Ribbon control replaces traditional toolbars and menus with tabbed groups (Categories). Each tab is logically split into Panels and each panel may contain various controls and command buttons. In addition, Ribbon control provides smart layout maximally utilizing the available space. For example, if a Panel has been stretched and has no place to display all available controls, it becomes a menu button which can display sub-items on a popup menu.

The Designer allows you easily create mock ups for real applications. It takes an existing MFC project as an input and generates an XML representation of Ribbon elements along with RC files as an Output. When the designer part of the work has been done you just compile the project, run and see the designed Ribbon control in action.

The library provides you with all components necessary to build an application with Microsoft Visual Studio look (Light, Dark and Blue color themes). In addition, a developer can set a theme accent color. By default, the status bar and all highlighted/focused elements have a blue color, but you can change it according to your preferences (Light and Dark styles only).

The library provides Microsoft Office look and feel for application components. This is a totally skinned interface that can be applied to the various set of controls such as ribbons, menus, toolbars, docking panes and more. Style features include:

• Flat, Windows-style UI.
• Full-screen backstage view with a "back" circular button.
• Large docking pane and application frame captions.
• Using accent color in the status bar, application button, backstage view and highlighted GUI elements.
• Ribbon background image support.

The library offers a powerful and simple mechanism of toolbars/menu customization similar to Microsoft Office and Visual Studio. User can simply drag/drop buttons between toolbars and menus. All categories such as "File" or "Edit" are automatically built from the application resources. The customization mechanism allows modification of toolbar/menu items appearance, changing the item text/icon and even creation/modification images using the library's Image Editor. All these features are automatically provided by the library, so no additional code is required.

BCGControlBar's Grid Virtual Mode allows you to create a high-performance Grid control with unlimited number of items. The Grid control has the following methods for the virtual mode handling; EnableVirtualMode: enable virtual mode and set a callback function, and SetVirtualRows: define the number of grid rows in the virtual mode. The BCGPGridExample application ("Virtual List" tab and "Grid Control | Virtual Mode Test" dialog) to see how to add to the grid 1 billion items.

The Grid control supports most standard grid features including unlimited number of items in a row, sorting, hide/show columns, drag & drop columns, in cell editing, resizing and more. It supports the following cell types Text, Masked text, Numeric, Icon, Numeric with the spin buttons, Combo box, Date/time picker, Color picker, URL, Check box, Custom cell types.

The library has various types of the gauges including circular and linear gauges that allow developers to create digital dashboards. Items can be created as standalone objects or combined with others inside gauges container.