Please have a close look at the Toolbox

[Helmut Giese]

Hello out there,
I am trying to find out on what component the Toolbox is based on.

- The '+' and '-' seem to indicate that it is a TreeView with just one
level of nesting. However, for an expanded 'group' the indentation
seems way to small - and also the little dotted lines are missing.
- Is it a DatagridView with 2 columns, the first being reserved for
the '+' or '-' images? But again, the dimensions don't fit: There
isn't a clear-cut first column.
- Or is it just a couple of ListViews stacked on top of each other,
implementing some smart logic when expanding/collapsing one of them?
- Or ... ?

I would like to implement something similar - but I'm lacking a
starting point.
Any ideas to push me into the right direction will be greatly
appreciated.
Best regards
Helmut Giese

 

[Jeff Johnson]

I am trying to find out on what component the Toolbox is based on.

- The '+' and '-' seem to indicate that it is a TreeView with just one
level of nesting. However, for an expanded 'group' the indentation
seems way to small - and also the little dotted lines are missing.
- Is it a DatagridView with 2 columns, the first being reserved for
the '+' or '-' images? But again, the dimensions don't fit: There
isn't a clear-cut first column.
- Or is it just a couple of ListViews stacked on top of each other,
implementing some smart logic when expanding/collapsing one of them?
- Or ... ?

I would like to implement something similar - but I'm lacking a
starting point.
Any ideas to push me into the right direction will be greatly
appreciated.

It looks a lot like an "Outlook Bar" to me. Specifically, according to Spy++
(which should be your tool of choice for questions such as this) it is a
"TBToolboxPane." So it's a pure custom control that the VS IDE uses. There
are user-made knock-offs out there. Try www.codeproject.com. I got one from
there.

 

[Helmut Giese]

Hi Jeff,

It looks a lot like an "Outlook Bar" to me. Specifically, according to Spy++
(which should be your tool of choice for questions such as this) it is a
"TBToolboxPane." So it's a pure custom control that the VS IDE uses. There
are user-made knock-offs out there. Try www.codeproject.com. I got one from
there.

thanks for the info.
So it seems that they (MS) did not make this component available.
Well, you can't have everything. I'll check on CodeProject.

I located the tool you mentioned (Spy++) - reminds me a bit of the
dark ages when - usually in desperation - we used WinSight (was that
the name?) to spy on messages if we didn't have any clue what was
going on under the hood.
Of course everything is a lot better now ^).
Thanks again and best regards
Helmut Giese