Design-Time Experience in MS Visual Studio

You can easily customize the LayoutControl in Microsoft Visual Studio by creating various layouts at design time without writing a single line of code! Build the application layout with a few drag and drop operations as well as change the common layout settings for controls using context menus or the Properties pane.

Drag Controls from the Toolbox

The Toolbox providing access to the DXLayoutControl components:

You can drag the LayoutControl component (as well as other DXLayoutControl components) from the Toolbox onto the design surface, and then populate the control with other components to build the application layout.

To build the layout, you can drop controls, Layout Items (editor-label pairs) and Layout Groups onto the LayoutControl. When a Layout Item is dropped onto the layout, by default a TextEdit control is embedded into the Layout Item. If required, the TextEdit can be easily replaced with any other control by dropping this control onto the Layout Item.

Additionally, any control can be used by directly dropping it onto the layout. A new Layout Item wrapping this control will then be created. This is demonstrated in the video above.

Once the controls have been added, you can further customize layout settings and rearrange the layout according to your requirements.

Customization via the Properties Window

The Properties pane allowing you to access layout item options:

Context Menus

A context menu providing access to common layout settings:

Drag and Drop

With this powerful and still easy-to-use feature you will set up the layout of controls on the fly. Simply, drag-and-drop items following hints provided by the DXLayoutControl. While dragging, the hints indicate how the layout item will be displayed if dropped at that position.

Here is another example:

At design time, you can select and drag any control inside LayoutControl, including complex controls with their own children.

By pressing ESCAPE, the control's parent is selected allowing you to move up in the layout's hierarchy. The 0..9 keys can be used to change the ItemSpace property of the selected LayoutGroup and the arrow keys can be used to change its Padding property.

Design-Time Support for Microsoft Expression Blend

The DXLayoutControl also provides full design-time support for Expression Blend.