Docking windows is not only supported on your main window, it can be created and hosted inside any container control, user control, or MDI child form type.
Docking Windows Designer inside User Control
Docking Layout inside MDI Child Form
The Docking Package supports a number of visual styles ranging from a default skin to the all new Office 2007 style. Docking windows also feature a theme drawing mode for visual styles.
Multiple Levels of Docking and Nesting
Multiple Levels of Docking and Nesting
Multiple Levels of Docking and Nesting
Multiple Levels of Docking and Nesting
Multiple Levels of Docking and Nesting
A gallery consists of images and text that can be enclosed in a scrollable ribbon as toolstrip items.
Gallery Items in Ribbon Tabs
Alternatively, the gallery items can also be viewed in a pop-up window as shown below.
Gallery Items in Drop-Downs
The MiniToolBar control is a lightweight, floating toolbar that can be dynamically displayed and hidden for certain contexts. A good example is text editing. When the user selects text in an editor, you can display the mini-toolbar next to the text, allowing the user to quickly bold, italicize, or underline it.
Mini-Toolbar
A quick access toolbar (QAT) is used to render a set of ribbon buttons that are commonly used in most applications. It is rendered next to the application menu button to make it more accessible to end users.
It can also be easily customized by end users utlilizing the built-in QAT context menu. End users can also choose to place it above or below the ribbon, remove certain commands from the QAT, and add other commands to it.
The QAT is also designed to prevent users from adding multiple instances of the same command to the toolbar.
Quick Access Toolbar in a Ribbon
Quick Access Toolbar with Expanded Context Menu
There is also a Customize Quick Access Toolbar dialog that can be invoked by end users. As the name suggests, it can be used to fully customize a set of commands displayed in the QAT.
Customize QAT Dialog Box
An Office 2007-style status strip, displaying a task's status, can be displayed at the bottom of the ribbon form. This status strip can include a wide variety of child controls such as a progress bar and track bar.
Ribbon Form with Status Strip
The status strip illustrated above includes the Office 2007 TrackBarEx control.
Blue, black, and silver color schemes can be applied to the Ribbon. There is even a Skin Manager that will allow you to set this color scheme for all the Office style Syncfusion controls you use in your form.
Ribbon Controls in Blue, Black, and Silver Color Schemes
These Office 2007 color schemes can also be provided for individual child controls in a ribbon. Different color schemes applied to different child controls are illustrated below:
Different Color Schemes for Individual Child Controls
Trees come with several appearance and layout customization options to tailor the look and feel of nodes to your needs.
Tree Node Content in Different Positions
Custom Painted Nodes
Check Box and Option Buttons
Custom Text Color, Help Text, and Fonts
Custom Controls Embedded in the TreeNodeAdv Control
The style architecture employed by the TreeViewAdv control lets users define unique styles for different parts of a tree. Each node then inherits these different styles before being rendered. The different styles users can specify in the tree by order of inheritance are:
- Global—defined in TreeViewAdv instance
- Child—defined in a parent node that applies to all immediate children of the parent node
- Node Level—defined for nodes at a particular level in the tree
- Node Specific—defined in each tree node
In addition, users can define base styles that can be inherited when defining any of the above styles.
Tree with Custom Styles for Different Parts
The GroupBar control lets you add Outlook-style navigation UI to your applications.
Outlook-Style Navigation UI
The group bar can collapse, expand, or float as per user convenience.
Group Bars in Expanded and Collapsed States
Group Bar in Floating State
Here are some of the GroupBar control's built-in themes.
The GroupView control can be used to display a list of selectable items, represented by text and an image.
Group View Items as Small Icons
There is built-in support for dragging and dropping the items in a group view.
Drag-and-Drop Items in a Group View
The XPTaskBar control provides the taskbar look and feel popularized in Windows XP with collapsible boxes that show links to common tasks. XP taskbar boxes can be nested in the XP taskbar and act as panels to host various items.
XP-Style Taskbar
The Office 2007-style look and feel is supported by the XPTaskBar control. Along with the blue, silver, and black color schemes, it also supports custom colors.
