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How to: Add Buttons to a ToolBar Control Using the Designer

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Note

The ToolStrip control replaces and adds functionality to the ToolBar control; however, the ToolBar control is retained for both backward compatibility and future use, if you choose.

An integral part of the ToolBar control is the buttons you add to it. These can be used to provide easy access to menu commands or, alternately, they can be placed in another area of the user interface of your application to expose commands to your users that are not available in the menu structure.

The following procedure requires a Windows Application project with a form containing a ToolBar control. For information about setting up such a project, see How to: Create a Windows Forms application project and How to: Add Controls to Windows Forms.

To add buttons at design time

  1. Select the ToolBar control.

  2. In the Properties window, click the Buttons property to select it and click the Ellipsis (The Ellipsis button (...) in the Properties window of Visual Studio.) button to open the ToolBarButton Collection Editor.

  3. Use the Add and Remove buttons to add and remove buttons from the ToolBar control.

  4. Configure the properties of the individual buttons in the Properties window that appears in the pane on the right side of the editor. The following table shows some important properties to consider.

    Property Description
    DropDownMenu Sets the menu to be displayed in the drop-down toolbar button. The toolbar button's Style property must be set to DropDownButton. This property takes an instance of the ContextMenu class as a reference.
    PartialPush Sets whether a toggle-style toolbar button is partially pushed. The toolbar button's Style property must be set to ToggleButton.
    Pushed Sets whether a toggle-style toolbar button is currently in the pushed state. The toolbar button's Style property must be set to ToggleButton or PushButton.
    Style Sets the style of the toolbar button. Must be one of the values in the ToolBarButtonStyle enumeration.
    Text The text string displayed by the button.
    ToolTipText The text that appears as a ToolTip for the button.

  5. Click OK to close the dialog box and create the panels you specified.

See also