Infragistics also comes with a docking manager, which
manages which controls are docked in which reason. This adds two properties
that can be set for controls, which manager where they are docked in the
application. However, Infragistics gives docked controls the ability to be
moved around the screen, in a very flexible way. When clicking and dragging a
docked control, several screen icons (the same screen icons that appear when
moving Visual Studio Windows around) appear, allowing the user to dock the
control in a wide array of layouts. The tool windows also support the ability to pin windows, which disappear in the sidebar when unpinned and unfocused.
Controls now have a "Dock Controls" option that
looks like the following:
Figure 10
This option controls where the control will be docked,
namely in the left area. You can dock multiple controls to one location. When
choosing the Sliding Group option for Child Pane Style, any controls docked at
that area are shown in a sliding group, similar to the Office navigation pane,
where one panel is shown at a time. The left sidebar is setup as a tab group,
which displays tabs at the bottom of the window.
Figure 11
Initially, when docking windows, they are not docked, but by
simply dragging and dropping one on top of the other, they are combined into a
multi-tab docked window. To apply styling to the docked windows, select the
smart tag for the docking manager, and select a theme to use. I've selected as
all possibilities the Office 2007 themes, which are illustrated above. There
are many options, using Office, Visual Studio, and other themes available.
When run, the docked windows can be pinned, as illustrated below:
Figure 12
In addition, when at runtime, it is possible to rearrange
the windows into a variety of places. It can be bound on top, bottom, left, or
right, against an existing docked window, or inside a docked window that
appears stacked upon one another. I flipped the bottom image sideways because
of its length, and as you can see, similar to the Visual Studio's Solution
Explorer and Property Window.
Figure 13
