Can you repeat a block of controls inside a Ribbon? - wpf

Question

My app has a number of ribbon tabs and there is a certain group of ribbon controls that needs to be repeated on a few of these tabs. These are not dynamic content, just static elements that are used repeatedly.
I could just repeat the XAML for those controls in 2-3 places but it seemed that there should be a cleaner way to do this...
I have tried to create a UserControl to house the repeated elements, but with mixed success. I've pasted below what I've done. This does work in the sense that the contents of the UserControl are shown within each RibbonTab; but here are the problems:
Without the UniformGrid (or any other 'standard' panel like WrapPanel ) it is not possible to include multiple Ribbon controls in the UserControl. But because this panel controls the layout these controls don't correctly participate in the usual Ribbon layout rules (such as when your window is resized & the ribbon control sizes can change.)
I have to wrap the UserControl inside a RibbonGroup in each place it is used. Initially I intended to have the RibbonGroup be the main panel inside the UserControl, but this did not layout correctly - all the subsidiary controls were rendered almost entirely below the lower ribbon border?
I have the sense that some type of templating solution may be a better choice. I have read however that some of the Ribbon controls were designed not following typical WPF standards for how templates are used and that adds a lot of uncertainty.
Note that while I'd probably prefer a XAML-only approach, if some code behind neatly gets this done I think that would be fine.
UserControl:
<UserControl x:Class="ribbon1.SampleUC" ...>
<UniformGrid Columns="2" Rows="1">
<RibbonButton
Label="Zoom In"
SmallImageSource="..."
/>
<RibbonButton
Label="Zoom Out"
SmallImageSource="..."
/>
</UniformGrid>
</UserControl>
Main ribbon:
<Ribbon>
...
<RibbonTab Header="Tab1">
...
<RibbonGroup>
<l:SampleUC/>
</RibbonGroup>
</RibbonTab>
<RibbonTab Header="Tab2">
...
<RibbonGroup>
<l:SampleUC/>
</RibbonGroup>
</RibbonTab>
...
</Ribbon>

Answer 1

Replace the UserControl Tag in SampleUC.xaml with RibbonGroup and change the parent class in the code behind file.
<RibbonGroup x:Class=".SampleUC"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
<UniformGrid Columns="2" Rows="1">
<RibbonButton Label="Zoom In" />
<RibbonButton Label="Zoom Out" />
</UniformGrid>
public partial class SampleUC : RibbonGroup
{
public SampleUC()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
}
Now you can use it like that
<Ribbon>
<RibbonTab Header="Tab1">
<l:SampleUC/>
</RibbonTab>
</Ribbon>