Question

Yesterday I found out that when you need to create controls at runtime, you can use the LauyoutEngine to place the controls at the right location. I always used the TableLayoutPanel for this, but I must say, the LayoutEngine works better and I have more control now.

But I was wondering, how does this work under the hood? When is the LayoutEngine property invoked? And when is it a best practice to use the layout engine?

Answer 1

The LayoutEngine property is accessed/created (and cached!) in the (base) constructor of the Control. So if you want to use it, you need to subclass Control or Panel and override LayoutEngine.

Try to avoid it. Your UI component:

• is fairly simple ? Don’t use it, you’ll shoot yourself in the foot.
• is getting more complex ? Try to solve it by compositing multiple panels, they get you quite far.
• might be re-used somewhere else ? Try not to use it, you won’t get all the different layout use-cases right (Padding/Margin/DockStyle/DockPadding/Anchors/AutoSize/AutoScroll/…) and it’ll be a mess.

Maybe, if your UI component

• is a composed out of more inner controls
• you’re trying to do something fancy and need more control
• none of the inner controls should be accissible/extended
• you’re willing to spend more time than figuring out why your TableLayoutPanel/FlowLayoutPanel/… doesn’t layout the way you want it to

… then by all means, give it a shot! You could get some quick results, but you’ll find yourself rewriting the layout method more than you’d like.