Hello,
I'm evaluating the docking library and have a few questions, please.
First I'd like to point out that searching the Docking/MDI for Windows Forms forum for keywords doesn't seem to work very well. For example, searching for the strings "color" or "theme" result in 0 matches.
Secondly, the VB sample application piles all the designer and user code into the MainForm.vb file, making it impossible for me to get a discrete view of what is required to use the library effectively. I am opening the solution file SampleApplication-VB.VS2010.sln.
The MainForm.vb and MainForm.resx arrangement is very strange to me. It doesn't appear to actually be a VS2010 project/solution, considering that when I add a form to a VS2010 project, Form1.vb and Form1.designer.vb are created. Once a control is added and the project built, the .resx file is added.
Do you have a sample VB application with the code separated into MainForm.vb and partial class MainForm.designer.vb?
My initial impression is that the mechanics and visuals of the library are solid. The naming of objects in your namespace hierarchy looks very good as well. This is something often lacking in vendors' libraries. Good naming is of utmost importance to me. Once I can see sample 'user' code (and not designer code), then I can evaluate the ease of use of the DockManager and associated objects. As it is, there are over 2800 lines of code in MainForm.vb to wade through.
Please point me to a resource which gets all that designer code out of the way so I can see what's going on.
And finally, I see that Visual Studio Gallery has some themes for WPF, but I find none for Winforms. I have zero interest in WPF now or in the future and would like to know if you folks or your users have created any available custom Winforms renderers beyond the 6 provided for DockManager. I'd be especially interested in one which mimics VS2010. I do find the built-in Visual Studio 2002 and Visual Studio 2005 renderers acceptable. Anything Metro/No Contrast/Flat Battleship Gray/Windows 8/Modern I'd have no interest in ever seeing or using in any project of my own.
While I'm at it, are there any more main menu renderers available? The defaults are fine, except for the one with olive green in it (yuck). I'd sure like to see a VS2010 renderer for all renderable components, if possible.
Thank you. I look forward to learning about additional resources for working with the Winforms docking library.
