Dockable windows forms?

Hi to anyone that can help me,

What I'm after is a dockable window I think. I have an MDI application that I open various windows forms in; however, I would like to have one form continuously open and docked at the bottom of the screeen showing current operating info to the user. Is a dockable window what I'm after There must be something similar to it, because the Visual Studio IDE itself has dockable windows for the output, properties, and solutions explorer. How do I do something similar

Thanks for any help,
Chris

.NET Development16

VS does have it but it is not part of the framework. You'll have to use third-party controls. Docking windows are actually pretty difficult to write as there are several windows involved. Fortunately there are many options available. Code Project (www.codeproject.com) has several free versions and most major control developers (Nevron, Infragistics, etc) have them as well. Each has different abilities and different levels of support. You'll need to evaluate the version that works best for you.

MIchael Taylor - 10/31/06

If it is enough to have some user control at the bottom of MDI frame (it will be not a window but you can place any controls there) then you can place ToolStrip at the MDI parent (dock it bottom and hide grip), and use ToolStripControlHost as container for your user control.

Check this out http://sourceforge.net/projects/dockpanelsuite/