MFC RibbonBar -- programmatically minimize?

Question

The MFC ribbon bar has a menu item labelled 'Minimize the ribbon'. When you select it, only the headers of each category are shown, and the ribbon pops up when the headers are clicked. I'd like to programmatically force a ribbon into this state. Unfortunately, the only method I can find is ToggleMimimizeState() [sic], which will either put it into this state or take it out depending on its current state.

Looking at the MFC source code, the way the menu command works is through this code:

case idMinimize:
    if (m_pActiveCategory != NULL)
    {
        ASSERT_VALID(m_pActiveCategory);
        m_pActiveCategory->ShowElements(FALSE);
        RedrawWindow();
    }

m_pActiveCategory can be obtained from outside of the CMFCRibbonBar class through the GetActiveCategory() method, but unfortunately the category's ShowElements() method is protected and I cannot see a way of achieving the same effect with the public methods.

Neither does there seem to be an obvious way of determining whether the ribbon is currently minimized.

Is there something I'm missing, or do I just have to guess at the current state?

Answer 1

Derive two new classes from CMFCRibbonBar and CMFCRibbonCategory

class MyCMFCRibbonCategory: public CMFCRibbonCategory
{
public:
    void force_ShowElements(BOOL todo)
    {
        ShowElements(todo);
    }
};

class MyRibbonBar: public CMFCRibbonBar
{
public:
    BOOL is_minimized()
    {
        return m_dwHideFlags == AFX_RIBBONBAR_HIDE_ELEMENTS;
    }

    void minimize_me(BOOL show_minimized)
    {
        MyCMFCRibbonCategory* cc = (MyCMFCRibbonCategory*)GetActiveCategory();
        if (cc != NULL)
        {
            cc->force_ShowElements(!show_minimized);
            RedrawWindow();
        }
    }
};

then change in your CMainframe from

CMFCRibbonBar   m_wndRibbonBar;

to

MyRibbonBar     m_wndRibbonBar;

Now in your code you can use the new two members:

BOOL MyRibbonBar::is_minimized()
void MyRibbonBar::minimize_me(BOOL show_minimized)

Basic example:

void CMainFrame::OnButton2()
{
    if( m_wndRibbonBar.is_minimized() )
        m_wndRibbonBar.minimize_me(FALSE);
    else
        m_wndRibbonBar.minimize_me(TRUE);
}

Hope it can help.