tabbed-document-interface

How do you create a "dockable" form, similar to the windows in Visual Studio? Any custom control (composite, not inherited) in winforms can be docked, because it's really just a panel underneath. Combine this with a tablelayout panel for the high-level layout of your form and you have all the pieces. But you still have to implement all the glue and supporting UI yourself. I've used Weifen Luo's "DockPanel Suite" to good effect. It's an open source library that mimics Visual Studio's docking system very well, including nested docking, floating windows, tabbed windows, etc. You can download his

I've seen two threads here about TDI & C#. Both of them didn't really answer the questions I have ... Since TDIs are pretty much like a standard nowadays, I can hardly imagine, that I have to buy a special control (like AvalonDock or SandDock). This must be possible with built in the tab-control(?) somehow! I don't need special features like dock- and draggable tabitems. Just open every form in a new tab. Thats it. Like putting every forms content controls into user controls and by request (button, menu click ...) add a new tab and put the corresponding user control on it ... something like