is there an efficient way to create the kind of form layout as in the attached image?
making the treeview is not the problem, but the part on the right that changes as you select different items...
i could draw them all on top of each other in the designer and then set enabled/visible properties by code...
but that would be very tedious.
there must be a cleverer way... any ideas?
Use a panel. Just set one blank panel on the right of the treeview. Then design any other panels either on the same form or on their own form or whereever. The just set the selected panel to the blank one at runtime according to what is selected. Its far from perfect but it'll work.
I don't know. You could also use a tab control and at runtime move the Location.Y to something like -22 so it doesn't show the tab headers. It helps to set it to flat tabs too.
After playing around with it a little I like the TabControl idea. It allows you to keep everything on one form, you can set the layout without overlapping controls, and its easy to change the activate tab. Of course you'll need to make your own opinion.