KryptonPanel

Use the KryptonPanel control when you need to provide an identifiable area for other controls. For example, you can use the panels to subdivide a form into distinct areas. Moving the panel will cause all the contained controls to also be moved along with it as it acts as a container. This control is similar to the KryptonGroup except it provides only a background and whereas the KryptonGroup also draws a border.

The KryptonPanel is more suited towards providing the background for large sections of the client area. KryptonGroup is more suitable for grouping a small number of related controls together.

Appearance

The PanelBackStyle property is used to define the top level styling required for the background appearance of the KryptonPanel control. The default value of PanelClient gives a background appropriate for use filling the client area of a form. Alternatively use the PanelAlternate setting for a panel that needs to stand out. See figures 1 and 2 for examples of the visual difference. There is also a custom style that can be defined via a KryptonPalette for situations where you need to create a variation on the styles already provided. The custom style is called simply Custom1.

Two States

Only two possible states of Disabled and Normal are used by the panel control. In order to customize the appearance use the corresponding StateDisabled and StateNormal properties. Note that only the background characteristics can be modified as the panel control never has a border or content.

To speed up the customization process an extra StateCommon property has been provided. The settings from this are used if no override has been defined for the state specific entry. Note that the specific state values always take precedence and so if you define the background color in StateNormal and StateCommon then the StateNormal value will be used whenever the control is in the Normal state. Only if the StateNormal value is not overridden will it look in StateCommon.

Examples of Appearance

Figure 1 shows the appearance when the default PanelBackStyle of ClientPanel is used. You can see that the Disabled and Normal states have the same appearance. This is true for all the PanelBackStyle values as the panel does not give any visual indication of the enabled state of the control. If you need to show the panel is disabled then you can alter the StateDisabled property as required. Figure 2 shows PanelBackStyle with a value of PanelAlternate.

Figure 1 – PanelBackStyle = PanelClient

Figure 2 – PanelBackStyle = PanelAlternate