Mimicing Eclipse in VB.net

[James D Carroll]

I started as a VB6'er, moved to Java, and now I'm moving to VB.net (hey I
don't make these decisions; someone who makes way more money than I do
does).

One thing that I do like in the Java/Eclipse world is the notion of a
"perspective" within an app. Given a toolbar on the left hand side of the
GUI, if you click one you get a different "perspective" (representation) of
the data. It could be "coding" or "debug" or whatever. But the basic idea is
that within the same app you can shift "views" of the same data dependant on
the task at hand.

Anyways, like I said I'm only now moving to VB.net. I know that I can dock a
toolbar to the left of the main app window, but I'm wondering if the Panel
class will be basis for my "perspectives"? Can a Panel contain anything that
I want? Splitters (including nested ones), Images, Tabs, etc? The idea would
be, of course, that hitting a button in the toolbar on the left would
display the Panel/Perspective on the right.

I'm just learning the .net GUI and will keep learning it (at least until
"the powers the be" read the next article on CNN), but any guidance y'all
could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Cor Ligthert]

James,

Yes a panel can contain all other controls (except the form I thought).

Have a look as well for the Dock and the Anchor properties.

When you are busy with panels keep in mind that they build them using the
Zorder (from the last to the first) that they are added to their parent
control.

I hope this helps?

Cor

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

One thing that I do like in the Java/Eclipse world is the notion of a
"perspective" within an app. Given a toolbar on the left hand side of the
GUI, if you click one you get a different "perspective" (representation) of
the data. It could be "coding" or "debug" or whatever. But the basic idea is
that within the same app you can shift "views" of the same data dependant on
the task at hand.

There are different modes in VB.NET too. You can place the windows
either in design mode or debug mode.

Anyways, like I said I'm only now moving to VB.net. I know that I can dock a
toolbar to the left of the main app window, but I'm wondering if the Panel
class will be basis for my "perspectives"? Can a Panel contain anything that
I want? Splitters (including nested ones), Images, Tabs, etc?

Yes, the panel control is a container control.

The idea would be, of course, that hitting a button in the toolbar on
the left would display the Panel/Perspective on the right.

Maybe the best approach for this task is to design usercontrols for the
different "views" and instantiate these controls on your form
dynamically. If always the same controls should be shown, then storing
the position of the controls in different views in a separate
datastructure and moving them according to the selected view would be
the way to go.