Yesterday, I just received the newsletter from BCGSoft for the release of BCGControlBar Pro version 10.3. As I provide the GUI design and coding service here, therefore I would like to introduce a little bit of BCGControlBar which I used in many of my developed projects.

BCGControlBar Pro (by BCGSoft) is a very good graphic user interface (GUI) library for MFC developer. It has recently been integrated into the MFC library in Visual Studio .NET 2008. The .NET version library is also available. But to me BCGControlBar Pro is the most powerful lib for GUI development as it implement many nice UI features in typical windows applications. Most of the features are taken from Microsoft products such as Ribbon in Office 2007, Outlook like sidebar, intelligent docking.

I have been using BCGControlBar Pro for 7 years since when I was in the second year as a undergraduate student. I got a BCGControlBar Pro version 6.3 from my tutor and was required to do some development of a medical software. Actually, only a few nice features were used in that application. Below I would like to introduce some nice features of BCGControlBar Pro and their applications in developments.

Ribbon

In the windows applications, ribbons are graphical user interface widgets composed of a strip across the top of a window that exposes all functions that a program can perform in a single place. Additional ribbons may appear based on the context of the data. Ribbons aim to enhance usability; by consolidating the program’s functions and commands in an easily recognizable place, one need not look through multiple levels of hierarchical menus, toolbars or task panes before finding the right command.

Ribbon UI is one of the most successful UI elements or concepts in a Windows application. It is originally developed by Microsoft and implemented in Office 2007. BCGControlBar introduced the Ribbon UI classes in June 2006 in the BCGControlBar Pro version 9.0. It reproduced most of MS Ribbon UI functions although there were a number of bugs which have been fixed in the following releases.

Here are some screen shots of the demo application from BCGSoft including Ribbon MDI demo, Ribbon Gadgets and Ribbon DialogBar. MDI demo is suitable for all typies of functional editor. The Gadgets demo is useful in many business of technic software solutions as it shows how to put controls on the Ribbon tabs. The third one is slightly different, controls in a Ribbon UI style have been put into the left sidebar.

Since Microsoft introduced Ribbon UI, many companies changed their UI in a Ribbon style such as Autodesk AutoCAD series. More and more users are now familiar with Ribbon UI. In the lastest version 10.3, BCGControlBar Pro introduces the Windows 7 Scenic Ribbon. It provides a slightly different Ribbon style.

Toolbar, Menu, Docking Control Bars

Toolbar and menu are normal control in MFC development or Windows applications. MFC library contains basic classes for toolbar and menu which is static. BCGControlBar Pro provides docking toolbar and docking menu and supports 32-bit true colour image. Also, docking control bars is a very useful feature in an application which allows users customise their own workspace.

Outlook Bar and Calendar

BCGControlBar reproduces the appearance of most of the controls in the MS Outlook application. The side navigation bar, the list control, the report control and the calendar. These are very useful in the development of a business software. But to me some elements are not fully customisable without rewrite the classes. Also, recently, BCGControlBar introduces the Gantt Control. Users can add and edit of the Gantt events freely.

Other Features

There are a number of other nice features which I like about this library such as professional editor, list view, tab view, grid view, popup window, task pane, toolbox control. Also it provides customise skins, colour schemes. However, still there are some bugs in these classes. I did report one or two in the forum of BCGSoft. One has been solved, the other one about the professional editor has not been solved yet. The editor wrapping problem is one of the biggest problem to me currently.

Overall, I highly recommend this lib to MFC developers. I haven’t used the .NET lib in a commercial project yet, but I do believe it will be easy to use. However, BCGControlBar is only a lib for the implementation of many elements or controls in a windows application. The real GUI design is about how to organise these controls in a good layout, how to make an end user feel the software is easy to use.

All the screen shots are taken from BCGSoft (www.bcgsoft.com). If you are interested in this product, please visit www.bcgsoft.com for demos and download which they provide.

Have you been ever in a development of the GUI of an application? Will you share some of your GUI design?