Docking Library

• Aug 22, 2019
• 2 minutes to read

The Docking Library is based on the DockManager component that allows you to create panels which are capable of docking to the form. Panels can be docked to form edges and hosted in panel containers. There are three types of panel containers: tab container, split container and auto-hide container.

At runtime end-users can drag panels, resize them, dock them to required containers, pin panels to make them constantly visible etc. When the DockManager is used together with the Application UI Manager, panels can also reside within the Application UI Manager’s content area where Document objects are hosted.

To learn more about this component, refer to the links below.

Learn the Basics

Dock Panels Dock panels are main objects of the Docking Library. They can be docked to form edges or each other, or made floating. Working with Panel Containers Dock panels can be combined into tab, split and auto-hide containers. End-users can create all three container types at runtime by docking panels to each other and clicking panel buttons.

Panel Header Buttons

The Header Buttons article describes various types of buttons that can be hosted in header areas of both regular dock panels and panel containers.

Managing Dock Panels in Code

Articles in this section enumerate public API that allows you to create, relocate and customize dock panels and their containers. Creating and Destroying Dock Panels Showing and Hiding Dock Panels Docking Panels Programmatically Controlling Dock Operations Controlling Resizing Operations

Miscellaneous

This section contains examples and additional info regarding the Docking library.

• Saving and Restoring the Layout of Dock Panels
  Illustrates how to manually save and restore your docking layout.

• Task-Based Help
  Contains various examples that illustrate how to perform specific docking tasks.

• Interaction with Dock Panels
  Demonstrates the Application UI Manager interoperability with the Docking Library.

• Visual Studio Inspired UI
  Learn how to emulate the Visual Studio UI using the Docking Library and other DevExpress components.