Develop Reference

Win Forms Dock fill with gap

Fore note: I know you cannot use a margin with dock, but I am trying to figure a way around this.
I have two objects, a GroupBox (containing loads of buttons and stuff that will always be the same size no matter how big / small the form) and a WebBrowser. The former will take up roughly 100 pixels at the top, and the latter will take up the rest of the space. I have tried multiple ways to get around this, including Panels, GroupBoxs, changing Anchors and Docks, but nothing is working. I know there is a simple solution for this, but I cannot work it out. Could someone point me in the right direction for what I should be using?
P.S. New to WinForms so not very knowledgeable of things.

Start with a TableLayoutPanel control on your Form and set its Dock() property to Fill. Now change the ColumnCount() property to 1, and leave the RowCount() property at 2.
Add your GroupBox to the Top Row and adjust its size. Add your WebBrowser control to the Bottom Row and set its Dock() property to Fill.
Finally, select the TableLayoutPanel, find the Rows() property, and click on the "..." dots to the right. Select Row1 and change its Size Type to AutoSize.
Done!
Alternative Approach...
Add your GroupBox to the Form and set its Dock() property to Top. Add your WebBrowser control and set its Dock() property to Fill. Note with this approach, however, that the GroupBox will extend to fill the full width of the Form.

Center and Stretch on a Standard WinForms Panel

So, doing what I'm attempting to do is trivial in WPF, but in WinForms it seems to be a bit problematic:
When using a TableLayoutPanel, you can simply set the Anchor properties to NONE to center the control within the cell of the TableLayoutPanel and then set Anchor.Right | Anchor.Left flags on the control to stretch it to the size of the cell. This behavior does not seem to work properly when using a standard WinForms Panel container. When setting the Anchor property on the child control (TextBox) within the Panel the control does not appear to stretch out, nor center itself within the container.
I've looked up some other answers regarding similar issues to this, but I feel like I'm missing something here. Most of them say just use the Anchor property, but that doesn't not appear to work. Does this need to be manually calculated on load (and each resize), or can the Anchor property actually assist me with this?

Keeping a Control centered works automatically only if you combine stretching it with Anchors.
If you want it centered without stretching it you'll have to do a little bit of math in the Resize event:
private void tableLayoutPanel1_Resize(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
yourControl.Left = (yourControl.Parent.ClientSize.Width - yourControl.Width) / 2;
}
For centering vertically the same rules apply.
With regard to the disappearing ErrorProvider: The ErrorProviders need a little space, on my machine 12 pixels will do. To provide that space for the rightmost cells in an TableLayoutPanel you can set its padding like this:
this.tableLayoutPanel1.Padding = new System.Windows.Forms.Padding(0, 0, 12, 0);
Note how this nicely adds the padding between the Cellborders, if you have any, and the outside.

It seems that MSDN has a page dedicated to this already. (although this mentioned a button, the idea remains the same)

How to make controls stay in a distance of each other when adding them programmatically?

I have a panel, which I add controls programmatically to it. I want each control stay in a far from other controls and not stay on top of them.
for this purpose I can calculate a position for each control based on Panel's size, but it seems a bit odd.
Is there a way to make controls be added in a line and when it ended they be added in another line?

You can use a FlowLayoutPanel to achieve what you're describing. It's under Containers in the ToolBox. Set the direction to horizontal and it will flow from left to right, and wrap when it needs to.

I believe the WrapPanel class does what you're describing in WPF. Or the FlowLayoutPanel in WinForms.

You have a few options. You can use one of the containers such as FlowLayoutPanel or TableLayoutPanel. You can also nest them in each other. And you have to set the Margin property for each control you add to the containers.
Sadly the Windows Forms technology lacks on this part a little, while WPF has a very rich layout system. Even somethings like Margin doesn't always work as expected.

Docking and Anchoring on a Windows Form application

I'm developing an app for Windows Mobile 5.0 and above, with C# and .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP2.
I have a WinForm with two panels inside (upperPanel and bottomPanel). I want that upperPanel always fill 2/3 of form's height, and bottomPanel fills 1/3 of form's height. Both panels will fill completly form's width.
I've used this:
upperPanel.Dock = Fill;
bottomPanel.Dock = Bottom;
But upperPanel fills the form completly.
How can I do this? I want, more o less, the same gui on differents form factors and on landscape or protrait mode.
Thank you.

What you need to do is to put the bottom panel on first and set its Dock property to Bottom. Then set the panel's height to be 1/3 of the form's height. Finally, add a second panel and set its Dock property to Fill. The key here is that you want to add the control that will fill the remaining area to be added last. Alternatively, you can play around with the Bring to Front and Send to Back commands in Visual Studio to get the designer to cooperate.
You may also need to hook the OnSizeChanged event for the form and re-set the height of the bottom panel to account for layout changes. It's been a little while since I did compact framework programming, so I'm not sure.

