Hey,

I am looking for a Menu/ToolStrip control that allows the user to customize it. By customize, I mean customize the items that are on the menu/toolstrip, either hiding them, changing their order, etc. I'm not talking about the visual appearance of the controls.

I have been looking for a control like this for a very long time on and off, I've tried to create it myself various times but never even got close. I knew there would be a time where I needed this control, and that time has finally come, so I decided to ask around here.


The control I'm looking for is basically the menu/toolstrip that you get in Visual Studio (a least 2008 or 2010, not sure about 2005). It is also available in many other Microsoft applications (such as Office before the Ribbon), which makes me believe they must have a control for that. I don't think they would implement those features in every application manually every time.
There are a few things in the control that are not available (at least not out of the box) as far as I know in the standard .NET MenuStrip and ToolStrip controls. For example:

1. Rightclicking the MenuStrip, ToolStrip, or the ToolStripContainer, will bring up a ContextMenuStrip with all available toolbars. The user can check toolbars to make them visible and uncheck them to hide them.

2. At the end of any ToolStrip, there is always an extra item in the 'overflow' part:

In this item, a list of all available items (in that particular ToolStrip) can be checked/unchecked to show/hide them.

3. Finally, by choosing the Customize item (available in the rightclick option of point 1, or the dropdown in point 2, or simply in the Tools menu), the user can completely customize which items are in which toolbar, in which order, even group them together, give them custom shortcuts, etc.



As I said, I have searched a lot for this control, but never found a decent free implementation. In fact, I only ever found one: the UltraToolBarsManager control in the Infragistics control package. This control is exactly the one I want. It has all three points I mentioned above, right out of the box, exactly like the Microsoft toolbars. Unfortunately, it isn't a free control package and I cannot use it for this project.


Besides searching for third party implementations, I have tried to create my own. I have actually managed to create point 1, except for a few details, which I've also posted in the codebank at one time I think. I have tried parts 2 and 3 but I have failed miserably. I am not sure I am ever going to get this thing to work with the existing MenuStrip and ToolStrip controls. I'm sure I could get it if I were to completely create my own toolbar controls, but I'm not attempting that for a while as there will most probably be MUCH more problems involved in doing that...



So, basically I'm hoping anyone here has ever come across a control like this. Even if it's just one of the three points that would help...

Thanks!