I would like to add another horizontal strip along the bottom of the ribbonbar much the same way as Excel does with its formula bar. The ribbon is a very good way of keeping the interface simple and uncluttered but the need to have an extra strip which contains controls that are always available is essential to my program.

 

I have resorted to adding a TabControl set to Office2007 and capturing the resize of the Commandbar ResizeClient event to keep it locked to the ribbon.  Because I use Tabworkspace extra code is required to move the TabControl up or down depending on whether any mdiChildren are visible.

 

Does anybody have a better way? Would Codejock add this as a feature please ?