Introducing the Custom AppBar

So far in this chapter we have examined the ApplicationBar and seen its limitations. This section examines a custom application bar called AppBar, which is an ItemsControl that wraps the built-in ApplicationBar class to provide support for data binding, button and menu item visibility, and commanding. AppBar also provides various extended buttons and menu items, such as a toggle button, which allows you to bind to multiple commands.

In this section you see how it is possible to bind to the various application bar, icon button, and menu item properties.

In Chapter 11, “Creating Expansive and Engaging Apps with the Pivot and Panorama,” you see how to leverage some additional features of the AppBar to assign a different application bar for each PivotItem in a Pivot control.

AppBar and associated classes are available in the downloadable sample code but are maintained within the Calcium project at http://www.calciumsdk.com. I recommend downloading the maintained version.