Make user and custom controls operate at design time

[docfnt]

I've built several user/custom controls in the effort of saving space on my UI main screen. Slide in/Sliode out, collapsable controls save a lot of space on the screen for Art/Design programs.
My nightmare is that I hit the same wall every time. I can't get a control to activate in design time the way that a Tab Control does. One of the controls in question is a vertical tab control that slides offscreen to the left, except for the selecton tabs. This saves a lot of space on screen when the controls are not in use. Simply sliding the mouse to the left edge of screen brings the master panel out, or clicking one of the tabs brings that panel out. My curse is that I have to pull each sub panel off the master panel to expand it, and add controlls to it, then I have to collapse it through the properties window before replacing it in the master panel again. What a pain!

I need some help with understanding how to get this master panel to act like a tab control in the designer. Then I can add individual controls with great ease. ANY help is GREATLY appreciated !!!

[oussama_1]

Use Control.Parent = Panelx
example : button1.parent = panel1
the button1 is now attached to panel1, so that when you hide or move the panel the control in it(button1) will behave the same.

[Deep Modi]

You should paste some coding here.
So that we can understand what you exactly need and we can reactify your mistake.

Coding: Agree with Oussama_1

[docfnt]

The reason there was no code posted was because I am TOTALLY stumped as to where to start on how to go about this. Without a start point, there is no code to post. I Googled this for 7 hrs with no results, probably because I didn't know what to ask for (correct syntax name[?]).

My objective was to have tab pages change in the design mode as they would in debug mode. THAT was the wall I was hitting. Once again, I didn't describe myself well enough. My bad again, my apologies.

Late last night, I finnally found an example of a vertical tab control online, but tabs were still horizontal. 4 hours more work with example, I have tabs and text vertical. Code is still sloppy at best, bet I'm cleaning it up now. It DOES change tabpages in design mode, which was my nemesis, so I'm almost there. :-)

I had to create a Property of "Direction" for orientation to complete it, which does work, but tabs are not vertical without it! (That's the sloppy part)

When I get the bugs out, I would post it here except for the fact that very little of it is MY work. All I did was change the orientation, and text orientation of the tabs. (and which side they were on...)

I'm just a home trained hobbyist, no formal training at all. So when I get stuck on something, I have to find an example and modify it for my needs, or get help in a forum, such as here. I'm horrible at explaining myself clearly, which is the dog that came back to bite me in this post.

I have never yet worked with "Parent / Child" relations yet, but the help Oussama 1 gave me gives me a good place to start with that too. I'm gonna play around with that to figure it out, since I don't yet even know where to put this code he gave me. I'll find that somewhere...then add it to my slowly growing arsenal. :-)

Ousama 1's post will most certainly be helpful to me, so I'll mark it that way as soon as I figure out how to....

[oussama_1]

You are welcome, about the code you can put it in a form load event so that when the program start everything falls into place

[docfnt]

My horrible bad, and deepest apologies... I forgot to say "Thanx a Million!" to both of you, Oussama 1 and Deep Modi !!!!

I greatly appreciate you taking the time to try to help me, sorry again about being so vague as to what my goal was.