Control Layers

[ubkra]

I'm in VS 2015, how can I adjust control layers, It's doing my head in.

I have two panels, I want them to be separate and that the same level, currently one is inside the other.

[jmcilhinney]

Presumably you are talking about a Windows Forms app. Best to be specific and not assume that we'll get that, given that so many terms can apply to multiple scenarios.

I'm guessing that what you did was open the Toolbox and double-click the Panel control twice to add two of them to your form. In that case, after adding the first one, it would be selected in your form. Any control you then add by double-clicking would be added to it rather than to the form. All you had to do was click the form after adding the first Panel and then the next control would be added to the form.

It may also be that you dragged the second Panel and dropped it on the first. In that case, the second Panel would be dropped IN the first Panel and there's no way to avoid that. If you want the second Panel dropped on the form then you have to actually drop it ON the form. If you want the Panels to overlap then you can set the Size and/or Location in the Properties window.

Now that you have one Panel inside the other, you have a couple of options. Firstly, you can drag the inner Panel out of the outer and drop it on the form, then resize and/or relocate as I described above. Alternatively, you can use the Document Outline window to control z-order and nesting of controls.

[ubkra]

Oh I'm after the Document Outline window, CTRL + ALT + T normally works. It's not in Visual Studio 2015. Should it be available?

[jmcilhinney]

You can open any window from the main menu and the menu item should tell you what the keyboard shortcut is, if there is one. In VS 2015 for me, Ctrl+Alt+T is mapped to something else. You can presumably change those mappings somewhere, although I haven't looked to find out where exactly.

[jmcilhinney]

You can presumably change those mappings somewhere, although I haven't looked to find out where exactly.

It's under Environment>Keyboard in the IDE Options dialogue.