在Tab控件上索引到控件集合

Question

I have a C# Forms tab application. Each TabPage has a menu on the left (Outlook style navigation panel), and a Panel on the right for content.

If I want the content panel for tab page 0, how would I go about fetching it? I'm a bit stumped because I don't know how to index into the controls collection on a tab page. The following is underlined in red, so I believe its wrong.

Panel panel = tabControl.TabPages[0].Controls["Panel"];

EDIT: remove Window in Panel sub question. It will be moved to a separate question.

Sorry about the beginner questions. I'm a C/C++ guy with lots of MFC time, and C# UI is a bit frustrating at the moment.

Answer 1

in order to create a new form for example you need to create a variable of what ever form that it is you want to create. example

Form2 frm2 = new Form2();
frm2.Show(); 

if you want to show that form in the panel then the panel would be the Owner keep in mind the difference between Owner and Parent please paste what ever code you have so far and we can suggest the necessary changes

Answer 2

foreach (Control control in tabControl1.TabPages[0].Controls)
{
    // if (control.Name == "panel1")
}

You can always call this recursively on control.Controls to find a control in any hierarchy. control.Name can be used to find your specific control.

You can't show a Form, inside a Panel. You could create Custom Control where you can add your functionality and add that control to a Panel.

Answer 3

Finally, how does one display a Window in a Panel? - you don't want to do that. If you want a window and a panel to share a piece of UI functionality, create a user control with all the the functionality and then you can place it in a form or in a panel.

Answer 4

A possibility to encapsulate complex UI content is to create a UserControl . This way you can create a reusable piece of complex UI you can basically add as a "blob" inside a form.

The reason why

Panel panel = tabControl.TabPages[0].Controls["Panel"];

is underlined red is because the Controls collection returns a Control which might be a Panel but also might be something else. So you need to cast it:

Panel panel = tabControl.TabPages[0].Controls["Panel"] as Panel;
if (panel != null)
{
     // got a panel here so do something
}

Also: MSDN has some good resources - you should make use of it.