Changing the style of RadControl UI elements at runtime

• first approach - Selectors. As demonstrated, the actual task to change an element property is not very hard to achieve. Here is a sample code for changing ribbon's back color:
   

  private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

  {

  //change ribbon back fill - no need to change style

  FillPrimitive ribbonBackFill = (FillPrimitive)new ClassSelector("TabBaseFill").GetSelectedElements(this.RadRibbonBar1.RibbonBarElement)[0];

  ribbonBackFill.BackColor3 = Color.FromArgb(200, 168, 255);

  ...

  }

  
   Here the ClassSelectror object if responsible for traversing the UI tree and finding the corresponding element(s) within. The class names (RadElement.Class property) of different elements in the UI hierarchy can be browsed, using the RadControlspy tool.
   
• second approach - Creating a StyleSheet programmatically. The difficulty in this case comes from the "dynamic" style behavior - the ribbon chunks' fill colors are animated when the IsMouseOver property changes:
   
  
   
  Note that this approach does not use event handlers nor event-related code. Rather, it creates an object, adds it in the collections, and sets several properties.
  The benefits of using the style API come from code modularization and the possibility to reuse it. For example, the StyleSheet can be used in several places, with no need to wire up control- or element-specific events and API.

For more information on themes and styles please refer to the product documentation.