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Dashboard Layout
- 2 min to read
WinForms and Web Designers provide the capability to arrange and resize dashboard items on the dashboard surface and within the group or tab container items using drag-and-drop operations. You can also arrange and resize dashboard items using an API provided by the Dashboard class.
Layout Concepts
The dashboard arranges dashboard items using layout items and layout containers in a hierarchical structure that represents the dashboard layout.
- A layout item contains and displays an individual dashboard item. A layout item is the DashboardLayoutItem class in Dashboard API.
- A layout group is a container that is used to arrange layout items (or other layout groups) either horizontally or vertically. At the same time, layout groups are containers that display dashboard item groups. A layout group is the DashboardLayoutGroup class in Dashboard API.
- A layout tab page is a container for layout items and groups. It is the DashboardLayoutTabPage class in Dashboard API.
- A layout tab container is a container for layout tab pages. It is the DashboardLayoutTabContainer Dashboard API.
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.
How to Change Layout
These topics describe how to specify a dashboard layout in the WinForms and Web Designers.