Andy De George
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| Best Practices for the TableLayoutPanel Control | 03/30/2017 |
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Best Practices for the TableLayoutPanel Control
The xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control provides powerful layout features that you should consider carefully before using on your Windows Forms.
Recommendations
The following recommendations will help you use the xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control to its best advantage.
Targeted Use
Use the xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control sparingly. You should not use it in all situations that require a resizable layout. The following list describes layouts that benefit most from the use of the xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control:
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Layouts in which there are multiple parts of the form that resize proportionally to each other.
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Layouts that will be modified or generated dynamically at run time, such as data entry forms that have user-customizable fields added or subtracted based on preferences.
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Layouts that should remain at an overall fixed size. For example, you may have a dialog box that should remain smaller than 800 x 600, but you need to support localized strings.
The following list describes layouts that do not benefit greatly from using the xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control:
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Simple data entry forms with a single column of labels and a single column of text-entry areas.
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Forms with a single large display area that should fill all the available space when a resize occurs. An example of this is a form that displays a single xref:System.Windows.Forms.PropertyGrid control. In this case, use anchoring, because nothing else should expand when the form is resized.
Choose carefully which controls need to be in a xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control. If you have room for your text to grow by 30% using anchoring, consider using the xref:System.Windows.Forms.Control.Anchor%2A property only. If you can estimate the space required by your layout, use of xref:System.Windows.Forms.Control.Dock%2A and xref:System.Windows.Forms.Control.Anchor%2A is easier than estimating the details of remaining space and xref:System.Windows.Forms.Control.AutoSize%2A behavior.
In general, when designing your layout with the xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control, keep the design as simple as possible.
Use the Document Outline Window
The Document Outline window gives you a tree view of your layout, which you can use to manipulate the z-order and parent-child relationships of your controls. From the View menu, select Other Windows, then select Document Outline.
Avoid Nesting
Avoid nesting other xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel controls within a xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control. Debugging nested layouts can be difficult.
Avoid Visual Inheritance
The xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control does not support visual inheritance in the Windows Forms Designer in Visual Studio. A xref:System.Windows.Forms.TableLayoutPanel control in a derived class appears as "locked" at design time.