Stacking panels VB 08 Express

Question

I am trying to stack panels on top of each other, but they keep becoming children of the one I put them on top of. I am stacking three panels. I want to show each based on certain criteria. The showing and hiding works if they are not directly on top of each other. However, I would like to have them on top of each other. They are all exactly the same size and same position.

If I stack them and then go to the document explorer, I can see that they created a heiarchy.

Panel1
     control
   Panel2
          control
       Panel3
              control

If I drag panel2 and place it under the form it moves the position of the form in the designer, and won't allow them to stack.

Is there a work around for this?

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

I was just playing some more and figured out a way around it, maybe there are others, but this is one.

Just simply create them in individual areas of the designer, and then set all of the position properties to the same position manually in properties, and they sit on top of each other nicely without becoming children. Now it works wonderfully.

It must be the drag and drop "feature" in the designer that defaults to making them children.

I will take any other hints that anyonehad though.

Thanks again,

Joe