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You need free ribbon control for your WPF applications? You would like to build applications with Windows 7 Scenic ribbon or Office 2007 ribbon? Well, in this article I will tell you where and how to get it and how to use free ribbon control in your WPF applications.

I’ve been talking a lot about ribbons in new Windows 7 and about ribbons in applications like Paint or WordPad. But now you can use free WPF ribbon control.

What’s the deal?

The WPF team is sharing new WPF Ribbon control starting on Monday, October 27, 2008! Binaries and source code for the Ribbon can be downloaded at the Office UI Licensing site.

So, your first step is to go to Office UI Licensing site and get yourself a free WPF ribbon control. You must accept and sign license (it’s not a big deal) and download free WPF ribbon control. Just follow this link.

How to use free WPF ribbon control in your WPF applications? Well, I have prepared several tutorials where I am explaining you step-by-step how to add reference to free WPF ribbon control in Expression Blend 2 or Visual Studio 2008, how to create and populate ribbons with elements such are QuickAccessToolbar, Tabs, Groups, Commands…

Furthermore, I will show you how to make your free WPF ribbon look like Office 2007 ribbons and Windows Scenic (Windows 7 UI ribbons). And the fun has started on Tuesday, November 4th.

Go and check out this tutorials:

• 1. HOW TO: Use and add ribbon to your WPF applications (Part 1)
• 2. HOW TO: Use and add ribbon to your WPF applications (Part 2)
• 3. HOW TO: Use and add ribbon to your WPF applications (Part 3)
• 4. HOW TO: Use and add ribbon to your WPF applications (Part 4)

Just to give you a peek what we will create in next few days:

Free WPF ribbon control sporting Windows 7 (Windows Scenic) look and feel

Free WPF ribbon control with Quick Access Toolbar (yes I will show in tutorial how to add one and work with it)

Free WPF ribbon control sporting Office 2007 look and feel

So, I hope you are excited about this as much as I am because ribbon as an UI paradigm is extremely popular and loved. Now, for the first time, you have chance to get free WPF ribbon control and use it in your solutions.

Special note goes to all those students competing at Imagine Cup 2009 competition (Design invitational) - you are encouraged to explore and learn about this free WPF ribbon control and see how you can reuse it in your projects. In case you are looking for Imagine Cup ideas, take a look at this article outlining several possible cool ideas for Imagine Cup 2009 competition.