Winning Visual Studio Stretchy Form Design 101

I get this question a bunch: "How Don, how do you build those awesome winning forms all the time that stretch all sweet like?"... The answer is simple and I'll share how it's done right here in this very post!

First off, if you're using the form resize events to calculate the widths and heights of your controls based on the size of the form, you're on the wrong path... there's a far easier way to do it.

If you want to follow along, create a new form and layout some controls like the one shown here in this tricky example (datagrid on the left, grouped listbox in upper right, two buttons on the lower right):

Here is how it looks as it stretches (in design view too!!!).... notice how the controls morph in a logical way? It's magic... and logic (I know, I get the two confused sometimes too...)

Here's how I got it to do this... the trick is in each control's anchor settings!... Select a control and click on the Anchor properties. You can set any combination of four directions for anchoring for a single control.

Setting the anchoring of opposite directions will result in the control stretching as the form is stretched in that same direction. Setting all four directions will result in the control stretching in all directions as the form is stretched in both directions from the corner.

Setting the anchor to upper and right will simply justify the control in the form in that direction as the form is stretched in any direction...

When working with groups, the controls inside the groups are anchored within the group boundary only. So if you want a group to stretch, you must set the anchor settings for the group... you should then set the anchoring for the control within the group boundary separately.

See you guys at RTC 2011!!