Scaleable forms problem

[DeepT]

I have this problem. I have a very nice form with lots of controls. It looks fine on MY machine or anyone else's who has a similar monitor.

Someone who sits across from me has a wide screen monitor, which is wider, but not quite as tall as my monitor.

On his machine the form shows, but things near the left edge tend to get clipped out. Even if he stretches the form, they stay clipped out.

For example, there is a tab control and on that tab on the left side is a checkbox. The text to the checkbox appears to the left of the checkbox. On his computer the text is there, but the checkbox is not, I think the label is running off the edge of the Tab Panel.

Is there some mode or something I need to do that will fix this problem?

I guess the sum of the question is: How do you make your form aspect ratio / resolution compatible.

[MadHatter]

there's a setting on the form (I believe) called auto scale mode or something like that...

I think it defaults (or did at one time) to the DPI settings of the other monitor, which ends up making the form look like poo.

[Arjay]

This is the point where I recommend looking into WPF.

WPF does this sort of thing beautifully. Keeping controls in proportion, resizing, different resolutions is all done very well with WPF.

[DeepT]

I use VS2005. How do you put it in WPF mode? How will it affect my existing projects?

[Arjay]

WPF requires you to install .Net 3.0 and the Visual Studio WPF extensions.

Frankly I wouldn't mess with using VS 2005, I would just move to 2008 where everything you need for .Net 3.0/3.5 is included.

[DeepT]

I would switch to 2008 if I had a copy.

[Arjay]

Check out the VS 2008 Express Edition. I believe it does WPF projects.