dockstudioxp

DockStudioXP is an ActiveX component which was designed to help you with the ability to deliver Visual Studio.NET, Office XP/2000/2003 style toolbars and dockable windows. If you have evaluated other toolbar, splitter or docking controls in the past, you will immediately appreciate the value of the Visual layout designer, comprehensive runtime customisation features and the Visual Studio.NET style docking windows support.

DockStudioXP is a dependancy free .NET ready COM Component. Unlike some other COM Controls, DockStudioXP has been specifically engineered and tested to work in Visual Studio.NET/WinForms.

Here are some key features of "DockStudioXP":

Visual Styles
· Office97, 2000, XP, Visual Studio.NET and Office 2003 visual styles;
· Automatic image generation for disabled/hot/pressed buttons. Can be individually overriden;
· Drop shadows (XP and Office 2003 Style);
· Small, medium and large icon collections;
· Blended grayscale disabled icon option;
· Inbuilt support for Most Recently Used lists;
· Inbuilt support for Window lists;
· Full support for 256 color modes (commonly used over terminal services).

Tool Types
· Command button;
· Edit (Text Box);
· Combo Box;
· Popup Menu;
· Fly-out Toolbar;
· Split Popup Button;
· Custom Popup (containing a custom form);
· MRU List (self managing);
· Window List (self managing);
· Label;
· Progress.

Bar Types
· Menu;
· Toolbar;
· Status Bar;
· Context Menus;
· Menu and tool bars can be floating, or docked to any part of the form border using drag and drop;

Docking Windows
· Dock to any side of the application window;
· Dock multiple windows in the same location to create Visual Studio.NET style Tab-docked windows;
· DockWindows can be collapsed to buttons (ala Visual Studio.NET);
· Collapsed DockWindows can be grouped (ala Visual Studio.NET);
· Visual Studio.NET, Windows XP Themed, Office XP, VB6, Visual C++ and Visio 2003 styles;
· Control DockWindow state programmatically.

Integrated document management
· Integrated support for SDI, MDI and Tabbed MDI document views;
· Tab grouping support for Tabbed MDI mode, as implemented in Visual Studio.NET;
· Drag and drop re-ordering of document tabs;
· In Tabbed MDI mode, documents can be repositioned for side by side editing into logical groups, in any position, simply by dragging a tab into the desired position.

Visual layout designer
· Fully visual designer;
· Drag and drop tools to compose tool layout;
· Drag and drop DockWindows at design time to design layout;
· Organize complex lists by category or tool type;
· Customizable property page size;
· CSS-like style organisation makes it easy to apply and modify tool styles and properties;
· Style manager to easily switch between overall styles;
· Code generation for commonly used events and enumerations (Visual Basic 6, VB.NET, C# and Visual C++)
· Integrated image editor;
· Integrated image capture tool (for easily capturing tool images).

Layout Persistence
· Save and load layouts to/from multiple formats (XML, binary, resource files and UUEncoded strings);
· Selectively load and save aspects of the layout (command bars, dock window state etc.).

On-line help and samples
· Comprehensive on-line help;
· Full reference and conceptual information;
· Example code;
· Illustrative sample projects.
· Dynamic help available from the visual layout designer.

Comprehensive object model
· Rich object model;
· Programmatic access to both layout and dock state of tools and DockWindows;
· CSS-like style organisation;
· Innovative local/global event model.