Modify Ribbon and Menu items

By Adam Nagy

Just like in other Autodesk products, in Inventor as well the same library is used to present a Ribbon interface: AdWindows.dll
This provides a public API under the namespace Autodesk.Windows

Here is an example of using it inside Revit: http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/pimp-my-autocad-or-revit-ribbon.html

It's not a fully supported approach though, since some functions like adding a command button to the Ribbon are not supported - it would be difficut to properly hook up a control created this way to an Inventor command. For that you would need to use the Inventor API.
So when using it, take care and make sure that everything is working as expected.

E.g. the following VB.NET code could be used to hide the Options button in the Application Menu:

' 1) Need to reference AdWindows.dll from' <Inventor Install Folder>\bin' 2) Set it to "Copy Local" = "False"
Dim menu As Autodesk.Windows.ApplicationMenu = 
  Autodesk.Windows.ComponentManager.ApplicationMenu
menu.OptionsButton.IsVisible = False 

Note: when referencing AdWindows.dll the project will require other dependencies as well that the compiler will warn you about. You'll simply have to add a reference to those Windows .NET assemblies as well: PresentationCore, PresentationFramework, WindowsBase and System.Xaml