Office 2007 Ribbon UI for RadControls for...ASP.NET

That's right. Office 2007 Ribbon UI for ASP.NET. In what is the absolute best implementation of the Ribbon UI I have seen on the web to date, Russel Masson has contributed an outstanding project to the Telerik Code Library. The project, which will likely become a Telerik Open Source Project soon, provides everything you need to implement the Office 2007 Ribbon UI in an ASP.NET application. The project includes a number of custom Ribbon controls built by Russel that work closely with the Telerik RadControls to work their magic.

You must check out the online demo to understand the quality of this implementation. This is much more than a Ribbon UI skin for Telerik controls (though it is a good skin, too). This is a full platform for implementing the Ribbon UI.

This post is intended mostly to call your attention to an incredible free community resource, but I will be posting much more on this framework in the future. I have already implemented my own customizations to enable Office 2007-like RadWindow pop-ups that I will be showcasing in future posts and eventually contributing back to the project source. I will also be working on integration with ASP.NET AJAX and RadControls "Prometheus" in the near future.

I will be providing some analysis in the future on using the Ribbon UI on the web, looking at whether the Ribbon UI should be used for navigation (as tabs normally are on the web) or as a simple tool bar (as it is used in Office). For now, download the latest project source and have fun playing with (and enhancing!) the best Ribbon UI controls for ASP.NET.