Varied Taskbar Skins
Breadcrumbs or breadcrumb trails are a navigation technique used in user interfaces. Their purpose is to give users a way to keep track of their location within programs or documents. Breadcrumbs provide a trail for the user to follow back to the starting or entry point of a folder. Essential Tools provides a NavigationView control that uses the breadcrumb technique to keep track of locations and folders.
NavigationControl with dropdowns to navigate forward.
Drop-down List in NavigationView Control
Pop-up with Customized Number of Menu Items
Editable Mode in Navigation View
Navigation View that Displays Previously Selected Items
Navigation View with History and Custom Buttons
Right-clicking the horizontal or vertical scrollbar during run-time displays a context menu. The appearance of this context menu changes to Office 2007 style with Tools.Windows dependency.
Normal Context Menu
Office 2007 Style Context Menu
The ScrollersFrame control comes with Classic, WindowsXP, and Office2007 styles. The Office 2007 style can be set to blue, silver, or black color schemes.
Classic Style
WindowsXP Style
WindowsXP Style
WindowsXP Style
Office 2007 Styles in Different Color Schemes
Essential Tools includes all the must-have controls required for building enterprise applications.
AutoComplete and AutoAppend in Text Boxes
Combo Box in Essential Grid
Drop-down Combo Box in a TreeView Control
Combo Box with AutoComplete
Multicolumn Combo Box
Custom Color Selection Created Using PopupControlContainer Control
EditableList Control
Edit date-time, currency, double, integer, percent, numeric, Boolean, range, etc. using these common editors.
Date-Time Pickers with Different Styles
MonthCalendarAdv Control in Different Styles
MaskedEditBox Control
CheckBoxAdv Control for Editing Tri-States
RadioButtonAdv Control for Editing Boolean States
Horizontal Range Slider
Vertical Range Slider
CurrencyEdit Control with Drop-down Calculator
CurrencyTextBox Control with Negative Values
DoubleTextBox Control with 15-Character Precision
IntegerTextBox Control
PercentTextBox Control
DomainUpDownExt Control with Different Spin Button Styles
NumericUpDownExt Control with Different Spin Button Styles
Essential Tools includes this useful set of composite controls: Calculator, ColorPickerButton, ColorUIControl, FontComboBox, FontListBox, FolderBrowser, GradientPanel, GradientLabel, ButtonAdv, ButtonEdit.
Calculator Control
FolderBrowser Control
ColorPickerButton Control with ColorUIControl
Font Combo Box
FontListBox Control
Split Container with Office 2007 Color Scheme
ButtonAdv Control with Different Styles
ButtonEdit with Button Images
GradientPanel Control.
The SpellChecker control is a must for any professional content editing application with proofreading capabilities.
The spelling checker comes with custom dictionary support, which allows users to add words to the dictionary during run time. This control can also be set to ignore uppercase and mixed-case letters, numbers, URLs, and e-mail addresses.
Spelling Checker
The TabControlAdv control supports all the different alignments, orientations, paddings, and custom drawing requirements you expect in a highly configurable tab control.
Office 2007 Color Schemes
Image outside Tab Bounds
Custom Colors for Tabs
Yahoo Messenger-Like Tab Style
Tab with Close Button
Tab Navigation Buttons
Multiline Text Support
Scrollable Tabs
Different Tab Alignments
The TabSplitterContainter control supports a VS 2008-style tabbed, split view of groups of tabs to help you easily render different views of the same document in your forms.
Horizontal and Vertical Split Views Support
Horizontally Split Window
Vertically Split Window
Your users can easily swap tab groups using built-in controls, just like VS 2008.
Swapping Tab Groups
A group can be optionally collapsed by the end user, as shown.
Collapsing Tab Groups
The Splash control can be used to add splash screens to applications. Easily design one in the designer and display it on the screen with animation.
Splash Panel for Message Notification
Splash Panel for User Input
Sample Splash Screen
The splash screen can be shown in any user-defined location. You can specify an image and display interval through the Windows Forms designer. Users can also preview the splash screen within the designer.
The StatusBarAdv control is an easy to use and fully designable control that is ideal to display status information in the bottom of a window, such as key states, date, time, etc.
