Visual Studio styled Dockable Windows Component Library for .NET

Well, isn’t THAT a mouthful of a title.

This is another open source project created as a result of my Senior Design project. See, we had this nice GUI, but it seemed like it needed to be a lot more flexible than it was, since using it was really quite annoying. So, I got the idea to copy the interface from Visual Studio… since, in my opinion, the way the dockable windows work in VS is quite intuitive and useful. Some of you may cry out that there are other programs that do the same behavior… well, I copied it from VS.

So, thats what this component library implements. See a screenshot:

panes.png

As you can see, its capable of fairly complex layouts, with each element completely resizable and movable and such.  It is not quite as polished as the interface for Visual Studio, but its still quite intuitive for the user to use, and a pretty decent approximation for most projects. More importantly, its open source!

A sample executable and source code/project files are included in the download package.

Please note that you can NOT drag new panes into the form designer, as implementing the appropriate designer support seemed to be more trouble than its worth. Refer to the PaneTest project for detailed implementation, and the source code for detailed documentation.

If you find any bugs or have any comments or questions, feel free to drop me an email!

Download: Link

One Response to “Visual Studio styled Dockable Windows Component Library for .NET”

  1. con bonos casions says:

    The way the dock able windows work in VS is quite intuitive and useful. Some of you may cry out that there are other programs that do the same behavior its capable of fairly complex layouts, with each element completely re sizable and movable and such. It is not quite as polished as the interface for Visual Studio, but its still quite intuitive for the user to use, and a pretty decent approximation for most projects.i found this informative and interesting blog so i think so its very useful and knowledge able.so it is great usability and good for us.I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article

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