Look and Feel

Jan 10, 2025
4 minutes to read

The ribbon, bars, and menu’s look and feel depends on the skin applied to the application.

To specify the application skin, use the DevExpress Project Settings window:

in the Solution Explorer , right-click the project
in the context menu, click DevExpress Project Settings
use Skin Name to select a skin
use Skin Palette to select a color palette (for vector-image-based skins only)

See the following help topic for more information about application settings: Project Settings Page.

Visual Elements and Appearances

Bar and dock controls (ribbons, bars, menus, etc.) consist of multiple visual elements — ribbon pages, application menus, backstage views, etc. The skin specifies each visual element’s appearance settings — background and foreground colors, font face, size and style, etc.

To customize appearance settings for bar and dock controls, you can use controllers. The BarAndDockingController component is a controller that specifies appearance settings for the following controls/components:

Bars UI (BarManager)
Ribbon UI (RibbonControl, RibbonForm, RibbonStatusBar, BackstageViewControl, ApplicationMenu)
Dock panels (DockManager)
Application UI (Windows UI, Widget UI, Tabbed UI, Native MDI) implemented with the DocumentManager component
Tabbed MDI windows (XtraTabbedMdiManager)

Use the following components to access controllers:

DefaultBarAndDockingController — a toolbox component that allows you to access the default controller.
BarAndDockingController — a controller that you can assign to a specific control/component. You can use this controller to customize appearance settings for the assigned control/component only.

You can specify appearance settings for the following visual elements:

AppearancesBackstageView - Provides the default appearance settings applied to BackstageViewControl controls.
AppearancesBar - Specifies appearance settings for items in bars and menus in different states.
AppearancesDocking - Provides the default appearance settings for all dock panels, implemented with the DockManager component.
AppearancesDocumentManager - Contains the default appearance settings applied to Views of the DocumentManager component.
AppearancesRibbon - Provides the default appearance settings of the Ribbon Controls and Ribbon Forms.
LookAndFeel - Provides Look And Feel and Skinning settings for the controls/components included in the XtraBars library.
PropertiesBar - Contains the default customization settings of the Bars UI (BarManager).
PropertiesDocking - Provides the default customization settings for the Application UI Manager (DocumentManager) and Dock Manager.
PropertiesRibbon - Provides the default customization properties for the Ribbon UI elements.

Note

Skins use brushes or images to fill the background. The actual behavior depends on the skin. The background color is not in effect if the skin uses an image to fill the background.

See the following help topic for more information about skins and appearance settings: Application Appearance and Skin Colors.

Individual Visual Elements

You can also specify appearance settings for a particular visual element. For example, the Bar.Appearance property allows you to specify appearance settings for a particular bar.

C#
VB.NET

csharp

using System.Drawing.Drawing2D;

bFile.Appearance.BackColor = Color.Gray;
bFile.Appearance.BackColor2 = Color.White;
bFile.Appearance.GradientMode = LinearGradientMode.Vertical;
bFile.Appearance.Options.UseBackColor = true;

Imports System.Drawing.Drawing2D

bFile.Appearance.BackColor = Color.Gray
bFile.Appearance.BackColor2 = Color.White
bFile.Appearance.GradientMode = LinearGradientMode.Vertical
bFile.Appearance.Options.UseBackColor = True

The table below contains properties that you can use to customize bar and dock controls/components.

Bar and Dock Control/Component

Property

Description

| | --- | --- | --- | |

Bar

Bar.Appearance

Appearance settings used to paint a specific bar.

These settings override the Bar appearance settings.

| |

BarItem

BarItem.ItemAppearance