Krypton Standard Toolkit Documentation

PaletteViewer is a WinForms utility built with .NET 4.7.2 and the Krypton Toolkit. It is designed to visualize every color exposed by the Krypton palette API across multiple themes. It condenses the entire color surface into a single, scrollable KryptonDataGridView, allowing developers and designers to audit, compare, and explore palette data.

It is particularly useful for catching alignment errors in custom themes, such as:

• Missing, unlabelled, or out-of-order color indices.
• Arrays that are too short or return unexpected transparent colors.
• IndexOutOfRangeException risks caused by misaligned SchemeBaseColors arrays.

The Krypton Suite provides UI components for creating professional, consistent applications with themes similar to Microsoft Office (2007/2010/2013) and Microsoft 365. The suite consists of five main products:

1. Krypton Toolkit: The base set of controls.
2. Krypton Ribbon: Ribbon-style interface components.
3. Krypton Navigator: Navigation-focused components.
4. Krypton Workspace: Workspace management components.
5. Krypton Docking: Docking-capable UI components.

The rendering process follows a specific sequence to ensure visual consistency:

1. Retrieve Renderer: The control's ViewManager or Visual class gets the renderer from the current palette: IRenderer renderer = currentPalette.GetRenderer();
2. Query Values: The Visual code requests specific theme values (colors, padding, etc.) from the palette or redirector: Color back = palette.GetBackColor1(style, state);
3. Execute Draw: The Visual code calls the renderer's drawing methods using those retrieved values: renderer.Draw...(..., back, pad, ...);

// 1. Get the renderer
IRenderer renderer = currentPalette.GetRenderer();

// 2. Get values from the palette
Color back = palette.GetBackColor1(style, state);
Padding pad = palette.GetMetricPadding(...);

// 3. Call the renderer to perform the drawing
renderer.Draw...(..., back, pad, ...);

The Krypton Suite uses a split architecture to manage theme colors, separating the high-level color definitions (Schemes) from the low-level WinForms rendering requirements (Tables).

• KryptonColorScheme (The Scheme): A comprehensive, authoritative contract containing every color available in a theme (e.g., ~239 properties). This is the primary API surface for developers to access specific theme colors.
• KryptonColorTable (The Bridge): A single, generic implementation of ProfessionalColorTable that acts as a bridge. It implements only the ~70 properties required by WinForms rendering and forwards those requests to the active KryptonColorScheme.

This model allows for a massive palette API while keeping the rendering logic slim and maintainable. Adding a new theme only requires creating a new KryptonColorScheme subclass; no changes to the renderer bridge are necessary.

The Krypton Docking component set allows users to customize their application layout by dragging and dropping docking pages into new locations, similar to the docking behavior in Visual Studio 2008/2010.

Key characteristics:

• Each docking area uses an instance of the Krypton Workspace to manage page organization.
• Integrates with the Krypton Toolkit architecture to ensure a consistent look and feel.

While standard Krypton controls use IRenderer, WinForms MenuStrip, ToolStrip, StatusStrip, and ContextMenuStrip use a different pipeline involving Color Tables.

• KryptonColorTable: Extends ProfessionalColorTable. It exposes properties that the .NET ToolStripProfessionalRenderer consumes.
• KryptonProfessionalRenderer: The specific Krypton renderer used for menus/strips. It is initialized with a KryptonColorTable instance.

Each built-in palette exposes a theme-specific ColorTable property. When you switch a palette, both the IRenderer (for controls) and the ColorTable (for menus/strips) are updated to maintain visual consistency.

// How a palette exposes its color table
public override KryptonColorTable ColorTable =>
    Table ??= new KryptonColorTable365(BaseColors!.ToArray(), InheritBool.True, this);

The Krypton Ribbon mimics the look, feel, and operation of the ribbon controls found in Microsoft Office (2007/2010/2013/365). It includes advanced features such as:

• Quick access toolbar
• Contextual tabs
• Auto-shrinking groups

It integrates with the Krypton Toolkit architecture to maintain a consistent visual style across your application.

The Krypton Workspace allows you to create a document area where users can drag and drop pages into new positions, similar to the Visual Studio document area.

Key characteristics:

• High flexibility and functionality for page organization.
• Each cell within the workspace utilizes an instance of the Krypton Navigator to provide diverse display and organization options.
• Integrates with the Krypton Toolkit architecture for visual consistency.