Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

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Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:32:42 GMT

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re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

WurzelGogerer — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:15:13 GMT

Real nice... Thanks for showing us how you guys did ur awesome demo!

Cant wait for Part 3 though!

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Raju Khanchustambham — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:46:05 GMT

Thanks Martin for sharing your thoughts and ideas on dragging/docking of the controls through this post. The ideas are really nice and cool.

Hoping to see your post on Maximizing the controls soon.

-Raju

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

samcov — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 07:27:27 GMT

Thanks Martin! On the subject of using a Canvas, I think it's similar to the "GoTo" argument. Having said that, while you may need the Canvas to promote easy dragging, I have implemented a similar shifting object application using Stack Panels or Grids(no animation). I think it really depends on how you're used to approaching the problem. In reality, EVERYTHING is based off of absolute positioning! The various panels simply give us the apperance of it not being there for simplicity of design.

One other issue. I tried adding a simple button to test adding another object, but couldn't control the size. Is there a way to have DragDockPanel's of different sizes?

Thanks.

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Prejesh Prakash — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:21:15 GMT

Please give some insight about how to build a day dairy of a doctor you implemented in demonstrator

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Martin Grayson — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:41:05 GMT

Hi all, part 3 should be here by the end of the week!

samcov - DragDockPanelHost, as it currently is, overrides any set size of the panels to fill the grid cell. Really, in a fuller implementation, the host should look at the panels alignment properties and specified sizes and display them as the user has specified. I havent done that here as I really wanted to focus on the dragging and docking functionality.

One way to set a panels size, however, is to set the MaxWidth and MaxHeight rather than the width and height. This will align the panel to the top left of the cell, but keep the specified size.

If you extend the host to cope with these scenarios and dont mind sharing, let me know and I can post an update here.

Prejesh - I hope to cover at some point how I go about building expanding / collapsing lists (as we see in the Dr's schdeule), and I am sure I can produce a simliar example. Probably wont be for a few weeks however, as there are some other topics I intent to write about first - e.g. drag & drop, customising list boxes etc.

Thanks for all the feedback,

Martin

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

samcov — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:25:32 GMT

Martin, 4 more points...

First, I would share anything I do with this. Secondly, I just had the thought that what you've really created is a pseudo WrapPanel(the host).

Third, the MaxWidth works fine, but as I re-thought what I really wanted, it's a bit more complicated. The goal was to have a "Portal" type layout, a 3 column situation where the middle column is allowed to be wider than the two outer columns. There are also other layout combinations, but I'll have to think about what I need to accomplish, i.e. not something I'm asking you to implement, just getting it off my chest.

Fourth, I tried to place a host inside a host, and it crashed. I mention this just as an FYI because I can see the design probably isn't geared to do this type of nesting.

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

shan — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:20:19 GMT

Hi Martin

I want to create dockable panel, is this possible by using your solution.

It means like visual studio editor you can move explorer, Properties or output window and dock them any four side.

Plz help me how can i achieve this.

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

brandon — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:28:22 GMT

tried to open and build your solutions in VS08.. the page just keeps loading and nothing appears...

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Martin Grayson — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:49:10 GMT

Hi brandon,

Do you definately have the silverlight tools installed?

Goto www.silverlight.net, click getting started at the top, and follow the steps.

Let me know if you still have issues.

Martin

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Martin Grayson — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:25:53 GMT

Hi Shan,

If you are looking to build something like visual studio's docking system, this sample probably isnt the best place to start, as it is quite grid centric. It sounds like you are after something more like the WPF DockPanel control.

A quick search found this - a controls project that contains a DockPanel...

http://www.codeplex.com/SLExtensions

I would say that it wouldnt be too hard to build something yourself, particularly if you know how many columns / rows you need, you can use Silverlight's Grid control and place your sub panels in different rows and columns. You can then do some drag and drop by updating your sub panels TranslateTransform...

Let me know how you get on! It would be great to see an IDE framework in Silverlight!

Martin

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

marjantehrani — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:02:12 GMT

Hi Martin,

Appreciate for the great samples :)

I'm trying to learn your sample. I placed it into my application; but whenever I start the page, all panels are stack at top of each other and it's mazimized!

once I click on it, then they get rearranged same as sample.

I can't figure out why it does that...however, I have a master page with a container; and I call this page into the container of the master page. I'm suspices that when I load the page, containers are getting mixed up.

I'm looking forward to seeing the third part of the sample for maximizing the panels. Do you know when you will post the next sample?

great job...thanks a lot

Marjan

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

marjantehrani — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:04:58 GMT

I was able to fix that problem.

The UpdatePanelLayout Event was getting called ahead of Loaded Event....I just placed the UpdatePanelLayout() at the end of the Loaded Event...and it works....

Now....I'm hoping to get the expanding panels sample....

