WinForms and Web Designers provide the capability to arrange and resize dashboard items on the dashboard surface and within container items using drag-and-drop operations. You can also arrange and resize dashboard items using an API provided by the Dashboard class.
The dashboard arranges dashboard items using layout items and layout containers in a hierarchical structure that represents the dashboard layout.
Thus, a dashboard layout is hierarchically arranged from the root layout group to bottommost layout items, which display individual dashboard items.
The dashboard in the picture below illustrates a tabbed layout containing items and groups.
Its layout hierarchy is shown in the following diagram:
The Dashboard class exposes the Dashboard.LayoutRoot property, which provides access to the root dashboard layout group.
Use the DashboardLayoutGroup.ChildNodes property to add child layout groups and items to the parent group (in particular, to the root group). The DashboardLayoutGroup.Orientation property allows you to specify whether the orientation of layout items/groups within the group is vertical or horizontal.
You can determine the immediate parent of the current layout item/group using the DashboardLayoutNode.Parent property. To determine the root (or topmost) group for a layout item/group, use the DashboardLayoutNode.Root property.
These topics describe how to specify a dashboard layout in the WinForms and Web Designers.