Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Unleashed

Using Containers

Containers are .NET controls designed to hold other controls. You can use containers in conjunction with the Anchor and Dock control properties to create intricate design scenarios. Although there are various container controls, the ones most applicable to control layout are the FlowLayoutPanel, TableLayoutPanel, and SplitContainer classes.

Both the TableLayoutPanel and the FlowLayoutPanel classes derive from the more generic Panel class. The Panel class provides high-level capabilities for grouping controls. This is beneficial from a placement perspective because you can aggregate a bunch of controls into one group by positioning them within a panel. This way, you can act on them as a group; for instance, disabling a panel control ...