Problem with LoadLayoutFromFile - DockableWindow/TabStripPanel for Windows Forms Forum

Posted 21 years ago by Dustin Campbell

In my application, I load a layout in the main form's Load event and save it in the Closing event. This works well but I've noticed some strange behavior.

There are several tool windows in the application that can be displayed or hidden via menu items. If I close one of the docked tool windows, close the app and re-open it, the tool window remains hidden (as expected). However, if I click the menu item to display the hidden tool window again, it isn't in the dock that it was in before. This behavior is reproducable using the demo app.

At first, I thought that this might be by design. But, after examing the layout file I see that the necessary information to re-create the tool window in its proper dock is stored in the file. Is there some way that I can utilize this information?

Comments (6)

Posted 21 years ago by Actipro Software Support - Cleveland, OH, USA

Hi Dustin,

I tried duplicating the issue using our sample app without coding changes. So I basically loaded the layout, hid the Output tool window, saved the layout. Then I closed the app, restarted it (which loads the layout with the Output tool window hidden), and then executed the menu item to show the Output window and it went back where it should. Are you able to cause the issue doing something like that in the sample application?

Actipro Software Support

Posted 21 years ago by Dustin Campbell

Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. I tried your steps and the problem still happens for me. I did this:

1. Open the C# Test Application. Initially, the Output Window is docked side-by-side with the Task List.
2. Hide the Output Window by clicking its close button.
3. Select "Save Layout" from the "File" menu.
4. Select "Exit" from the "File" menu.
5. Re-open the C# Test Application. The Output Window is hidden. So far, so good...
6. Select "Show Output" from the "View" menu. The Output Window is displayed but not in the dock it was in before. Instead, it is floating and has an x-y position of 0-0.

This is with version 2.00.0205 built and the test application was built with VS .NET 2003.

Posted 21 years ago by Actipro Software Support - Cleveland, OH, USA

Darn... the reason I couldn't dupe it before is that I was running the unobfuscated version. It seems that something in the obfuscation process is causing that feature not to work. This may take some digging to figure out what's wrong.

Actipro Software Support

Posted 21 years ago by Dustin Campbell

I'm glad that you were able to reproduce the problem. That's good news!

Posted 21 years ago by Dustin Campbell

It's been a few days -- will we getting an updated build that fixes the obfuscation?

Posted 21 years ago by Actipro Software Support - Cleveland, OH, USA

Yes, try the latest release from today.

Actipro Software Support

The latest build of this product (v2.0.0208) was released 20 years ago, which was after the last post in this thread.