added and select button type associated with this command. It's important to select the right type, because when users drags a button from Customize dialog to a toolbar, the framework will create a button of specified type.
You can set the standalone command's image (and other properties) using CommandBarManager.StandAloneButtons collection in the plain designer.

The third group "Remove or Rename Selected Objects" allows to rename selected commands and remove selected buttons (yes, you can't remove commands, however, a command is removed along with the last button).

Related Objects list box provides quick navigation between buttons related to selected command. Click an object in this list to make it selected in the list of command bars.

Note. Changes made in Command Editor dialog are applied immediately!