How to really get started with RadDock

[Travis]

In and of itself, looks like the RadDock is extremely powerful. It is super easy to design layouts and be able to handle a lot of windowing concerns very seamlessly. However, once you have the windowing working, how do you then actually get started using it. By that I mean, I've got an abc-document-window here, an xyz-tool-window there, known at design time, and all need to coordinate in, through, around, somehow in the dock. How to engage the dock features with your custom controls, document, or tool windows? Thanks...

[George]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for contacting us.

You can easily add and remove our controls, document and tool windows from the RadDock control. For example: add a RadDock and a ToolWindow to your form, then you can easily add any control inside. Take a look at the code snippet below:

RadCalendar calendar = new RadCalendar();
calendar.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
this.toolWindow1.Controls.Add(calendar);

For more detailed instructions you can visit RadDock's help page Getting Started | RadControls for WinForms Documentation.

I hope this helps. If you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
George
Telerik

[Travis]

So if I have, say, a RadTreeView (or specialized version of one), then I can go something like this:

MyRadTreeView treeView = new MyRadTreeView();
treeView.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
this.toolWindow1.Controls.Add(treeView);

I guess what I am really asking is also this: when the same windows (or their controls) are concerned with application state, saving the state in addition to, as part of the windows, or how exactly are those type of concerns handled?

For instance, we've got a sort of project/workspace concept, as well as some options, settings, and so forth, and that sort of thing that serialize. Does this all get handled by RadDock? Or we need to comprehend that in addition to? And/or coordinate with it?

Thank you...

[Travis]

Doing more studying of just what kind of animal RadDock is, and how it can help the docked window, window state persistence issue.

There are a handful of what I might consider document windows, one which pertains to a project, another which potentially enumerates multiple projects (RadTreeView-based), another which has some results from the project (list view, or another tree view, etc), and one which has some charting capability for selected results. Then a handful, several or so potentially singleton tool windows, type thing.

I believe I am grasping what RadDock can do for me. It is basically a windowing host architecture. It provides a host for a set of contained controls. TBD how that container layout occurs actually, like are tabs presented, type thing. So in terms of MVC or even MVVM, RadDock is a View, a host vernier, in which I can comprehend designed forms (RadForm), UserControls, etc.

To comprehend things like workspace, I ran across a thing that exposes Composite UI Application Block (CAB) and SCSF, through Telerik CAB Enabling Kit. This for concepts like the enterprise workspace, things like that.

Assuming I wire all these things up, like through a DI composition root (which I likely will, to manage object life times, etc), then it's a matter of coordinating workspace content with known dockable window states: like one for the "document" (or project) tabs, for results, for charts, etc.

Definitely a bit of a learning curve, but I do see the benefit using a vernier such as RadDock to facilitate all this for me.

[George]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for writing back.

To address the first post, yes, it is as simple as that to populate a window in RadDock with a control. 

As to the second part of the question, the control will save/load only its windows layout and you are the one that needs to take care of the controls and their state. The CAB approach might be a good thing to do in your case. Feel free to examine it if it will fit for your scenario. If you haven't found it already, here is its documentation: http://www.telerik.com/help/winforms/telerik-cab-enabling-kit-overview.html.

For any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Regards,
George
Telerik