Docking Panes

How to

... create a dockable TreeView

Drag and drop DockingPane control from Toolbox to Form. A new DockingPane control is created. If it's the first docking pane, the designer also adds DockManager component.
Drag and drop TreeView control to docking pane. Set Border property to None, Dock property to fill.

You have created a dockable TreeView control.

... add a Toolbar at the top of DockingPane

Create a Toolbar control.
Select the toolbar and set its IsStandAloneMode property to true.
Select DockingPane and set its Toolbar property to the name of toolbar.

Docking pane will automatically adjust layout of toolbar and embedded (dockable) control to keep the toolbar at the top and the embedded control to take the rest of client area.

... create tabbed group in designer

Create two docking panes and drag one to caption of other in designer.

... associate an image to be displayed on tabs and on auto hide buttons with docking pane

Select a docking pane and set the desired image using the PaneImage property. Tell the transparent image color using TransparentColor property.

... completely hide a docking pane at runtime

Call DockingPane.Close method. To show the docking pane just set its Visible property to true.

... hide docking panes in design mode

Select DockManager component, click ShowHide Panes link at the bottom of Properties Window. In the ShowPanesForm dialog clear or tick check boxes to show or hide docking panes. Click OK to apply. Hidden docking panes will be also hidden at runtime until you set Visible property.

... set docking pane state (defined by Window Position) menu at runtime

Set PaneState property to desired value. Note, that some state transitions are invalid. For example, you can't make floating a docking pane in auto hide mode.

... set docking type to "Smart" (as in Visual Studio 2005) or "Standard" (as in Visual Studio.NET)

Select DockManager component and set its DockingType property to the desired value. Don't use "Immediate" style.

... display auto hide buttons for tabbed bars "side-by-side" or "overlapped"

Select DockManager component and set OverlapAutoHideButtons property to one of the following values: Default (synchronized with current visual manager - non-overlapped for VS2005, overlapped for others), Overlapped, NonOverlapped.

... enable or disable some auto hide sides

Select DockManager component and set AutoHideEdges property either to All, or to a combination of DockStyle values separated by comma: for example Left, Right.

... determine that DockingPane has changed its state from docking to floating, autohide, tabbed and so on.

Subscribe to the following DockManager's events: TabDockingPane, AddDockingPaneToMDITabs, DockPane, FloatPane, AutohidePane.

... determine that DockingPane's state was changed by context menu

Subscribe to DockingPane's event DockingPaneStateChanged.