Introduction

Panels are not transparent. Therefore, their color can be changed to control their background display. A panel is a complete control with properties, methods, and events.

To add a panel to a container, you can click the Panel button from the Toolbox and click the desired location on the container. Unlike the form, during design, a panel must primarily be positioned on another container which would be a form or another panel.

To programmatically create a panel, declare a handle to Panel, allocate memory for it using the gcnew operator, and add it to its parent. Here is an example:

#include <windows.h>

#using <System.dll>
#using <System.Drawing.dll>
#using <System.Windows.Forms.dll>

using namespace System;
using namespace System::Drawing;
using namespace System::Windows::Forms;

public ref class CExercise : public Form
{
private:
    Panel ^ pnlContainer;

public:
    CExercise()
    {
	InitializeComponent();
    }

    void InitializeComponent()
    {
        Text     = L"Domain Configuration";
        Width    = 320;
        Height   = 210;
        Location = System::Drawing::Point(140, 100);
        StartPosition = FormStartPosition::CenterScreen;

        pnlContainer = gcnew Panel;
        pnlContainer->Location = Point(20, 20);
	pnlContainer->Size = System::Drawing::Size(100, 60);
        Controls->Add(pnlContainer);
    }
};

int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
		     HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
		     LPSTR lpCmdLine,
		     int nCmdShow)
{
    Application::Run(gcnew CExercise());

    return 0;
}

By default, a panel object is drawn without borders. If you want to add borders to it, use the BorderStyle property. It provides three values that you can set in the Properties window: None, FixedSingle, and Fixed3D and their effects are as follows:

	None	FixedSingle	Fixed3D
Design
Run

To programmatically specify the border style, assign the desired value to the Panel::BorderStyle property. Here is an example:

public ref class CExercise : public Form
{
private:
    Panel ^ pnlContainer;

public:
    CExercise()
    {
	InitializeComponent();
    }

    void InitializeComponent()
    {
        Text     = L"Domain Configuration";
        Width    = 320;
        Height   = 210;
        Location = System::Drawing::Point(140, 100);
        StartPosition = FormStartPosition::CenterScreen;

        pnlContainer = gcnew Panel;
        pnlContainer->Location = Point(20, 20);
        pnlContainer->Size = System::Drawing::Size(100, 60);
	pnlContainer->BorderStyle = BorderStyle::Fixed3D;
        Controls->Add(pnlContainer);
    }
};

A panel can be used as a button, in which case the user would click it to initiate an action.

A property that is highly used on panels (and forms) is the Color. If you change the BackColor property, the new color would cover the face of the panel.