I'm developing a Compact Framework 2.0 Windows CE application. It has a number of panels stacked on top of each other and a menu to navigate between the different panels. To be able to design each panel in the GUI editor of VS2005 I have one form per panel + one form where I put it all together and stack all panels on top of each other. So every time I redesign a panel I have to:

1. delete all panels from the form where I put it all together
2. paste all new panels back in to the form where I put it all together
3. edit the designer file of the form where I put it all together to remove any lines where one panel is added
into another panel.
4. edit the designer file of the form where I put it all together to make each panel be added into the form where
I put it all together.

I tried to add lines in the designer file of the form where I put it all together to add the panels without pasting them into the form where I put it all together, but I got a "NULL reference exception".

Question: How would you add all of the panels, each defined in a separate file, into the the form where you put
it all together without having to manually paste them in and then edit the designer file

/Lars

I don't want to drop them onto my form. Each panel occupies the entire window. (It's a substitute for a card layout manager (Java), which does not exist in C#.) I want to keep them in their own files and just add one or a few lines which imports that panel into the form at compile time. I don't want to see the panel in my form editor for the form where I put it all together. I want that form to be empty except for the menu which has to be there. But in the code there should be lines like this:

MyForm.add(Panel1);
MyForm.add(Panel2);
MyForm.add(Panel3);
MyForm.add(Panel4);
MyForm.add(Panel5);
MyForm.add(Panel6);
MyForm.add(Panel7);