Holidays are Over!

I'm just coming back from a long holiday period and now I'm ready to restart coding! First of all I wish to thanks how voted my article during last months and I'm very happy that this component is usefull to someone around world. Next I have to announce some big changes that I'm planning for the future of the library.
First the name: someone has correctly noticed that WPF is a MS registered trademark so the name 'WPF Docking Library' will be changed in 'AvalonDock' that is less generic than the first one.
Second SourgeForge.net: I think to host AvalonDock project on CodePlex because that site has a more specific audience focused on MS tecnology.

Obviously I'm interested on comments on these ideas.

'AvalonDock' will completly support WinForms controls, WPF Styles and Commands.
It will start from version 0.3 as it's a successor of 'WPF Docking Library'

In the meaning on SourceForge you can download version 0.2.1 that fix some minor bugs.

Docking Library Version 0.2

Hi,
I posted a new small upgrade of docking library. This version supports multiple DockManager in same window and pane ability to change title. Hope these features can help some to solve problems posted during these days.

WPF Docking Library - Persistence Support

From http://sourceforge.net/projects/wpfdockinglib/ you can download version 0.1.8 of WPF Docking Library. Major feature added is persistence support. I hope to have time to update article on codeproject, anyway persistence it's very easy to use.

To get layout state in xml format use DockManager.GetLayoutAsXml() and to restore a saved state you can use DockManager.RestoreLayoutFromXml().

The latter method need a handler to library client code because DockManager need to know how to associate dockable contents type strings with client instances during deserialization. This mechanism is almost identical to those you can found in DockPanel Suite.

Here a few lines of code:

if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Properties.Settings.Default.DockingLayoutState))
DockManager.RestoreLayoutFromXml(Properties.Settings.Default.DockingLayoutState,
new DockingLibrary.GetContentFromTypeString(this.GetContentFromTypeString));
else
{
//Show PropertyWindow docked to the top border
propertyWindow.DockManager = dockManager;
propertyWindow.Show(Dock.Left);
//Show ExplorerWindow docked to the right border as default
explorerWindow.DockManager = dockManager;
explorerWindow.Show();
//Show ListWindow in documents pane
listWindow.DockManager = dockManager;
listWindow.Show();
}


private DockingLibrary.DockableContent GetContentFromTypeString(string type)
{
if (type == typeof(PropertyWindow).ToString())
return propertyWindow;
else if (type == typeof(ExplorerWindow).ToString())
return explorerWindow;
else if (type == typeof(ListWindow).ToString())
return listWindow;
return null;
}

I suppose you can find same bugs in this version so if you need a more stable release you can wait for version 0.2.

WPF Docking LIbrary on SourceForge.net!

Hi guys, now you can download latest release of WPF Docking Library from SourceForge.Net web site.
This is the link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wpfdockinglib/

Just now I published there version 0.1.1 which correct some annoying bugs discovered in version 0.1. Nothing of new relevant features are added.


http://www.codeproject.com/WPF/WPFdockinglib.asp remains the reference link for features overview.

WPF Docking LIbrary v0.1 is finally published

This time CodeProject team spent a lot of time to publish my article update. I suppose it takes so long because there were many articles posted and queued before mine or maybe they had to make a lot of grammatical corrections to my poor english :). Anyway now is time to think about new release. Here you can find a list of fix or improvements coming in next release:

1. FIX. Contents present in dockable pane are not correctly deallocated during unloading process.
2. FIX. Sometimes when you move a dockable pane to a main border it remains where it is.
3. NEW. You can control DocumentsPane tab items header visibility.
4. NEW. Add ActiveDocumentChangedEvent
5. NEW. Controlling panes and floating windows default size.
6. NEW. Give client code chance to select the pane to add contents.
7. NEW. Add constraints to content ('dockability').
8. NEW. Persistance of docking state.
9. NEW. Preview of documents content when mouse is over relative tab item (like in VISTA)
10.NEW. 3D documents switching view (like in VISTA)
11. Suggestions are welcome!

WPF Docking Library Screen Shot

WPF Docking library first stable version is about to get posted. It enhances new valuable features like floating windows. With this version a dockable pane can be hosted in a separate window and than it can be docked back to main window. Also contents in pane are now arranged in a restyled tabcontrol which shows an icon in tabitems.

Here you can see a pair of screen shots which show docking in actions:

Library version 0.1 will be posted to CodeProject this weekend.

WPF Docking Library

WPF Docking Library is a library of wpf controls that I started to develop about 10 days ago. It can be usefull for integrating VS-like windows docking to a WPF application.
I published a small article explaning most important features at www.codeproject.com/WPF/WPFdockinglib.asp. There you can download source code too. I'm working on a completed recoded version which is under development that I'll post there as soon as possible.
Follows a list of new features that you'll find in the new first version (1.0):

1. Floating window support.
2. Floating window appears during drag&drop.
3. Support for animated sliding panels.
4. Support for client provided styles.
5. Serialization&deserialization of docking state and locations (probabily present in 1.x)
6. Documents pane layout animations (present in 1.x)

I'd like to thank Josh Smith (http://joshsmithonwpf.wordpress.com/ ) for his hints on library possible improvements.
If you have any suggestions let me know!

Start blogging!

My first blog! This is my personal space where I'll share my .NET developing experiences with everyone. Hope to have time to keep it updated...:)