Posted on 1 Comment on .NET Dock Panel

.NET Dock Panel

Apparently .NET does not come with any dock widget, like the ones used for the Toolbox and Properties window in Visual Studio. However, there is a freely available one on sourceforge called DockPanel Suite. Unfortunately, it seems to lack any sort of documentation!

This little code snippet below should be enough to get you started though. Just make sure you your form’s IsMdiContainer property to True first.

public Form1() {
    InitializeComponent();

    glControl.Load += new System.EventHandler(glControl_Load);
    glControl.Paint += new System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventHandler(glControl_Paint);
    glControl.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;

    var dockPanel = new DockPanel();
    dockPanel.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
    Controls.Add(dockPanel);
    dockPanel.BringToFront();

    var mainDock = new DockContent();
    mainDock.ShowHint = DockState.Document;
    mainDock.TabText = "untitled1";
    mainDock.Controls.Add(glControl);
    mainDock.Show(dockPanel);

    var propGrid = new PropertyGrid();
    propGrid.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;

    var propertyDock = new DockContent();
    propertyDock.Controls.Add(propGrid);
    propertyDock.ShowHint = DockState.DockRight;
    propertyDock.TabText = "Properties";
    propertyDock.Show(dockPanel);
}