Panels and UserControls in a form

[ToniMontana]

Here I have a question to all WinForms-experts ;-)

 

 

In my app I try to realize the concept of having

different fixed-size-areas of the main-form-window,

say left-area middle- and right-area.

 

In the left and right I want to display buttons,

in the middle normal graphics and other machine-infos.

 

To be able to display different content in each

area, I designed these contents as usercontrols

which fit in the left-area or middle-area and so on.

 

The main-form-windows has a panel for each area,

and in these panels I can plug the usercontrols

(after creation) during runtime with the call:

 

panelLeft.Controls.Add(usercontrolX)

 

or

 

panelRight.Controls.Add(usercontrolY)

 

and so on.

 

 

Now my question:

 

 

Is there a way to do such things without these panels?

 

 

Because the problem is: Every time I create a new usercontrol

(via CreateInstance()), I MUST do the adding to the panel

and this HAS TO BE DONE in the class of the main form window.

But I want to do it somewhere else, I think this must be

possible because I can ask for the reference of the main-form-

window-panels via a property. But it doesnt work. It compiles

but after adding a panel from outside it will not be shown correctly.

[Heiko]

Have you evaluated the DockingStyle property ?

 

Controls need not necessarily reside on a panel. You can also place them directly on the form. I would not recommend this. Not at all. Because you will either get your sizing / docking scrambled when you remove / add or you have to work with fixed locations which is crap too.

 

Another solution might be to add a public method .AddControl (location as myApp.myLocationEnumeration, control as control) to the main form.