Windows Forms Layout System

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Study Notes

The layout system helps control positioning, sizing, and ordering to establish a basic composition.
There are two types of layouts in Windows Forms: Fixed Layout and Dynamic Layout.

Controls are positioned in a fixed way, like they are glued to the form.
They cannot adapt to changes in their surroundings.
The padding property is the internal distance in pixels from the edge of a form or control's client area that child controls can't intrude on.
Padding is implemented on the base Control class and the default is to have zero padding.
Some controls don't support padding, such as TextBox, ListBox, ListView, and MonthCalendar.
Margins define the spacing between adjacent controls, configured using a control's Margin property.
Control Z-Order specifies a control's location in a container relative to the container's upper-left corner.
Control Tab Order is the sequence in which a user can navigate through controls at run-time, registered by setting the Boolean TabStop property to true.

After controls are positioned, sized, and z-ordered, a user may resize the form, requiring further adjustments.
Anchoring preserves the distance between the edge of a control and the adjacent edge of a control's container.
Docking is a way to identify the edge that a control should "stick" itself to.
Using Docking, a control can take whatever space remains in the client area.
Docking and Z-Order interact, with controls docked to the same edge in reverse z-order priority.

Container controls can be used to break a layout problem into smaller pieces.
Container controls share the same layout characteristics as forms, with child controls that can be anchored or docked.
Anchoring and docking settings of a container control are relative to the edges of the container, not the form.

Splitting allows resizing some controls independently of the size of the form.
A Splitter is a bar that separates two controls, allowing users to drag the bar to change the proportion of the space shared between the controls.
The Orientation property can be used to set the split bar orientation.