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Main Features

windowsforms-1973-controls-and-libraries-form-layout-managers-layout-and-data-layout-controls-product-information-main-features.md

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Main Features

  • Jan 23, 2019
  • 4 minutes to read

The Layout Control provides numerous built-in features that give you advanced capabilities to create, customize and maintain a consistent layout of controls within a form. It addresses almost all your layout customization requirements. Below there is a list of essential features offered by the Layout Control:

Layout Specifics

  • Automatic Layout Management - A single Layout Control can manage the layout of multiple controls irrespective of their type or size simultaneously. It ensures that the controls are always arranged without any overlap.
  • On-the-Fly Layout Customization - All design-time operations for customizing the layout of controls are performed via drag and drop. This greatly simplifies the process of adding and arranging controls within the Layout Control and provides an easy way to modify the layout afterwards.
  • Automatic Resizing of Inner Controls - When a form and Layout Control are resized the space allocated for each inner control is automatically changed proportionally. Thus there is no need to write code to maintain a consistent layout when a form is resized.
  • Various Layout Types - The controls within the Layout Control can be lined up in numerous ways - horizontally and vertically next to each other, multiple controls within a single row and multiple controls along the edge of another control.
  • Automatic Alignment - The Layout Control supports the automatic alignment of controls, so that the left edges of controls that are displayed under each other are always aligned. The layout of the controls in an application can either be controlled as one, or the controls can be split into layout groups each of which can have its layout controlled separately from the others.
  • Flow Layout Mode - In flow layout mode, a group’s area is divided into cells of a fixed size, and each layout item occupies a specific number of cells. Layout items are automatically arranged in rows, and are automatically wrapped at the group’s right edge. See Flow Layout to learn more.
  • Table Layout Mode - A table layout is a two-dimensional grid that consists of cells formed by a set of rows and columns. Each layout item is arranged in table cells according to its row and column indexes and span values. See Table Layout to learn more.

Infrastructure Specifics

  • Groups and Tabbed Groups - This unique feature allows controls to be joined into groups with captions and tabbed groups. Thus there is no need to use additional Panel and TabControl components.
  • Size Constraints - The ability to set size constraints for inner controls is a key feature of the Layout Control. By setting the minimum and maximum sizes of a control you can impose restrictions on how the control is resized (for instance, when the Layout Control’s size is changed). You can lock the control to a particular size or allow it to be changed only within a specified range.
  • Predefined Size Constraints for DevExpress Controls.
  • Predefined Size Constraints for Standard WinForms Controls.
  • Layout Item Captions - Each layout item has a text region that can display a description for the corresponding control.
  • Customizable Item Caption Position - The text region can be displayed on the left, top, right and bottom side of a layout item’s control.

Design-Time and Runtime Customization

  • Advanced Design-Time Capabilities - These include: dragging controls to and from the Layout Control, moving items within the Layout Control, combining adjacent items into groups, combining adjacent groups into a tabbed group, hiding an item, locking and unlocking its size, etc.
  • Design-Time On-Form Access to Individual Layout Items - You can click a layout item to display its settings in the Properties window.
  • Built-In Customization Form - It stores temporarily hidden layout items and shows the hierarchical structure of the controls within the Layout Control. The form can also be invoked at runtime.
  • Runtime Customization - End-users can rearrange, resize and hide controls within the Layout Control according to their preferences. Runtime customization is available in Customization mode.
  • Customization in Code - Creating and customizing the Layout Control via code is as easy as at design time. The Layout Control provides a full set of methods which enable you to carry out any layout task at runtime.
  • Save and Load the Layout - The layout can be saved to and restored from the system registry, an XML file or stream.

Painting Specifics

  • Multiple Paint Styles Support
  • Appearance Customization - A powerful mechanism to customize the appearance (background and foreground colors, font settings, etc) of any visual element.

Miscellaneous

  • Localization of Interface Elements.