Thanks again for this great samples :)

Marjan

Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 3)

Martin Grayson: Adventures of a 'Devigner' — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:43:06 GMT

In Part 1 , we looked at how we construct a Dragging, docking, expanding panel, and added the ‘dragging’

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

marjantehrani — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:50:07 GMT

Thanks Martin....

I'm trying to customize the panels and I would like to place them in tabcontrol...I tried, but getting error at initialization time....

It looks like I'm getting limited with the design!

Any Idea? I want to put all the panels into the tabcontrol and still being dockable and expandable....then on each panel having a button and if user click on it....it shows the result in the new tab of the tabcontrol....

Thanks in advance

Marjan

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Martin Grayson — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:52:55 GMT

Hey there marjantehrani,

A collegue of mine had trouble with tabs before too. I think this is because the tab control uses the Visibility property on the content to show / hide it, and when visibility is used, it seems to play about with the layout - e.g. the loaded event will get called for the first time when visibility is set to visible, but we wont get the size changed event, and the size is normally 0 when the loaded event is run.

If you could send me a quick sample of your issue (martin.grayson@microsoft.com) I could come up with a workaround. My collegue was playing around with calling UpdatePanelLayout in the loaded event, as you tried, but if the control has no size, then we will need to come up with something else.

Let me know, and if you can, please send over a sample.

Thanks,

Martin

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

marjantehrani — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:49:18 GMT

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your update....It's great...

I have emailed you the sample code for the tabcontrol problem...

and yes, you are right, the problem is happening in the DragDockPanelHost.cs file in updatePanelLayout...the this.ActualWidth is 0.0

thanks again

Marjan Tehrani

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Community Blogs — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:46:36 GMT

Koen Zwikstra with Silverlight Spy, John Papa on UserControl from Popup Control, Shawn Wildermuth on

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Martin Grayson — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:15:52 GMT

Hey marjantehrani,

Got your mail. I am taking a look and will get back to you very soon!

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

marjantehrani — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:23:24 GMT

Thanks Martin,

I was able to have datagrid on the panel....and the trick was having the datagrid in the grid layout....if I was placing it in the canvas or stackpanel then it wasn't working properly....such as datagrid scrolling....

I'm trying to add panels dynamically instead of loading them at the loading the page....

The other change I made was having one panel maximized and the others minimized at the very begining when the page is getting loaded....but then this will affect all the pages using the panels....

Thanks again

Marjan

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Martin Grayson — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:28:16 GMT

Hey marjantehrani,

I am looking to port the host panel to be an items control so we can handle dynamic panels. Having a default maxmised panel is another good idea.

If you get the chance, can you head over to www.codeplex.com/blacklight and on the issue tracker tab add these as feature requests?

Thanks,

Martin

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Jacky Kenhjiro — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:38:55 GMT

I want Control Content on Zoom Windows(Maximize) and Minimize

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Jacky Kenhjiro — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:44:04 GMT

How About .. I Can Control Content Zoom Windows (Maximize) and Minimize Windows

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Martin Grayson — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:00:26 GMT

Hi Jacky,

A couple of approaches here...

1. (The easiest) Your content could listen to its SizeChanged event, and change whats visible when it gets to a certain size.

2. You could inherit DragDropPanel with different panel for each type of content, listen to the events (which should fire as soon as the button is clicked) and change your content. You wont get the minimised event on every panel, only the one where the button is clicked. You will probably need to code around this.

3. You could add methods to the base class called MaximiseContent / MinimiseContent which each inherited panel overrides.

And my favourite...

4. Have an interface - IDragDockPanelContent - that has 2 methods - MaximiseContent / MinimiseContent - all of your content user controls can implement this, and then your DragDockPanel can call the methods at the appropriate time on its content.

Just some ideas, good luck!

Martin

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Kevin Preston — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:56:51 GMT

Hi,

Great tutorial thanks for the effort. I am trying to get the same layout as the Doctor Landing Page of the Primary Care CUI Showcase i.e One panel on the left that spans 2 rows then another 4 or 6 panels to the right each one a sinlge row and column.

Where do I set the row span on a dock panel?

Cheers,

Kevin.

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Kevin Preston — Sat, 16 May 2009 06:03:49 GMT

to to extend on the above question, I am using VS2008 and Blend 2 and usign WPF controls not Silverlight

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

rayabharapu — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:55:57 GMT

I am using blacklight controls in my project with changes to the colors. I need to have 6 DragDockPanel out of which first column should have 2, second column with 1 and third column with 3 DragDockPanel panels in the DragDockPanelHost. Please let me know how i can do this.

I don't think the above article would help me, Please let me know your thoughts.

re: Silverlight 2 Samples: Dragging, docking, expanding panels (Part 2)

Hefe316 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:10:52 GMT

I want to be able to click inside of a DragDockPanel and have it automatically become the active panel with a move and a resize thus emulating clicking the expand button. Is there anyway to do this?