Best way to make Explorer-like interface

  • Thread starter Thread starter Philip Tepedino
  • Start date Start date
P

Philip Tepedino

Whats the best way to create an explorer-like interface with a side bar that
can display various content?

I'm currently using a panel and a splitter and the other side as a MDI
container. My problem is that its very hard to design the panels since the
bar is just about 1/4 of the screen and I want to have 4 different bars, so
I'm making 4 panels stacked on top of each other and hiding/showing them as
necessary. I think thats just a dirty way to go about the problem. Is there
any other way? I was thinking possibly of making the bar a MDI container as
well and just maximizing a borderless form in there, but the splitter
doesnt't seem to work with that, since it would have to sit dividing the
screen in two MDI parts.. it has nothing to dock to.

Any ideas, suggestions?

Thanks,
Philip Tepedino
 
follow-up questions:

How can I access a control in FormA from FormB? Such as changing the text of
a textbox in FormA when a user clicks on a button on FormB.
I know i have to declare something in FormB before I have access to FormA..
but not sure how.

Thanks again
 
Pass in the control you want to change by making a property in Form2. Or
declare a module/static class that can hold the value and when it changes,
raise an event and add the event handler to form1.
 
Isn't there an easier way to simply access some control's property froma
different class? is there a way to make FormA a "friend" of FormB so i'd
have access to FormA's controls?
Also, how about the explorer-like interface.. how should approach that
problem?

Thanks again

Phil
 
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