The ComboBox can hold some related but exclusive options for users to pick. Each ComboBox can have multiple ComboBoxMember items each of which can have both a small image and a text. ComboBox and ComboBoxMember are all data centric and they are not supposed to trigger any commands, so they do not care about the assembly location or command classes.
We demonstrated how to create ComboBox group and ComboBoxMember items of Revit Ribbon API before in C#. In this article, let us see how to do so in VB.NET.
It is always good to start with some succinct, cool, and still relatively complete code:
' Create two Ribbon Panels to host the same items and add one Panel to the 'AddIn' Ribbon Tab
' and the other to the custom 'RevitAddinWizard' Ribbon Tab if applicable in Revit 2012.
Function CreateRibbonPanel() As RibbonPanel
Dim prefix As String = "ABC" 'VendorId for example
Dim tabName1 As String = "AddIn"
Dim tabName2 As String = "RevitAddinWizard"
Dim panelTile As String = "Revit2012VBAddin"
Dim panelNameFormat As String = "{0}_{1}_{2}_{3}"
' This addes the new Ribbon Panel to the default native 'AddIn' Ribbon Tab in both Revit 2011 and 2012.
Dim panel As RibbonPanel = _cachedUiCtrApp.CreateRibbonPanel(Guid.NewGuid().ToString())
panel.Name = String.Format(panelNameFormat, prefix, tabName1, panelTile, 1) ' Unique and still possible to parse!
panel.Title = panelTile
AddRibbonItemsToRibbonPanel(panel)
' This addes the new Ribbon Panel to the custom 'RevitAddinWizard' Ribbon Tab in Revit 2012 only.
Try ' To avoid exceptions in case the same code is tried in Revit 2011
_cachedUiCtrApp.CreateRibbonTab(tabName2)
Dim panel1 As RibbonPanel = _cachedUiCtrApp.CreateRibbonPanel(tabName2, Guid.NewGuid().ToString())
panel1.Name = String.Format(panelNameFormat, prefix, tabName2, panelTile, 1) ' Unique and still possible to parse!
panel1.Title = panelTile
AddRibbonItemsToRibbonPanel(panel1)
Catch
End Try
Return panel
End Function
' Create ComboBox group and members
Public Sub AddRibbonItemsToRibbonPanel(ByVal panel As RibbonPanel)
Dim assemFullName As String = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location
Dim assemPath As String = Path.GetDirectoryName(assemFullName)
Dim cnt1Panel_grp1Data As ComboBoxData = New ComboBoxData("cnt1Panel_grp1")
Dim cnt1Panel_grp1 As Autodesk.Revit.UI.ComboBox = CType(panel.AddItem(cnt1Panel_grp1Data), Autodesk.Revit.UI.ComboBox)
cnt1Panel_grp1.ItemText = "ComboBox"
cnt1Panel_grp1.ToolTip = "Combo Box Tooltip"
Dim cnt1Panel_grp1_item1Data As ComboBoxMemberData = New ComboBoxMemberData("cnt1Panel_grp1_item1", "ComboBoxMember1")
Dim cnt1Panel_grp1_item1 As ComboBoxMember = cnt1Panel_grp1.AddItem(cnt1Panel_grp1_item1Data)
cnt1Panel_grp1_item1.ToolTip = "ComboBoxMember1 Tooltip"
cnt1Panel_grp1_item1.Image = BmpImageSource("Revit2012VBAddin.smalla.bmp")
Dim cnt1Panel_grp1_item2Data As ComboBoxMemberData = New ComboBoxMemberData("cnt1Panel_grp1_item2", "ComboBoxMember2")
Dim cnt1Panel_grp1_item2 As ComboBoxMember = cnt1Panel_grp1.AddItem(cnt1Panel_grp1_item2Data)
cnt1Panel_grp1_item2.ToolTip = "ComboBoxMember2 Tooltip"
cnt1Panel_grp1_item2.Image = BmpImageSource("Revit2012VBAddin.smallb.bmp")
cnt1Panel_grp1.AddSeparator()
Dim cnt1Panel_grp1_item4Data As ComboBoxMemberData = New ComboBoxMemberData("cnt1Panel_grp1_item4", "ComboBoxMember3")
Dim cnt1Panel_grp1_item4 As ComboBoxMember = cnt1Panel_grp1.AddItem(cnt1Panel_grp1_item4Data)
cnt1Panel_grp1_item4.ToolTip = "ComboBoxMember3 Tooltip"
cnt1Panel_grp1_item4.Image = BmpImageSource("Revit2012VBAddin.smallc.bmp")
End Sub
' Retrieve a Bitmap image resource
Public Shared Function BmpImageSource(ByVal embeddedPath As String) As System.Windows.Media.ImageSource
Dim stream As Stream = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream(embeddedPath)
Dim decoder = New System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BmpBitmapDecoder(stream, BitmapCreateOptions.PreservePixelFormat, BitmapCacheOption.Default)
Return decoder.Frames(0)
End Function
The ComboBox group and ComboBoxMember creation is not hard to follow. We need to create the ComboBox container object first through creating a ComboBoxData and adding a ComboBox object into a Ribbon Panel from the data object.
Then we can add any number of ComboBoxMember instances to the ComboBox group that has been just created. The steps are pretty the same as adding PushButton or TextBox items to a Ribbon Panel, e.g. creating a data object ComboBoxMemberData first, adding a ComboBoxMember through calling the AddItem method against the ComboBox container next, and finally setting some other properties such as ToolTip and Image.
The BmpImageSource() is a helper method that can be used by a Ribbon item to retrieve a specific bitmap image for its Image or LargeImage property if any from the Embedded Resources. It may be worth of mentioning the resource name here with a few words. In VB.NET, it is generally the project Default Namespace plus the image file name regardless whether the file is put into a project folder or not. However, in C#, things are different. We have to add the folder name if any in between.
The CreateRibbonPanel() is another helper method that will create Ribbon Panels and add them to the default native ‘AddIn’ (API name, the UI name is ‘Add-Ins’) Ribbon Tab and to our custom ‘RevitAddinWizard’ Ribbon Tab (the API name and the UI name are the same) respectively. It applies some good naming conventions and follows some good coding practices such as always feeding a GUID to the panel constructor and then setting its Name as easy to remember/parse and still unique and its Title as good for display which can be duplicate.
The AddIn (API name) or Add-Ins (UI name) Ribbon Tab may look like the following:
The RevitAddinWizard (both API and UI name) Ribbon Tab may look like this:
As can be seen, except for in different Ribbon Tabs, the Ribbon Panel and the ComboBox container its ComboBoxMember items look and behave exactly the same.
The RevitAddinWizard is going to provide the VB.NET version of the Ribbon Creator soon.
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