I have a WinForms application with an UltraToolbarsManager containing a Ribon, and a MainForm_Fill_Panel containing two UltraGrids and a Splitter. My application periodically gets alerts from a server, which I would like to write to a sliding panel that appears below the ribbon and above the top grid in the Fill panel
By "sliding panel" I mean the top grid visually shrinks vertically on the screen, hiding the last few rows of the top grid, and opens up a space above the grid where I can write the alert text. When the alert is over I want to visually expand the grid, revealing more rows. Is there an Infragistics control that can do this, or a tutorial on how to accomplish this? If necessary the panel does not have to slide, it could just redraw the Fill panel with a smaller grid and the alert text above it, but it needs to be a separate control and not part of the grid.
The best way to do this would probably be to have a panel docked to the top of the form below the ribbon. This panel which will display the alert message. When there is no message, simply hide the panel by settings its Visible property to False. When a message comes in, show the panel again and it will shift down the MainForm_Fill_Panel.
OK, I did that but the MainForm_Fill_Panel does not shift down, the alert panel draws over top of the grid. I tried changing the MainForm_Fill_Panel's Y-coordinate to below the alert panel, and setting the alert panel's Dock property to Top, to no effect. How do I get the grid to draw below the alert panel?
Calling SendToBack() on the alert panel worked. It looks identical in the Design view, but now when it runs the MainForm_Fill_Panel gets resized correctly and draws below the alert.
If the alert panel has its Dock property set to Top and the MainForm_Fill_Panel has its Dock property set to Fill and both are children of the Form, the MainForm_Fill_Panel should automatically be shifted down when the alert panel shows. Just make sure the alert panel has a lower z-order than the MainForm_Fill_Panel (it has a lower index in the Form's Controls collection). If it doesn't, call SendToBack() on the alert panel or BringToFront() on the MainForm_Fill_Panel.