What experience have you had with introducing a Ribbon style control to legacy MFC applications?
I know it exists in the new VC2008 Feature Pack, but changing compilers from VC2005 is a big deal for our source base and integration to our environment, Intel FORTRAN, ClearCase, many 3rd libraries.
There are quiet a few different commerical implementations, most focusing on C#/VB .NET, and only a few for native C++ MFC.
I have read all the usual reviews found by Google most are quiet old now, so I am interested to here from people who have actually done it, been through the pain barrier, released a legacy application with VC2005 and a Ribbon UI.
We currently use a very old version of Stingray Objective Toolkit to provide our MFC extensions like customizable toolbars and docking windows etc.
Any one used Prof-UIS, compared to the other commercial ones its relatively cheap, unlimited developer licensing is a 10th the cost of the others.
Are there any free, open source or L-GPL’d ones available?
In my projects I’m using the MFC Feature Pack in Visual Studio 2008, which is based on code from BCGSoft. Their BCGControlBar Library Professional Edition includes a ribbon control and is compatible with Visual Studio 2005.
I’m not aware of any open source ribbon control libraries for C++, though.