VB .NET Save Panel without form - vb.net

In Visual Studio 2008, using VB .NET, I have a Split Container that I want to dynamically load panels into the Panel2 slot from other team member's work based on user input in the Panel1 controls.
Can my team members work on panels outside of a form, save it, then have the main Form just load those panels when needed without copying and pasting each panel into the form and making them visible and invisible?
Thanks.

Sure, have the team build user controls which you will then add to the control collection for the panel.

Related

Is there a way to hide all panels in windows forms using vb.net?

i was wondering if it was possible to hide everything at once in windows forms, i was planning to use a drop down which made things appear and disappear but i wanted everything hidden at the beginning for simplicity.
Thanks!
On the form, add a Panel control (found in the Containers section of the toolbox).
Set the Visible value of the Panel to be False.
Add all controls inside this panel. You can then make the panel visible and hidden via code. (no need to cycle through all controls on the form)

VB.NET Win. Form - Showing a custom control outside of the container control

I have a created a custom user control which consists of 2 controls:-
Textbox
Listbox
The function of this control is to act as a dropdown list. Below is the image of the control:-
Problem
Now the problem i am facing is that if i insert this user control into a container control like a panel then the list gets hidden inside that container control.
and if i just create the user control outside the container control then it would interfere with the Tab Order (focus order) of the form.
Is there any work around where the user control exists in the container control and still shows the complete list without being hidden in the panel?
Edit i wrongly added c# instead of VB.NET
It can be achieved by having the list as ToolStripDropDown. Similar customization have been done in the following discussion,
Show control inside user control outside the boundaries of its parent
Hope this suits you.

Display controls in Designer VB.Net 2013

I have a set of controls which are added dynamically to a panel. The number of controls depends on which tab a user selects from TabPage control, which is embedded in a form.
At the moment, the controls don't appear in Designer, but appear during execution.
I managed to display controls for other forms which are not dynamic by moving the non-design code to the vb file, but how can I display the other ones?
The only answer that I know of is to add your code in the .Designer.vb file of the Form.
BUT! I strongly advise you to avoid that if you are not sure how it works! Custom code in the .Designer. files can break your form design and project with possible random crashes.
Also, your code can be changed and removed by the Visual Studio designer:
Custom code in designer.vb file goes away when making edits in design mode
Instead, you can make the panels into custom user controls and add those to the tabs.

Menustrip Style Custom Designer in VB .NET

I am trying to create a user control and custom designer. The perfect example of what I am trying to achieve in design time is how the menuStrip allows you to enter the text of the item being added.
This tells me it is possible, but I do not know if they are just drawing a box/cursor and just handling the key events individually or if they are using a textBox control in the designer somehow.
Is there a way to use controls in the designer during design time?

Clone Winform control

I have a groupox in a VB.NET winform app. The groupbox contains a few Labels, Textboxes and Checkboxes. This was created by simply dragging the controls out of VS toolbox.
What I need to do is take the 1 Groupbox and at runtime create multiple Groupboxes to display based on user selection. Instead of dynamically creating the Groupboxes and other controls nested inside, is there a way to clone or copy the original one.
Then I'd just change the properties. Label text, Textbox text, etc. And the location of the Groupbox in the layout.
What you could do is create a user control based upon your groupbox which would allow its reuse. You could then create the instances you require at runtime and add them to the form.
Maybe suggest that you look into creating user controls for winforms.
Could this be a help to you?
How to Clone/Serialize/Copy & Paste a Windows Forms Control