How to resize DevExpress controls
I have a DevExpress LayoutControl set inside a WinForms Form. I would like the LayoutControl to resize horizontally when the form is resized, or at least make the LayoutControl resizable by the user.
I have seen on DevExpress's page suggestions to change the SizeConstraintsType property to "default". I have also tried to anchor the control to the right and left of its parent. I have worked on increasing the MaxSize, also. Does anyone know how to do this?
I just basically want to do the equivalent to (in HTML) <table width=100%>. Does anyone know how to do this?
Thanks in advance!
Answer
The Developer's Express LayoutControl is a very nice tool, but has a couple gotchas.
The LayoutControl itself should resize just fine docked inside any container control like a form, a user control or a panel control. In many cases the layout control is one of the first things you put on your form/control because everything else goes inside it to be "layedout". So you should set the "Dock" property of the layout control to "Fill" or to the desired edge of the form/control you want it to dock to.
The "gotcha" here is that layout control's internal logic may limit its external dimensions or any internal item if it is capable of doing so and the layout items want to be a particular size. This is actually simpler than it sounds.
For example lets say you have a label control inside your layout control. A label control by default will size itself to fit the width of its text. In turn the layout control will try to accommodate the label's desired size by shrinking/growing the size of the layout item. So this one label control could be messing with your layout controls resizing. I chose label as the example because it is the most common control to mess up your layout design.
The way I fix this is to change the label's "AutoSizeMode" property to "vertical" (if you want text wrapping) or "none" (if you want to force it be the size the layout control wants it to be). This free up the layout control to make the width decisions.
Also if you are allowing the layout control to be resized by the end user (say with DevExpress' SplitterControl) the layout will again try to become its optimal size and not allow the SplitterControl to move away from this optimal size if the other controls are more easily resized (like a grid, tree, list, etc...). In this case adding an "EmptySpaceItem" to the layout control will allow it to fill any empty space when being resized. To add an EmptySpaceItem to your layout, right click the layout control in the Visual Studio designer and select "Customize Layout". The customize dialog will have a list of items you can drag onto the layout control including the EmptySpaceItem.