70-526 MCTS

Panel control

The Panel control is a container for other controls, customarily used to group related controls. Panels are used to subdivide a form by function, giving the user a logical visual cue of control grouping.

You can add controls to the Panel at design time and runtime. When you move the Panel control, all of its contained controls move too. The Panel control is displayed by default without any borders or scroll bars.

Inheritance hierarchy

 System.Object 
   System.MarshalByRefObject 
     System.ComponentModel.Component 
       System.Windows.Forms.Control 
         System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl 
           System.Windows.Forms.Panel
             Derived Classes

Useful properties

  • AutoScroll - This property when set to true, allows scroll bars to be displayed.

  • BackColor - The background colour of the Panel is defaulted to System.Drawing.SystemColors.Control, but this can be set to any colour you like.

  • BackgroundImage - Instead of a single colour, an image can be displayed as the background.

  • BorderStyle - This property determines if the panel is outlined with no visible border (None), a plain line (FixedSingle), or a shadowed line (Fixed3D).

  • Controls - Gets the collection of controls contained within the control.

  • Enabled - if this property is set to false, the controls contained within the Panel will also be disabled.

  • TabIndex - Gets or sets the tab order of the control within its container. (inherited from Control)

  • TabStop - Gets or sets a value indicating whether the user can give the focus to this control using the TAB key.

    Note

    The Panel control does not display a caption. If you need a control similar to a Panel that can display a caption, see the GroupBox control.

    Docking a Panel in a Form

    A Panel can be docked into the parent container, by selecting the Panel and clicking on the Smart Tag icon . This causes a small menu to appear, simply click on Dock in parent container.

    To undock the Panel, click on the Smart Tag icon and select Undock in parent container.

    Add a control to a Panel manually

    The MSDN page has the following example showing how to add a Panel and some controls within it.

    public void CreateMyPanel()
{
  Panel panel1 = new Panel();
  TextBox textBox1 = new TextBox();
  Label label1 = new Label();
  
  // Initialize the Panel control.
  panel1.Location = new Point(56,72);
  panel1.Size = new Size(264, 152);
  // Set the Borderstyle for the Panel to three-dimensional.
  panel1.BorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.BorderStyle.Fixed3D;

  // Initialize the Label and TextBox controls.
  label1.Location = new Point(16,16);
  label1.Text = "label1";
  label1.Size = new Size(104, 16);
  textBox1.Location = new Point(16,32);
  textBox1.Text = "";
  textBox1.Size = new Size(152, 20);

  // Add the Panel control to the form.
  this.Controls.Add(panel1);
  // Add the Label and TextBox controls to the Panel.
  panel1.Controls.Add(label1);
  panel1.Controls.Add(textBox1);
}

    MSDN references

  • Panel control
  • Panel Control Overview (Windows Forms)

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    © Publicjoe, 2007

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