title: How to create a menu in WPF that has Microsoft Web Application styling
body: <p>We have been tasked with designing an enterprise application in WPF that will replace a battleship grey Winforms application with a modern look and feel.</p>
  
  <p>We like the look and feel that Microsoft web applications currently possess:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/VmFA6.jpg" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/VmFA6.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>We could create these menus in WPF in the usual way:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;DockPanel&gt;
      &lt;Menu DockPanel.Dock="Top"&gt;
          &lt;MenuItem Header="_File"&gt;
              &lt;MenuItem Header="_New" /&gt;
              &lt;MenuItem Header="_Open" /&gt;
              &lt;MenuItem Header="_Save" /&gt;
              &lt;Separator /&gt;
              &lt;MenuItem Header="_Exit" /&gt;
          &lt;/MenuItem&gt;
      &lt;/Menu&gt;
      &lt;TextBox AcceptsReturn="True" /&gt;
  &lt;/DockPanel&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But we'd get something that looks like a Winforms menu.</p>
  
  <p>I've seen some rather impressive styling efforts like <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36128054">this one</a>, but they all seem to have the same familiar Winforms shape.  I've also seen menus in libraries like MahApps Metro, but these strike us as too spartan.</p>
  
  <p>Is the WPF Menu control flexible enough to be styled as shown in the picture above, or should we go another route like building a custom menu control from Stack Panels and Lists?  What are the tradeoffs?</p>
  
  <p>Bonus points (i.e. a bounty) will be awarded for xaml/code that does exactly this.</p>
  
  <p><strong>An example of this menu style in action:</strong><br>
  <a href="https://www.visualstudio.com/" rel="noreferrer">https://www.visualstudio.com/</a></p>