Where to get User Interface Components as seen in Acrobat, Photoshop etc

Question

Does anyone know if you can obtain the following user interface components as seen in various adobe products for use in ones own product?

• Treeview (Adobe Acrobat)
• Collapsable Toolbars (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator)

Answer 1

Are you building on the .NET platform? You then have access to many COM libraries that Adobe's programs use internally.

For eg. you can directly instantiate and command an instance of Adobe Illustrator by:

1. In Visual Studio, right click your project and choose "Add Reference".
2. Choose "Adobe Illustrator CS4/CS3 Type Library", press OK. (located at "C:\program files\adobe\adobe illustrator cs3/cs4\plug-ins\extensions\scriptingsupport.aip")

Now in your program :

C#

// open AI, init
Illustrator.Application illuApp = new Illustrator.Application();

// open doc
Illustrator.Document illuDoc = illuApp.Open("C:\myai.ai", Illustrator.AiDocumentColorSpace.aiDocumentRGBColor, null);

// close doc
illuDoc.Close();
illuDoc = null;

// close AI
illuApp.Quit();
illuApp = null;

VB

'open AI, init
Dim illApp As Illustrator.Application = New Illustrator.Application()

' open doc
Dim illDoc As Illustrator.Document = illApp.Open("C:\myai.ai", Illustrator.AiDocumentColorSpace.aiDocumentRGBColor, Nothing)

' close doc
illDoc.Close()
illDoc = Nothing

'close AI
illApp.Quit()
illApp = Nothing

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Try browsing around in the "Add Reference" window, to find more libraries. You might even directly be able to hook on to Adobe's internal UI libraries!

Answer 2

See these ComponentSource pages if you're looking at purchasing / licensing:

• Tree components
• Toolbar and UI components

Although you won't get Adobe's components, you'll get ones with similar functionality or even replicas.

Free alternatives would also be available though. Try Googling for some open-source ones!