WPF RadDocking Overview

It’s been a while since the Q3 2009 release. Lots of controls have been added in our toolbox for WPF. One of them is considered as a final official release of RadDocking control for WPF. We have made a lot of improvements since the last release of the controls. For example each of the six themes included in the bundle now has different type of appearance when applied to a control. RadDocking is a fully customizable and skinnable control that enhances the power of a layout system. It is providing you with a docking system like the one in Microsoft Visual Studio. You are getting the dockable ToolWindows, a hidden DockingManager control, and a designer to easily create attractive layouts. It is good to mention that the WPF RadDocking code is absolutely compatible with its Silverlight counterpart.


RadDocking key features list:

• Save/Load Layout - When building complex layouts with RadDocking the users will often expect to persist the layout from one session to another. It can be easily achieved with the advanced Save\Load layout mechanism of the RadDocking control. It provides a method that stores the entire layout in a stream containing XML. After the storing you can simply restore the layout from its previous state. In addition, you can choose to save the stream elsewhere, in a text box, or directly in the isolated storage.
• Split Containers – The RadSplitContainer allows you to use movable bars to divide the displayed area into resizable parts. With the RadDocking's RadSplitContainers you can build complex layouts that can even include nested split areas. Some immediate examples of such layouts are Explorer-like and outlook-like interfaces. The RadDocking's RadSplitContainers allows you to define the Orientation and the InitialPosition of the container.
• Tabbed Documents - RadDocking supports tabbed documents for document -oriented applications. It allows you to see documents by splitting them into multiple panes
• Pin/Unpin and Hide Panes - To display content on demand, a docked window can be pinned, unpinned or hidden. The pane is in an unpinned state by default. When unpinned the pane collapses down to a tab. 
• Dockable Windows - RadDocking has a full drag-and-drop support including the docking compass and the docking hints for visual feedback. You are free to drag the dockable windows anywhere in the container to create customized layouts.
• Floating Windows - Once you start dragging Pane or Group it moves to Floating Window almost immediately. The hints of the RadDocking for visual feedback are showing the user where the object will be placed.
• WPF/Silverlight Code Compatibility - The WPF RadDocking shares a common code-base and API with its Silverlight counterpart. That means that you can achieve close to 100% code reuse for your grid logic if you have parallel Silverlight/WPF development.