The NetXP Docking Suite
Introduction
The NetXP docking suite provides the following features:
The docking suite supports custom rendering.
Terminology
In order to use the docking suite effectively, certain key terms must be made
clear.
- Docking Manager Extender - This component extends the
docking manager for design time support. There's nothing very exciting about
it at runtime, other than its DockingManager property. To configure the
layout more extensively, hook into the Loaded event and configure the dock
objects contained by the docking manager there.
- Docking Manager - This is the core component of the docking
suite. It manages all dock objects. There should only be one docking manager
per form.
- Dock Object - A dock object is simply a control that has NetXP
docking capabilities. That is, the user can see a title bar and border
around the control, typically containing a close button. The user can drag
the dock object around to other sides of the form, as well as make it float.
A dock object is an abstraction of a window, containing only essential
properties and events.
- Window - A window is a ContainerControl, containing the dock
frame and the actual docked controls (Control objects).
- Dock Frame - The border and caption around a docked control.
- Dock Region - A panel that contains multiple windows. Typically,
there are four dock regions on a form, one for each side of the form.
- Restore - A class that keeps track of all the serializable
settings in the docking layout. There are multiple types of restores, for
the different types of dock objects.
Usage
Tutorial
To create a simple application consisting of docked windows, create a new
Windows Forms application then follow the steps below.
- Add NETXP.Controls.Docking.dll to your toolbox if necessary.
- Drag and drop the DockingManagerExtender to your form.
- Set the ContainerControl property to your form.
- Add a new tree view control to your form and dock it to the left.
- Set the tree view's AllowDocking property to True. This allows the
docking manager extender to take over and make the tree view control into a
dock object at runtime.
- Add a new list view control and dock it Fill. This will be the inner
control, so set the docking manager extender's InnerControl property to the
list view. Having an inner control allows you to create a form whose layout
consists only of docking windows.
Now you've learned how to use the DockingManagerExtender to add docking
window support to controls on your form.
The resulting application should look something like this:

At runtime, use the underlying DockingManager from the DockingManagerExtender
to perform operations with the DockObjects or to change renderers.
Showing and Hiding Dock Objects
Use the following code to hide a docked window with the title "Settings":
dockingManagerExtender1.DockingManager.HideDockObject(
dockingManagerExtender1.DockingManager.DockObjects["Settings"]);
Conversely, you can use the ShowDockObject method to show a dock window.
Saving and Loading Layouts
To automatically save and load layout, you can set the
AutomaticStatePersistence property of the docking manager extender to True. If
you wish to load and save layout manually, use the DockingManager.SaveConfigTo...
and DockingManager.LoadConfigFrom... methods.
More Information
For more information on DockingManagerExtender and DockingManager, refer to
the NetXP reference documentation.