Telerik blogs

It's another Thursday, so by now you are anxiously awaiting the next installment of XAMLflix. Today we're diving into the navigation controls a bit to bring you RadBreadCrumb, a unique control allowing for an experience very similar to the explorer bar that you find in windows. Complete with the ability to display icons, a built-in history journal, and easy support for hierarchical navigation, RadBreadCrumb offers an intuitive way to easily navigate structured data while taking up a minimum of screen real estate.

For a quick recap, XAMLflix = Videos + Projects covering all of the controls in both the RadControls for Silverlight and RadControls for WPF control suites. We are revamping the entire video library with fresh new content based on the latest and greatest versions of our controls, complete with projects so you can grab the same code you see in the video and run with it.

Exploring RadBreadCrumb

You will often run into scenarios in applications where users need to navigate hierarchical structures. One of the dilemmas you will run into with this scenario is that sometimes these structures can be *very* large, making it a bit of a chore to constantly expand tree nodes in hopes of finding the right information. This is a case where the Windows team actually nailed it with the Windows explorer bar, enabling an easy-to-use mechanism for searching through your computer drive structure all while allowing for simple niceties like text search for those of us who are keyboard-happy. Let's see how quickly you can get acquainted with RadBreadCrumb:

  • Getting Started - In this video we'll explore the basics of RadBreadCrumb. This will cover the overall structure of the control, setting a root item, and what properties you will need to get the hierarchical display showing and functional. (Download the project!)
  • Extending RadBreadCrumb - Building off of what we learned in the first video, we'll extend RadBreadCrumb by taking advantage of some additional features including adding icons and manipulating the built-in history behavior. (Download the project!)
  • Integration with RadTreeView - Taking our exploration of RadBreadCrumb one step further, we'll see what it takes to synchronize RadBreadCrumb with RadTreeView to really complete the Windows Explorer experience. (Download the project!)

As you can see, getting setup with RadBreadCrumb as well as integrating it with other navigation controls can be quite easy.  Give it a spin in your Silverlight and WPF applications and let us know what you think!

Stay tuned for more from XAMLflix next week!


XAMLflix Download RadControls for Silverlight & WPF

About the Author

Evan Hutnick

works as a Developer Evangelist for Telerik specializing in Silverlight and WPF in addition to being a Microsoft MVP for Silverlight. After years as a development enthusiast in .Net technologies, he has been able to excel in XAML development helping to provide samples and expertise in these cutting edge technologies. You can find him on Twitter @EvanHutnick.

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