Right click on the upperPanel and select Bring To Front. However, I don't think this will give you the result you want. When you resize, the bottom panel will remain the same height, while the upper panel will stretch to fill the form.
Using your docking settings, with this code might do the trick:
protected override void OnSizeChanged(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnSizeChanged(e);
this.bottomPanel.Height = Convert.ToInt32((double)this.Height / 3.0);
}

Set both panels to "not anchored". That is: Remove Dock-Value and clear the Anchor property. Then, move the controls so they are sized the way you'd like them to be sized.
After that, upon resizing the form, they should resize relatively.
EDIT
Oops, just tried it and sure it doesn't work. I mixed this up with a solution that automatically keeps controls centered within the window...
Well, I'd guess you then have to create a handler for the form's Resize event and manually align the controls after the form has been resized.

Go to Tools, Other Windows, Document Outline. Find the two panels, and swap the order of them. The control that has DockStyle.Fill has to come first for it to be docked correctly. (or last.. never sure which one it is, but it is one of them :p)
This won't solve the always 1/3 and 2/3 issue though... cause the bottom panel will have a fixed height (unless I am mistaken). I think maybe the TableLayoutPanel supports this though...
Update: As noted in the comments, that panel doesn't exist in the compact framework. So, I suppose the easiest solution to this problem would then try to use the docking, but update the height of the bottom panel whenever the size of the form changes.

If you want this to work perfectly you'll need to add some code to the Resize event of the Form which then specifically works out the relative sizes and places the controls in the correct place after a resize.
If you're not worried about losing precision and the forms aren't going to move much you can avoid this by using some relatively smart anchoring. Essentially you're going to have to select a "grower" (the part of the form that gets bigger, the bigger the form gets). In this scenario I would probably anchor the top part to Top | Left | Right and the bottom part to Top | Left | Right | Bottom. This would mean that the lower part of the form will get bigger if the form is expanded. In most cases this is acceptable. If it isn't use the Resize event and some code.

The easiest way to do this is to nest panels. Just set up panels for top bottom and fill. Then use panels within those panels to do the same. The only issues I've had therein are datagrid resizing, which is always a pain anyway. in that case, you have to use some code to resize the datagrid control on the form resize event.

I would like to add a point to #jasonh answer.
For the panel that occupies 2/3 of the form, you will have to set the AutoScroll property of the panel to true.
This will enable the panel to display scroll when the control size exceed the visibility to the user and also ensure the visibility of the smaller panel which is 1/3 of the forms height.

You can get the required design by using nested panels along with few setting with Anchoring and Docking Properties.Follow the following steps:
1) Add the Form and put a Panel1 on it. Set its Dock Property as 'Fill' and ResizeMode as 'Grow&Shrink'.
2) Add Second panel2 and set its Dock Property to 'Bottom', Set the Height and set the Anchor property to 'Top,Left'.
3)Add Third panel and set its Dock Property to 'None', Set the Height and set the Anchor property to 'Top,Bottom,Left,Right'.
Save and Compile. Now all the panels Would maintain their relative Positioning With resizing.

Best Layout of a WinForms UserControl with both Static and Dynamic Content?

I have a user control that has:
a) a buttons panel at the top (it always has to be visible)
b) a panel with controls that are dynamically added and re-sized at run-time. The controls can be many, so the panel has to be scrollable.
This user control will be hosted in a form, with the following requirements:
a) The initial size of the form will try to fit in maximum part of the dynamic content.
b) On changing the form size, the control has to be re-sized accordingly.
I had played with various anchoring, docking, and auto-sizing and I don't quite get it working in the way I want to. Sometimes, it is the scrolling that messes up, sometimes it is something else.
What combination of anchoring, docking, and auto-sizing of the panels, usercontrol, form should work best to achieve the desired outcome?

I succeeded to meet the requirements. Here is my solution:
The dynamic panel is anchored to the top and the bottom of the control. It does not AutoSize, it manually changes its MaximumSize and PreferredSize after change in the contents.
The form hosts the form using:
cntrl.AutoSize = true;
cntrl.AutoSizeMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoSizeMode.GrowAndShrink;
cntrl.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill;
The form subscribes to a custom control's event that notifies for the preferredHeight and it changes its own Height accordingly.

I'd go with a table layout panel. You can specify two rows by one column with the exact size for the buttons at the top and fill the rest with the bottom. Then put put either a normal panel or a flowlayoutpanel for the dynamic content in that area.

Without knowing the specifics of your problem I find multiple fill docked split containers with one fixed panel and/or a fixed slider usually creates a really handy resizing experience. You can also collapse panels very effectively too.