Create a screen like control panel windows forms 2010

Question

I am building an application and I would like the one of the forms to look like the control panel

Would you use a listview with groups?

thanks

Answer 1

No, I don't think you can make the ListView do this. At least not without rewriting its painting routines.

It isn't going to be easy to replicate this layout precisely in WinForms. There's nothing you can just drag over from the toolbox that is going to do it. It is possible, but it will take some effort.

What I would do, conceptually, is break it up into pieces. I count 8 different repeated "blocks". So I'd create a UserControl that models each of these.

Inside of the UserControl, I'd have a PictureBox control to display the icon, a Label control to display the heading, and a TableLayoutPanel that can be filled with the desired number of LinkLabel controls. Set all of the properties of the controls so that they match, and then write public methods to set the icon, heading, and add/remove links.

Then I'd drop a TableLayoutPanel onto my form, set the margins to have lots of whitespace, and add as many of those UserControls as necessary. At the top of the form, of course, you'd need another Label to display the heading/instruction text. Make the form's background white, and you're pretty much there.

The logic to switch between views isn't implemented, but consider whether you really need that. It is important in Windows because users are used to the old way of doing things. This doesn't apply to you.