Dock for WinForms

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Overview

Telerik RadDock helps you manage multiple windows in your application with a docking system like the one in Microsoft Visual Studio. You get the dockable ToolWindows, a hidden DockingManager control, and a designer that help creating attractive layouts easy.

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Features

Full-featured Visual Studio-like docking system

The Telerik RadDock ensures you have complete support of the latest user interface standards. The docking system has full drag-and-drop support including the docking compass and docking hints for visual feedback. When a ToolWindow is about to be docked to a docking zone, the zone is highlighted to show where the object will be placed. The way a zone is highlighted can be customized.

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Centralized DockingManager

The DockingManager control provides a container that holds dockable windows. This container can fill the entire client area of a Windows Form, or can be limited to any rectangular area you choose to manage. You can mix a docking implementation with traditional Windows Forms or Telerik RadControls on the same form.

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ToolWindow control and behavior

The ToolWindow control provides a container that can be docked within the DockingManager. You can place other controls (either Telerik RadControls or standard Windows Forms controls) within a ToolWindow.

You can specify whether the ToolWindow object is floating, docked, nested, autohidden, pinned, or tabbed to the current position on the form. In accordance with the specified behavior, the state button of the corresponding ToolWindow will show the possible state choices.

You can also get increased ToolWindow functionality with horizontal and vertical splits.

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Docking custom UserControls

The Telerik RadDock enables you to create your own user controls to dock. The ToolWindow control is the container that can be docked within the DockingManager, and you can place both Telerik RadControls or standard Windows Forms controls within the ToolWindow. The ToolWindow itself is derived from the standard UserControl class, so you can use the Visual Studio designer to visually develop the contents of your ToolWindows. At run-time, it’s simple to instantiate as many dockable windows as you need.
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Extensive VS.NET Design-time Support

The Docking Designer gives you full interactive design-time control over the number, position, and properties of ToolWindows within a DockingManager. You can visually design the initial size and position of ToolWindows on your form without writing a single line of code. ToolWindow layouts can be saved to XML files for easy loading at run-time.

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Show content while dragging

The content of a dockable object is rendered semitransparent while it is being dragged for better visibility.
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Save/Load layout state

RadDock supports serialization and deserialization. All changes made to the dynamic page layouts can be stored in an XML file and reloaded when needed. This is an excellent way for portal customization and preservation of user layout settings.
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Keyboard navigation support

You can navigate between ToolWindows in a Windows-like fashion by pressing Ctrl+Tab. A notification window will open with all available windows. You can use either Ctrl+Tab or the mouse to select the ToolWindow you need to navigate to, even if is hidden.

In addition, you can use the arrow keys to control the horizontal and vertical splits.

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Appearance

The component is shipped with a rich set of themes that allow you to easily build slick interfaces with the look-and-feel of Windows Vista, Office 2007, Outlook, etc. The themes can be easily switched using a single property.

In addition to the built-in themes, all RadControls for WinForms come with a feature we call Theme Color Blending, which allows for tweaking the color scheme of a theme, without the need to redo the theme from scratch. The updated color scheme is applied to all Telerik WinForms controls that you are using in your application for a fresh new look. Or you can build a new theme from scratch to fit your exact visual demands by using the Visual Style Builder productivity tool.

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CAB Integration

Docking for WinForms provides seamless integration with the Composite UI Application Block (CAB) smart client and its underlying infrastructure. The Composite UI Application Block is designed to help in building complex, enterprise-ready Windows Forms solutions by providing a proven architecture and implementation, based on common patterns found in line-of-business front-end applications. For more information please review RadControls for WinForms CAB Support.
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