Custom panels can be used in the StatusBarAdv control.
StatusBarAdv to display CAPS LOCK, INSERT, NUM LOCK, and SCROLL LOCK keys status
StatusBarAdv with custom panels
The ProgressBarAdv control is a fully customizable control with several built-in styles: constant, gradient, multiple gradient, tube, image, system, and waiting gradient.
ProgressBarAdv Control
ProgressBarAdv Control with Multiple Foreground Colors
ProgressBarAdv Control with Waiting Gradient Style
ProgressBarAdv Control Orientations
ProgressBarAdv Control with Foreground Image
In its most basic mode, the FlowLayout manager lays out child components in horizontal or vertical rows one after another. Users can specify row alignment as well as horizontal and vertical gaps.
Horizontal Flow Layout
Vertical Flow Layout
In its most flexible and powerful mode, the FlowLayout manager automatically realigns controls by adjusting their size and location based on current font size, form size, and localization settings.
FlowLayout Manager Arranging Controls
The GridBagLayout manager divides a container area into a grid and lets child components occupy one or more cells in this virtual grid. There are a number of constraints that can be applied to the children to control their positioning, sizing, and resizing logic.
Grid Bag Layout in Mini Text Editor
Buttons with Custom Fill, Weights, etc. in Grid Bag Layout
Similar to .NET's control docking capabilities, the BorderLayout manager lets users align child controls to a parent's sides or center. The advantage over the .NET control docking feature is that users can specify custom bounds for a layout, suspend a layout temporarily, or lay out non-control based components.
Border Layout—Buttons on Different Sides
The Wizard control enables users to create wizard forms within the Visual Studio .NET designer. The Wizard control helps manage everything in a form including button states and form title. Key features of the Wizard control include:
Creating interior pages with pre-generated headers and exterior pages with custom layouts
Navigating through pages during design time by Next and Previous buttons
Automatic handling of page-step flow and overriding when necessary
Validation on a page before switching
Notification events at wizard control and page levels
Wizard Control
The XPTaskPane control provides an alternative view of the wizard model, similar to the task pane in Office XP applications. The XPTaskPane control offers the following functionalities:
Create and associate different pages within the XPTaskPane control during design time
Browse between pages via a header at the top of the control providing Next and Previous buttons that also display the page title
Customize or hide buttons as needed
XPTaskPane Control
Office 2007-Style Color Schemes
CheckBox and Option Button
The MultiColumnTreeView control is shown with check boxes, interactive check boxes, and check state to intermediate, and option buttons with EnsureDefaultOptionChild property.
MultiColumnTreeNode with Check Box
MultiColumnTreeNode with Option Button
The appearance of the MultiColumnTreeView can be customized using background, foreground, border, and spacing properties similar to the TreeView control.
MultiColumnTreeView with customized Appearance
The background, foreground, and border settings of a subitem can be specified using SubItem Style Editor.
MultiColumnTreeView with customized Subitem
MultiColumnTreeView allows users to define the styles for nodes at different levels of the tree. It helps the users to specify the styles for a specific node or for a class of nodes.
We can modify the background for all the children of a parent node by editing the StandardStyle property.
Customizing the StandardStyle
Apart from the default style (Standard Style), we can also create custom Base styles using the BaseStyles Collection Editor.
Node style inherited from another base style
Tree Nodes can hold controls using this Custom Controls feature. This widens the functionality and view of the Tree nodes. With this feature, the nodes can hold controls like combo box, Calendar, Chart etc.,
MultiColumnTreeView with ComboBox
Styling options are available for the CommandBars created using the CommandBarController.
Dockable CommandBars in Default Visual Style
Add VS.NET/Office XP-style dockable toolbars to Windows Forms applications.
Dockable CommandBars in OfficeXP Visual Style
Office 2003 style for toolbars.
Dockable CommandBars in Office2003 Visual Style
The Docking arrows for different locations, for the Docking windows, can be shown or hidden by using the Dockability property in the Docking Manager Package. This feature can be experienced at runtime by using the drag drop functionality.
Tabbed Dockability
Outer dockability set to left, Right, Top and bottom
