Develop Reference

How to avoid Winform auto resize resulting in controls cropped?

I created a Form with fixed size, containing a fixed sized TableLayoutPanel. Controls are anchored to the TableLayoutPanel using the Anchor property. However controls are cropped after moving from Desktop to laptop.
I have tried setting MinimumSize, AutoSize and AutoSacling in Form and TableLayoutPanel, but controls are still cropped.
Suggestions?

You should try using Dock property of TableLayoutPanel.
Change its value to fill (Dock = Fill), this way your TableLayoutPanel will be drawn within the form border.
Another suggestion is, you should divide your main tablelayouttable like a grid and put one control inside its individual cell. Set their Dock property to Fill and you will see the result.
Hope it helps. Good Luck.

Scrollable Form in c#, AutoScroll=true doesn't work

What are the rules which I have to respect to make the Form scrollable...
I simple set the Property AutoScroll to true.
I also tried while Auto Scroll is true, to set AutoSize to true/false, but none of these worked... also tried to put Panel and added all components in there... still nothing...
Maybe using V or HScrollBar can help, but i really don't know how to link it with the Form...
form.AutoScroll = true;
formMainLayout.AutoScroll = true;
rootPanel.AutoScroll = true;

The content controls the scrolling. The scrollbars do not appear unless they are needed. Usually, there is a property available that you can set to force them to be visible always, and simply disabled until needed.
The AutoScroll property must be true, as you have already found. But then the content of the scrollable control must force the parent control to display the scrollbars. This part is up to how the controls are embedded within the parent.
Try these two experiments:
Place a Panel on your form and dock it to Fill. Set the AutoScroll property of the Panel to true. Into that panel, place a TextBox and set it to dock as Fill as well. Also set MultiLine to true. Run the application, and you will notice that the size of both is simply using the available space...no scrolling can occur because neither the Panel, nor its TextBox become larger than the space they occupy.
Perform the same steps as in #1, but this time, do not dock the TextBox. Instead, set it to a large size, something that you know will be larger than the amount of Panel that is visible. Running the application should now produce a scrolling Panel.
Hopefully this little test helps to demonstrate what is controlling the scroll on a form.

I was also having the same problem, I managed to fix it...
All the child controls inside the panel had a Left & Right anchor, and when I only set the anchor to Top, the scrollbars where working fine.
I am not sure as to why the Left and Right anchor (of the child controls) forces the panel not to show scrollbars.
But anyways... hope this will help anyone as of this date.

The AutoScroll property should work fine, but most likely you are not using it right: the bar appears only when required. Example: minimum Y of the Form is 0 and minimum Y of one of the controls in it (a TextBox) is -20.
If you want to include a scroll bar no matter what (controls inside the boundaries of the form or not), you can also do it. Sample code (from MSDN) for a vertical scroll bar:
// Create and initialize a VScrollBar.
VScrollBar vScrollBar1 = new VScrollBar();
// Dock the scroll bar to the right side of the form.
vScrollBar1.Dock = DockStyle.Right;
// Add the scroll bar to the form.
Controls.Add(vScrollBar1);

You need to set the properties for the parent panel.
Dock = Fill
Anchor = Top, Left
AutoScroll = true
That's it. Good luck! ^^

note its for vertical scroll
Turn On auto scroll property of your Form. insert one panel and
set panel width to the form width and panel height
equal to length of your total content or may be 1300 or 1500 as
required.
Place panel location as you want set panel anchor
property to top. place your all
content inside panel.
hope it will solve your problem

I had the same problem.
You have to add only this:
this.AdjustFormScrollbars(true);

Stop splitter from scaling panels in C#?

I have a SplitContainer with both panels filled.
When I resize it, tho, both panels scale equally so the splitter is at the same relative distance in the container.
I really need to block this feature. How do I do this?

Take a look at the FixedPanel property. You can then specify if you want Panel1 or Panel2 fixed. The three options are:
None (This is the default)
Specifies that neither SplitContainer.Panel1, SplitContainer.Panel2 is fixed. A Control.Resize event affects both panels.
Panel1
Specifies that SplitContainer.Panel1 is fixed. A Control.Resize event affects only SplitContainer.Panel2.
Panel2
Specifies that SplitContainer.Panel2 is fixed. A Control.Resize event affects only SplitContainer.Panel1.

You can use the FixedPanel Property of the splitter to specify wich panel will scale. By default it is set to None so both will scale.

Resizing the winform at runtime

how to resize a tab control in a winform (C# .Net), controls(inside tabpage) must move while resizing the form

maybe the Dock property is what you're looking for.
If you put a panel.Dock=Dock.Fill then it will take all the space available.
so when the controls is resized, the panel is too.

Going off of your comment to Andrzej's answer:
the control's size must be unchanged and move one below the other while resizing the form
It sounds like what you need is a FlowLayoutPanel. Drop one onto your TabPage, set its FlowDirection property to the value of your choice, and place your controls into it. Now, whenever the TabControl is resized, the controls it contains will automatically shift positions to fill the space.

Set Anchor property of that control. Alternatively you may use Dock
Anchor - defines a constant space between one or more edges of it's container.
Dock - control borders are docked to its parent control.

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.