Controls / RadToolBar

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Getting Started with WPF ToolBar

This tutorial will walk you through the creation of a sample application that contains RadToolBar.

Assembly References

In order to use the RadToolBar control in your projects, you have to add references to the following assemblies:

  • Telerik.Windows.Controls
  • Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation

Adding Telerik Assemblies Using NuGet

To use RadToolBar when working with NuGet packages, install the Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.for.Wpf.Xaml package. The package name may vary slightly based on the Telerik dlls set - Xaml or NoXaml

Read more about NuGet installation in the Installing UI for WPF from NuGet Package article.

Add RadToolBar to the Project

Before proceeding with adding RadToolBar to your project, make sure the required assembly references are added to the project.

You can add RadToolBar manually by writing the XAML code in Example 1. You can also add the control by dragging it from the Visual Studio Toolbox and dropping it over the XAML view.

Example 1: Adding RadToolBar in XAML

<telerik:RadToolBar />

In order to use RadToolBar in XAML you have to add the namespace declaration shown in Example 2:

Example 2: Declaring Telerik Namespace

xmlns:telerik="http://schemas.telerik.com/2008/xaml/presentation"
If you run the application you will see an empty toolbar as demonstrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The empty toolbar generated by the code in Example 1

Empty RadToolBar

Populating with Data

In order to populate the RadToolBar control with data in XAML, you can add a few RadButtons to it and set their Content property as in Example 3.

Example 3: Adding RadButtons in XAML

<telerik:RadToolBar> 
    <telerik:RadButton Content="FILE" /> 
    <telerik:RadButton Content="EDIT " /> 
    <telerik:RadButton Content="VIEW" /> 
    <telerik:RadButton Content="BUILD" /> 
    <telerik:RadButton Content="DEBUG" /> 
    <telerik:RadButton Content="HELP" /> 
</telerik:RadToolBar>
Running the application will result in a populated RadToolBar as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: RadToolBar with static items

Populated RadToolBar

Adding static items in XAML is good for scenarios when you know in advance the contents toolbox. However, in most cases, you have to bind your RadToolBar to a collection of objects. You can achieve this through the ItemsSource property of the control.

You can have a look at the following blog post for a good example of how to bind the control.

Setting a Theme

The controls from our suite support different themes. You can see how to apply a theme different than the default one in the Setting a Theme help article.

Changing the theme using implicit styles will affect all controls that have styles defined in the merged resource dictionaries. This is applicable only for the controls in the scope in which the resources are merged.

To change the theme, you can follow the steps below:

  • Choose between the themes and add reference to the corresponding theme assembly (ex: Telerik.Windows.Themes.Windows8.dll). You can see the different themes applied in the Theming examples from our WPF Controls Examples application.

  • Merge the ResourceDictionaries with the namespace required for the controls that you are using from the theme assembly. For the RadToolBar, you will need to merge the following resources:

    • Telerik.Windows.Controls
    • Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation

Example 4 demonstrates how to merge the ResourceDictionaries so that they are applied globally for the entire application.

Example 4: Merge the ResourceDictionaries

<Application.Resources> 
    <ResourceDictionary> 
        <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> 
            <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.Windows8;component/Themes/System.Windows.xaml"/> 
            <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.Windows8;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.xaml"/> 
            <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.Windows8;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.xaml"/> 
        </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> 
    </ResourceDictionary> 
</Application.Resources>

Alternatively, you can use the theme of the control via the StyleManager.

Figure 3 shows a RadToolBar with the Windows8 theme applied.

Figure 3: RadToolBar with the Windows8 theme

RadToolBar with Windows8 theme

Telerik UI for WPF Learning Resources

See Also

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