Access the Office Navigation Bar

• Aug 28, 2025
• 2 minutes to read

This topic demonstrates how to access the Office Navigation Bar used to show the navigation root groups when the OutlookStyleMainRibbonForm Template is used in a WinForms application.

Perform the following steps to access the OfficeNavigationBar object and customize its settings.

1. Create a new WindowController in your WinForms module.
2. The OfficeNavigationBar control is located on the OutlookStyleMainRibbonForm Template (see IModelRootGroupsStyle.RootGroupsStyle). To access this Template after it has been created or changed, override the Controller’s OnActivated method and subscribe to the Frame.TemplateChanged event of the main Window.
3. In the TemplateChanged event handler, cast the Frame.Template property to the Form type and handle the Form.Load event.
4. In the Form.Load event handler, cast the sender to the IOfficeNavigationBarHolder type.
5. To access the OfficeNavigationBar object, use the IOfficeNavigationBarHolder.OfficeNavigationBar property. For instance, you can set the OfficeNavigationBar.MaxItemCount property to 4 to change the maximum number of items simultaneously displayed within the OfficeNavigationBar control.
6. Unsubscribe from the TemplateChanged event in the overridden OnDeactivated method when the Controller is deactivated.

• C#

using DevExpress.ExpressApp.Win.Templates;
using DevExpress.XtraBars.Ribbon;
//...
public class OfficeNavigationBarCustomizationController : WindowController {
    private void Frame_TemplateChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        Form form = Frame.Template as Form;
        if(form != null) {
            form.Load += Form_Load;
        }
    }
    private void Form_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        IOfficeNavigationBarHolder officeNavigationBarHolder = sender as IOfficeNavigationBarHolder;
        if(officeNavigationBarHolder != null) {
            officeNavigationBarHolder.OfficeNavigationBar.MaxItemCount = 4;
        }
    }
    protected override void OnActivated() {
        base.OnActivated();
        Frame.TemplateChanged += Frame_TemplateChanged;
    }
    protected override void OnDeactivated() {
        Frame.TemplateChanged -= Frame_TemplateChanged;
        base.OnDeactivated();
    }

    public OfficeNavigationBarCustomizationController() {
        TargetWindowType = WindowType.Main;
    }
}

Run the application to ensure that the maximum number of visible OfficeNavigationBar items is 4.