Custom ribbon with TabFormToolsDesign (1 Viewer)

Hi,
I have the following problem.
I have made custom ribbon using xml that works fine. The DB starts up loading this custom ribbon set at opition. What i would like to achieve that while the DB uses this custom ribbon, at opening a form in design view i would have the form design tab as well. However this does not work. I use this:
<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">
<ribbon startFromScratch="true">
<tabs>
<tab idMso="TabHomeAccess" visible="true"/>
<tab idMso="TabExternalData" visible="true"/>
<tab idMso="TabFormToolsDesign" visible="true"/>
</tabs>
</ribbon>
</customUI>

So this works fine except the TabFormToolsDesign. I am expecting it to be visible if form opened in design view.
Thanks

Hi,

While still doing development work, you can use startFromScratch=false and just change it back before deploying it to your users.

Thank you for the fast reply.
So if i understand it correctly, startFromScratch false is the only way to trigger the design tab to show?

Wysy said:

Thank you for the fast reply.
So if i understand it correctly, startFromScratch false is the only way to trigger the design tab to show?

Click to expand...

Actually, it's not. Another thing you could try is remove the Ribbon name from the Options settings and simply assign it to the form's Ribbon property.

Actually that is what i would like to avoid. Cause this way i would need to add this custom ribbon to every form. So the point is to run the custom ribbon from start up and in case there is a need to have design tab it would be still available.

Wysy said:

Actually that is what i would like to avoid. Cause this way i would need to add this custom ribbon to every form. So the point is to run the custom ribbon from start up and in case there is a need to have design tab it would be still available.

Click to expand...

Hi,

Unfortunately, using a custom ribbon does come with some drawbacks. Microsoft only gave us two options for the startFromScratch attribute. It has to be either true or false. So, we'll have to make a decision whether we want to have the default ribbon as well or not.

If the problem with my previous suggestion is because you have a lot of forms to update, then take a look at this blog article to hopefully, maybe, help you make the job easier.

Now, if you do want to have both at the same time, there may be another way; however, I haven't tried it yet, so I am not exactly sure how to implement it. Basically, the idea is you could probably execute some code to "invalidate" the ribbon. So, when you want to use the default ribbon, you could try to invalidate the custom ribbon (I am not sure if, at this point, you'll then have to "load" the default ribbon. I am hoping it will load automatically).

Now, if you ask me how I handle this situation myself, I do use startFromScratch=true and assign the custom ribbon as the system ribbon. However, when I want to do some development work, I open the application using shift bypass. When I am done making changes and want to check ribbon functionality, then I do a C&R. Restarting the app is not necessary during development if I am not after ribbon functionalities. As you can imagine, I do run the C&R a few times during development when switching between dev and user modes.

Cheers!